Here at The Women’s Foundation, we’ve had four new staff members join us just in the past month, inspiring a lot of shuffling, organizing and cleaning around our fairly small office as we make way for our new colleagues.
Being in the office last week had a bit of a Mary Poppins air as staff passed off documents, discussed what should be kept and what could go, and organized furniture and shelves to best use limited space.
I imagine it may be similar to what teachers feel as they prepare their classrooms for the new year, enjoying the last few days of quiet before the students arrive, while at the same time anticipating it with excitement.
Various professions, families and traditions have their own sense of when the new year starts—and when it’s time to pave the way for it with “spring” cleaning. For teachers, it’s the beginning of the school year. For some, it’s New Year’s Day. For others, it’s the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah or the Muslim season of Ramadan.
For The Women’s Foundation, it seems to be the beginning of our fiscal year—which will start on July 1. The “spring cleaning season” seemed to kick off with our annual board meeting on June 10, followed by an inspirational opportunity to meet and talk with our current board members, as well as those who served throughout our 10-year history.
We were able to hear the stories of those who helped build The Women’s Foundation and what has motivated their philanthropy, which ranged from a commitment to contribute to the city where one grew up, to wanting to feel more connected to a region that had become home more recently—and just about everything in between.
And now, with a sense of our history and the passion that has driven the work of The Women’s Foundation, we turn to approach a new year with an almost completely new staff, new ideas, new energy and a restored, inspired and ready sense of purpose and drive.
Going into the next few weeks of summer, our cleaning and organizing will turn to a deliberate process of strategic planning and team building as we—a new, full staff—look forward to kicking off our 10th year with the same passion, energy and excitement that created The Women’s Foundation 10 years ago.
We continue to evolve as we transition from spring cleaning to summer planning—needing a few more minutes to transfer a call as we search for new phone extensions, taking time to ask and answer questions and assimilate new teammates and procedures, learning a new database, and still walking out of habit into the wrong office to talk to a colleague that is now down the hall.
But in time, we’re getting there, and are looking forward to walking into a future where we are able to build up from the solid foundation that has been created over the past decade, to generate even more opportunities and success for our region’s women and girls.
Because the best part of spring cleaning is getting to see—after all the hard work of clearing and sorting and organizing—the clear pathway laid out in front of you.
And taking the first steps down it.
Phyllis Caldwell is president of The Women’s Foundation.
