Supporter Spotlight: Meet Allen Model
WOMEN’S WAY wouldn’t be where it is today without the support of our staff, board members, committee members, donors, Young Women’s Initiative (YWI) members, partnering organizations, grantees, and more. In our series “Supporter Spotlight,” we are highlighting individuals who have made a substantial impact within our organization through service, involvement, and commitment that has helped shape WOMEN’S WAY into the leading non-profit organization committed to advancing gender and racial equity in the Greater Philadelphia region.
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with longtime supporter and former Board Member, Allen Model. In the interview, Allen shared his reflection on the transformation he has seen at WOMEN’S WAY over the years and why he continues to support our work to advance gender and racial equity in the region.
How did you first get involved with WOMEN’S WAY?
I ran a small but decent-sized Family Foundation in the mid and late 80s with my late brother. I was always interested in women’s causes and equity, so I did some research to learn about women’s organizations like Women Against Abuse, Women’s Law Project, and a few others. I found that several of the women’s organizations that I admired and wanted to fund were part of the original seven women’s organizations that formed WOMEN’S WAY. Over time, the Foundation supported not only those organizations, but also WOMEN’S WAY itself because we liked the collaborative process of WOMEN’S WAY.
I eventually ended up on the WOMEN’S WAY Board and was a board member for several years. At that time, WOMEN’S WAY was just beginning to entertain the notion of having a regular component of men on the board. For very understandable reasons, there was a certain amount of ambivalence about whether they wanted men on the board. Eventually, they decided it was not a bad idea to have some men for funding, symbolic, and strategic reasons.
Tell us a bit more about what brought you to WOMEN’S WAY?
In the earlier years, the idea was that there should be an umbrella women’s organization that embodied a collaborative fundraising and consciousness-raising process.
The organizations underneath the WOMEN’S WAY umbrella did many different things, though all related to women’s causes. Given this context, the role that I thought WOMEN’S WAY was successfully providing was breaking down silos [between the organizations] and building a more encompassing women’s community. For example, the WOMEN’S WAY Annual Celebration Dinner was an important fundraising element in those days, but even more important was the sense of community [it created].
It was my hope, at the time, that WOMEN’S WAY would be more recognized for this role and become an even larger and more powerful organization. That’s where the hope began and what prompted me both to contribute to WOMEN’S WAY as well as the constituent organizations and later agreed to join the board.
How has your relationship with WOMEN’S WAY evolved over the years?
I’ve been with WOMEN’S WAY for an extraordinarily long time. I’m sure the first contribution was almost 40 years ago. I’ve stuck with WOMEN’S WAY all these years because my hopes for what WOMEN’S WAY should be didn’t disappear even when the organization began evolving in a different direction. I’ve never doubted for a moment that there is a need for a well-organized women’s community that can advocate for the special needs of the women’s community. That’s the reason that I stuck with the board and work now to introduce WOMEN’S WAY to other funders, etc.
If you look back at its history, WOMEN’S WAY maintained its positive reputation within the Philadelphia community, but it struggled to expand, so WOMEN’S WAY began to try to address this and change. It wasn’t as though WOMEN’S WAY was disconnected from the vibrant women’s community, but it was time to start leveraging that reputation into something that was really powerful.
What changed?
What came along with Diane (current Chief Disruptor at WOMEN’S WAY) was the recognition that the [original] model no longer worked. There had to be significant changes to allow the giving community to see inputs and to show proof of how programs were maximizing impact at WOMEN’S WAY. The Immediate Response Action Fund is a good example of innovation to that end. There was an obvious need — emergency funding — and WOMEN’S WAY did something about it.
Now there are other programs like the Financial Coach Training Program which is a good example of how WOMEN’S WAY is setting ambitious goals. The program aims to serve many people and have a large impact beyond those it directly serves. It also has hard metrics to determine whether those goals have been met. It’s an integrative process that involves training and true economic impact and investment.
I’m very optimistic that [FCTP] will make a significant contribution and this will be seen in the number of women involved in the program, changes they experience in their economic situations, changes in their household patterns, and impact on other members of the household, etc. This is exactly what led to my significant increase in contribution and frequent discussions with Diane about programming aspects that could be improved. That to me is everything you could possibly hope for in a program: ambition, scaling, and leveraging.
Diane also has a way of reaching people throughout the region. She recognizes that programs of this scale and significance have to be fundraised for…and if it’s a person who can’t make a significant economic contribution but has another significant contribution — be it academic or be it a woman or another NGO that has worked on similar issues — bring that person aboard the advisory council, too.
This has all been a pretty substantial transformation for the organization.
What are your hopes for WOMEN’S WAY?
My hope for WOMEN’S WAY and its new series of ambitious programs is to see what the results are, what adjustments have to be made, and what goes even better than originally anticipated. The organization’s continued transparency and openness to seeing what works and what doesn’t — that’s what makes me optimistic for the future.
