In many ways, Colleen Willoughby says, she is typical of her generation. “I went to college, I got married and then I taught briefly but I stopped after I had my first baby,” the president of the Washington Women’s Foundation says. “Then, like many others, my mind just went kerchunk.”
Kerchunk? “Even with a lovely home and a happy baby my mind wanted to be engaged,” she explains. “I didn’t want to spend my life in the diaper bucket.”
Perhaps that part was typical but it’s difficult to imagine much else about Willoughby being typical. She is something of an international philanthropic doyenne, in Australia on atrip supported by the US Embassy in Australia and the Australian Women Donors network. Even in her late seventies the impeccably groomed American maintains an almost frantic pace. She travels worldwide, speaking, hosting and educating others about her cause; teaching women to be strategic in the way they give.
In 1995 she helped create the Washington Women’s Foundation in Seattle. The Foundation’s mission is to create a new fund of major money from women donors and provide education for those donors to become effective philanthropists. In 18 years it has grown to over 500 members and has invested over $12 million to the community, with a further $1 million granted in June 2013.
Before she founded the WWF Willoughby sated her appetite for engagement through a variety of community endeavours. She supported young unwed mothers, she taught at the local Art Museum for 16 years, she took on an active fundraising position with the YMCA, the Campfire Girls and The United Chairman’s Way. Often her efforts involved fundraising among women and over time she realised two things. Women didn’t give to the extent that they could and they weren’t being taught to.
“It was a bit of an ‘aha’ moment,” Willoughby says. “There was this disconnect between women and donation and it stemmed from a lack of strategy.”
She thought this, not for the first time, after attending another charity lunch organised by a friend with a $150 ask. “It’s not uncommon to go to a couple of those events a year and suddenly I thought wouldn’t it better to be more intentional about where that money goes?” Willoughby explains.
Afterall, Willoughby says, the fundamental difference between charity and philanthropy is intention. “Intentional, focused giving, is what takes charity to that next level,” she says. But without the right strategy and organisational skills it’s not possible.
So Willoughby embarked upon a mission not just to encourage women to be philanthropic but to teach them how to be philanthropic. “I saw there was this enormous capacity and interest among women, particularly as the paradigm shifted and women were generating wealth themselves, but it wasn’t being utilised,” she says.
Establishing the WWF enabled women to pool their financial resources to make large high-impact gifts to improve the community, while developing their personal skills as philanthropists. The approach of collective or collaborative giving was innovative and attracted more than 100 Seattle-based women to be founding members.
Since then Willoughby has been instrumental in establishing ‘Global Women – Partners in Philanthropy’, to assist women around the world to utilise the WWF’s collective giving model. In April 2013 Willoughby spent time in China working with organisations actively preparing to launch their own foundations.
Nearly 20 years have passed since she helped found the WWF but it seems Willoughby is as passionate and committed to its mission now as she was in 1995. Perhaps that is the secret to eternal youth? Something is keeping Colleen Willoughby younger than her years.
As part of the Australian Women Donors Network’s International Speaker Series Colleen Willoughby will tour Australia during August 2013. She is presenting in Perth at Bankwest on Monday night 26 August. It is a free event but registration is required.