Zoe Lawhorn

Earlier this month, the Women’s Fund of Smith County (WFSC) hosted its annual Grants Announcement and Member Guest to celebrate philanthropy, our nonprofit partners, and the impact made by our collective giving circle. During this event, we often feel encouraged to see the impact we can make when we join together to give back.

This year, we awarded four grants totaling $278,334 to four local nonprofit agencies. Since our collective giving circle was founded in 2007, the Women’s Fund has awarded $3,572,468 to over 30 Smith County nonprofits.

As members of the Women’s Fund, we are committed to working together to transform our community by supporting programs that enrich the lives of women and children in Smith County. During our annual Grant Awards Announcement event, we celebrate the heart of our mission and the power of a simple idea – that together, our individual gifts can make a big, collective impact.”

The WFSC was created in 2007 as a collective giving circle. As members of the organization, over 360 women benefit from education on community issues and best practices in philanthropy and participate in the annual grants process through their annual pledge dollars and their votes.

Our volunteer Grants Committee reads numerous grant requests, pours over financial statements, participates in site visits, and listens to presentations made our finalists. Once the final projects pass through the grants process, every Women’s Fund member has a voice through her vote for the grants we award each year.

I am excited to offer some information on the incredible projects we helped fund this year, starting with the East Texas Crisis Center (ETCC), which received an award of $79,694. These funds will help ETCC establish its first transitional housing program for survivors of domestic violence in Smith County. The Transitional Housing Program (THP) will include rental assistance and services to support women and children fleeing domestic violence. THP will address the biggest challenge for the majority of survivors; access to affordable housing and the needed services required to rebuild their lives and sustain a violence free future.

Next, a grant award of $68,640 was awarded to the Hope Haven of East Texas. This grant will provide funding to enable Hope Haven to expand its child placing agency and improve office space so that the agency can better care for foster and adoptive families. Hope Haven will use the funds to create a multi-purpose meeting and training space to license families, and a dedicated room to provide counseling services.

The third grant of $100,000 was awarded to Mosaic Counseling Centers of East Texas. This grant will empower Mosaic Counseling Centers to expand its youth and family services to meet the growing demand for child mental health care in Smith County. Funding will be used to: hire a full-time licensed provider to serve more youth and family clients; ensure sustainability by enabling contracts with new insurance providers; add a staff member to the client services team to support new clients, manage billing, and ensure compliance; and provide resources for dedicated therapy spaces.

The fourth and final award granted of $30,000 went to Unbound Now to help the agency expand its 24/7 crisis response and case management services for commercially sexually exploited youth into Smith County. Unbound Now’s three Smith County advocates operate a 24/7 crisis response line and provide emotional support and emergency assistance such as clothes, toiletries, and personal items for youth when they are recovered from trafficking.

In our mission statement, we say that “the Women’s Fund of Smith County believes that together is better. Through collective giving, members of the Women’s Fund transform their community by funding programs that enrich the lives of women and children.”

Collective giving enables the Women’s Fund to leverage the philanthropic capacity of individual members and create a truly impactful fund of philanthropic dollars. Through its membership model, the WFSC empowers women to make transformative gifts to the community.

We hope to advance philanthropy in our community and encourage others to do what they can to support the work of our incredible nonprofit organizations. If this sounds exciting to you, come join us! Membership is open to any woman with a giving heart. For more information on the Women’s Fund of Smith County, please visit www.womensfundsc.org. We would love to empower you to give big!