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Diane Delgouffre, chapter treasurer, from left, Shari Lillestolen, CAC nominating member, and Joy Thomas, chapter meeting coordinator, present a check for $12,400 to Chris Evans-Longmire, CAC executive director, following Thursday’s meeting.
Laurie Birt, Smoky Mountain Service Dogs board member at large, and Hooligan, canine ambassador, give a presentation to the 100 Women Who Care of East Tennessee Foothills on Thursday at the Yacht Club in Tellico Village.
Diane Delgouffre, chapter treasurer, from left, Shari Lillestolen, CAC nominating member, and Joy Thomas, chapter meeting coordinator, present a check for $12,400 to Chris Evans-Longmire, CAC executive director, following Thursday’s meeting.
Timothy Belin | News-Herald
Laurie Birt, Smoky Mountain Service Dogs board member at large, and Hooligan, canine ambassador, give a presentation to the 100 Women Who Care of East Tennessee Foothills on Thursday at the Yacht Club in Tellico Village.
The 100 Women Who Care of East Tennessee Foothills met for the second time Thursday at the Yacht Club in Tellico Village to donate more than $10,000 to a local nonprofit.
The organization is part of a global network of similar giving circles that run on a simple principle. Every three months, members meet to hear from three nominated nonprofits and vote on the one they want to support, pledging to each give at least $100 to the selected winner.
More than 100 members heard from the Child Advocacy Center of the 9th Judicial District, Horse Haven of Tennessee and Smoky Mountain Service Dogs. A representative of each nonprofit gave a five-minute presentation followed by a five-minute question and answer session before members cast their votes.
The winner, CAC, received a check for $12,400, with additional donations still expected from members unable to attend.
“Being selected … is absolutely one of the greatest privileges I’ve experienced,” Chris Evans-Longmire, CAC executive director, said. “As a nonprofit, we truly depend on our community to assist us in meeting the many needs of child abuse victims, and without the support of our community … we could not meet all the needs of this vulnerable population.”
The Women Who Care chapter recently restarted after a prior iteration shut down during the pandemic.
Mary Ann Blank and Ellen Fox, two co-founders of the new group, said they revived the idea with the previous group’s blessing and have expanded the effort to also cover Monroe County. Both said the response has exceeded expectations so far, with the club boasting 144 registered members. Fox credited club structure for the success.
“I think it’s a pretty easy model,” Fox said. “Members come four times a year for one hour, and they get a lot of benefits. They’re very generous, they’re giving money, but they get to vote, they get to control where the money goes, they learn a lot about the nonprofits for a pretty small time commitment.”
Nonprofit nominations are open to any member, though each suggestion goes through a vetting process before being eligible to present. Once a nonprofit is approved, it goes into a hat from which three are randomly selected to attend the club’s next meeting. The winning nonprofit is then pulled out of contention for a designated time-frame, while the two others return to the hat and have a chance of returning in three months.
Even though only one nonprofit wins the guaranteed $10,000, the presentations are a chance for all three to promote their work and gain funds and volunteers.
Though members are required to donate a minimum of $100 to the selected nonprofit, nothing prevents giving additional contributions to either of the other two, with plenty taking the opportunity to do so.
“I think the enthusiasm you see and the generosity that pours from this group is just amazing,” Blank said. “And you can tell by the questions that some of these ladies are trying to figure out if they want to volunteer their time or more contributions, support a fundraiser. So that’s really the offshoot of it, we are learning a lot about the nonprofits in our area.”
A few door prizes were given while staff tallied the votes, but Fox said they hope to replace those moments with presentations from previous winners in the future. The selected nonprofit must follow a few criteria, which includes starting to use the funds within 12 months. At that point, the representative will be invited back to give an update on how the donation helped.
“We want the donations used locally, Loudon and Monroe, and we want them used relatively quickly, and then we want it to go to have a broader impact,” Fox said. “… We’re hoping to use the pooling to make a big difference locally. As we get more winners under our belt, we’ll ask them to come back and within five minutes talk and explain the impact because that will keep enthusiasm high and we hope maybe grow to even more people and bigger donations.”
The organization’s next meeting is 4:30-5:30 p.m. May 23 on the lower level of the Yacht Club, with socializing starting at 4 p.m. Women do not need to be members to attend, though only those who have pledged to make a $100 donation to the selected nonprofit will get a ballot to vote on the winner.
