Hand in Hand (continued)
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The first Giving Circle started off enthusiastically last summer but ran into trouble when the economy started to collapse. The staff reassessed the program and, by reducing the minimum donation and allowing partial memberships, they generated more money, more donors and more grant applications than expected: 65 members donated $45,500 by April 1, and 31 proposals from faculty, staff and student groups sought $190,000 in awards. What’s more, the awards were made during the 40th anniversary year of the admission of women as full-time students. “It has been an overwhelming response,” Mock says. “We thought we would not get enough. And they are for awesome things.”
The key to the Giving Circle program is that it can pay for what the University’s operating budget cannot, with the potential to transform students’ lives. But the experience of being a member is transformative in itself.
“We knew that women want to give differently,” Mock says. “And the fact is a lot of women haven’t begun to consider the ways they can impact the world, or Xavier, through their philanthropic decisions.
“What’s great about the Giving Circle is we’re asking our faculty, staff and student groups to tell us about the exciting things they want to do on campus, and our alums get to decide to make them happen.”
Web exclusive! View a photo slide show of the Giving Circle Luncheon
Clary says it’s interesting to note that while the Giving Circle program does not limit applications to projects that benefit solely women, members voted almost exclusively that way. And they jumped on the chance to support women in academics.
“I think the physics and math projects struck a chord in women to say that we can do this, we have to help young female students and open up opportunities where they didn’t have opportunities before,” she says.
As she prepares to graduate, find a job and retrieve little Ananya from her parents’ home, Nalinka thinks back on her lonely semester and is glad to know that other students in situations like hers will have a more supportive environment on campus. Just this year, the Women’s Center, which opened in 2007, set aside a room for nursing moms. And next year, there will be changing tables, thanks to Proponents for Parents and the Giving Circle.
“The point is to make people aware of the need and to have people support it,” she says. “I think that was really what it was about."
