With one simple vote Aug. 5, thousands of dollars went directly into the Johnson County community.
The process was simple but mighty. Over the course of an hour, members of 100+ Women Who Care nominated three local organizations to receive funding from the group. Members spoke about why those groups were important, then everyone voted for their choice. The most votes won — this time, the recipient was preservation group Franklin Heritage.
But in celebration of 100+ Women Who Care’s fifth anniversary, the members had more gifts to give. Special “bonus grants” were passed out to every agency who had been nominated by the organization since 2016.
“We thought the best way to celebrate that was to give each of them $500,” said Nicol Spradlin, a charter member and chair of 100+ Women Who Care’s steering committee. “Everything we do touches lives and helps people in our community. To some, $500 may not seem like a lot, but it can be.”
By harnessing the power of their membership and purposefully directing their philanthropy to worthy causes, 100+ Women Who Cares have left an unmistakable impact on the Johnson County community. More than $271,000 has been given over the course of five years, helping address issues of food insecurity, homelessness, public transit, domestic violence and services for seniors.
Members are proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish thus far, but also recognize that there’s much work ahead for the group to tackle.
“It’s incredibly awesome that we can gift a significant amount to one organization at a time. Think about how impactful that is,” said Jacque Haynes, who has been involved with the group since 2015. “To know that they’re getting a gift, no-strings-attached grant of that dollar magnitude at one time, and then they can go be impactful with that, is really the gem that I find in being affiliated with them.”
Each organization chosen for a 100+ Women Who Care grant is given the money with no strings attached. That gives the groups incredible flexibility to address the most pressing issues at that time.
For the Johnson County Public Library Foundation, that meant supporting the biggest reading program of the year, bringing a New York Times bestselling author to town and creating a festival devoted to early children’s literature.
Access Johnson County could create an app that would allow passengers to see where the buses were, in turn helping make the pickup and drop-off schedule more efficient.
Grants have gone to agencies such as Esperanza Ministries, the Boys and Girls Club of Franklin and Hope for Hearts Horse Farm.
When Beacon of Hope Crisis Center was awarded a grant in 2019, it allowed the southside Indianapolis organization that provides safety, support and education to women suffering from domestic and sexual abuse to expand its crisis lines and victim advocacy availability. The group could also further develop its foster pet program for victims of violence, train staff in suicide prevention and place six clients in emergency hotel shelter, among other things.
The money also helped improve the client database and data collection to better track strangulation among clients, a major goal of Beacon of Hope CEO Sandra Ziebold.
“This impact gift given to us back in 2019 helped us save lives. The funds really kickstarted the bigger vision to help us be able to evolve our efforts even further over the past two years to assist with strangulation victimization,” she said.
The local 100+ Women Who Care chapter is part of a national effort allowing individual communities to help the nonprofits affecting change in their own cities and towns. The first chapter was formed in Michigan, and since then, branches have spread throughout the United States, Canada and beyond.
The concept includes women-only and men-only clubs, co-ed chapters and clubs for children. More than 650 chapters have been founded, including 13 100+ Women Who Care chapters in Indiana. Johnson County’s chapter was born in 2016.
Lynn Gray is a charter member of the group, and has been active ever since. She had been involved in a number of different service organizations throughout the community for more than 30 years, but was drawn toward 100+ Women Who Care’s ability to touch numerous causes and issues facing the county.
Because members could nominate any local nonprofit organization to receive funding, it allowed members to direct grants to groups that are not as well known, she said.
“I’ve been surprised at how many smaller nonprofits doing really good work I’ve learned about in the last five years,” Gray said. “A $15,000 direct benefit to some of these smaller organizations without any strings attached or administrative requirements really makes an impact.”
Women who join are asked to pledge $500 during the course of the year. The first $100 of that will go to a fund set up at the Johnson County Community Foundation, which will eventually be endowed to let the group tackle larger projects or donations as the chapter decides.
The remaining $400 is split up, with $100 contributed by each member to distribute to a local charity that provides services or programs for the good of Johnson County. The recipient of the grant is determined by a special vote at meetings every three months.
Each woman is allowed to nominate an organization to receive the money. Three organizations are chosen at random. Whoever nominated that agency is asked to give a five-minute speech about why they should get the money.
After all three advocates have spoken, it’s up to a winner-take-all vote. The process is simple, but has mighty results.
“Individually, I could never make that kind of impact. But together as a group — as a giving circle — we make a huge impact,” Spradlin said.
Spradlin has been involved with the organization since 2016. At the time, her career in banking as well as her three children in school left fewer opportunities for community service than she wanted.
The format of 100+ Women Who Care allowed her to maximize her ability to make a difference.
“I didn’t have a lot of time for volunteer work because I was taking care of my children after work. When I discovered this organization and knew I could make an impact in my community that I work in, and not have to spend hours and hours doing it, I was on board,” she said. “I had the resources to help nonprofit organizations, I just didn’t have the time. It was a great fit for me as a busy mom.”
Haynes has also been involved with 100+ Women Who Care since shortly after it formed. She had read about it on social media, and learned more about its mission in discussions with friends who were already members.
For her, the ability to make a large-scale impact all at once was attractive. And in her time with the organization, she had not only found benefit in helping different organizations with a major grant, but has learned more about groups that she was unaware of and additional causes to support.
“You find yourself being pulled toward these different organizations that may be geared more toward what you’d like to give to,” she said. “I’ve found myself, even outside the 100+ Women Who Care commitment, giving to others that really touched my heartstrings.”
Seeing the group grow and be able to assist so many different agencies and groups around the community has validated Spradlin’s decision. The track 100+ Women Who Care is on only offers the potential to do more.
“When we gave money that first night, I left with the biggest smile on my face. I couldn’t stop thinking about it; I couldn’t stop talking about it,” she said. “As we’ve grown, the more money we can give. It’s just the best feeling to know you’re doing your part to help these organizations.”
