Wyoming Women's Foundation Endowment Hits $1 Million
Casper Star Tribune
Casper, WY
February 6, 2005
Page 1B
By SALLY ANN SHURMUR
Star-Tribune staff writer
Rarely has a piece of stationery held so much meaning. The photo on the front of the note card shows a confident young woman easily clearing a hurdle, right leg extended, left leg waiting to clear.
"We've cleared the first hurdle!" says the message.
And, indeed, they have.
The Wyoming Women's Foundation endowment has reached the $1 million mark, as of the end of December.
"These endowed funds will provide reliable grants for creating economic self-sufficiency and systemic change for women and brighter futures for girls," said executive director Susie Scott-Mullen.
Mullen and board member Linda Bryce of Casper say the first $500,000 in the endowment came from nearly all individual donors and the amounts were in all sizes.
The final $500,000 was in a match from the Chambers Family Fund, a private foundation based in Denver.
The permanent $1 million now allows for $50,000 in grant-making per year, al-though the endowment is expected to grow beyond the first $1 million.
In just the past five years, the women's foundation, under the umbrella of the Wyoming Community Foundation, has awarded $227,746 in grants to 33 organizations ranging from the Women's Self Help Center in Casper to Healthmap/El Puente in Jackson.
While the Wyoming Community Foundation office in Laramie acts as its fiscal agent and takes all of the contributions, Scott-Mullen and her staff work from Casper, establishing programs and considering grant requests.
Now that the milestone first million dollars has been reached, Scott-Mullen said working to increase operating revenue is the group's top priority.
"We need to begin raising operating dollars so that we're able to do more work essentially," she said. "We need mor bodies, more time, more materials."
In case one would think there is not work to be done in this Equality State, here are some statistics from the Wyoming Departent of Family Services and a recent Census:
- Wyoming women earn 63 cents to every dollar earned by men
- One of three women in Wyoming exist in abusive relationships
- Three of five teen mothers don't graduate from high school
- One of every four babies born in Wyoming is born to an unwed mother
A $10,000 grant to the Wyoming League of Women Voters in 2002 paid for a series of wage disparity workshops sponsored by the American Association of University Women and LWV through-out the state, training women to take active roles in the effort to reverse wage disparity.
The workshops operated on the idea that women must play an active role in de-creasing the inequity between wages for men and women. Women who participated in the workshops learned to take personal responsibility for acquiring higher wages, with strategies like evaluating their own work situation and negotiation.
"We believe that by valuing the perspectives, talents and contributions of women and girls, we can create better institutions, stronger economics and more compassionate communities," Scott-Mullen said.
Systems change, Scott-Mullen and Bryce say, involves changing a single element that triggers other changes; is long-range and not a snapshot event; alters beliefs, attitudes and behaviors and requires the participation of those impacted by the change.
- The foundation lists as its priorities
- Continuing education;
- Job training, development or placement;
- Access to and affordability of child-care;
- Wage inequity strategies.
For more information, call Scott-Mullen at (307) 577-0648 in Casper. Casper Inside editor Sally Ann Shurmur can be reached at (307) 266-0532 or sallyann.shurmur@casperstartribune.net.
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