Women’s Philanthropy Institute

By Jane Leighty Justis, The Leighty Foundation, and Andrea Pactor, Women’s Philanthropy Institute, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

How can a small family foundation—with a small amount of treasure and large amounts of time and talent—change the culture of volunteer engagement in its community?

Jane Leighty Justis, board chair of The Leighty Foundation, set out to scale this mountain using a distinct assortment of gear. She experienced a powerful and transformative journey to the summit.

Jane’s experience as a trainer in the field of volunteerism contributed to her vision that high-impact volunteer engagement can sustain organizations, accomplish missions, and strengthen communities. Her passion led to creation of The Pikes Peak Volunteer Engagement Initiative, a multiyear effort to increase the effective use of volunteer resources in the Colorado Springs area.

As a philanthropist, Jane knew that today’s nonprofits and funders must engage communities in new ways to meet growing needs. Her goals for the initiative were to:

Strengthen the community’s ability to leverage volunteer resources as part of a critical strategy to meet its needs
Convene and build a cohort of organizations and individuals committed to effective volunteer engagement as a necessary element of organizational health and sustainability
Create a model to share with other funders

Read about the initiative’s impact

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By Andrea Pactor, Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

Foundations deal with complex issues. It is difficult enough to navigate those waters without considering the impact of gender on leadership, decision making, and organizational culture. Yet it is clear from a variety of disciplines – marketing, management, and leadership among them – that men and women are different and what works for men may not work for women. This is true in philanthropy too.

Women are deeply involved in foundation life, serving as donors, trustees, board members, volunteers, and staff. Although the more than 40,000 family foundations with assets of nearly $300 billion in 2011 represent a large swath of philanthropy, virtually no research has examined how gender affects these fast-growing and increasingly important organizations. The same is true for donor-advised funds with assets of $45.4 billion in 2012.

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy applied its understanding of gender differences in philanthropy to many lively conversations on the topic at its April 2014 symposium, #WomenLeading Philanthropy.

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