Our Stories -- Complex in their Similar Differences

In This Issue

Making Change Happen

Women's Leadership Series

Midcoast Kick Off

Women Standing Together

Dash of Diva - Girls' Night Out

Quick Links

Greetings!

If the Maine Women's Fund has learned anything from storytelling during the last year, it is that women are very different. They will often balk at the "generalizations" that group them into one category or another, which is why our own story is about culling the truths and common values from an immense amount of differences.

In a few weeks, together with Pierce Atwood, the Maine Women's Fund will host a leadership discussion that digs deep into the common thread of leadership through our remarkable differences. Our stake in the ground is that leaders are the women who create vision, engage others in service of that vision and hold themselves accountable for the best possible outcomes. From that commonality, we dig into the colorful diversity that make for compelling and provocative stories:

The entrepreneur driven from the get go to be the best
The innovator who creates opportunity
The connector who plays big by owning what she knows and affirming the feminine

In November, we continue to honor this theme through the launch of our new Women's Leadership Series. We will explore the common thread of women's strength, power, and possibility through our own diverse perspectives and experiences. Together, we will think about the leaders we are today, and the leaders we want to be tomorrow.

In addition, this week, a new season of the New Girls' Network kicks off in Bangor, L/A, Midcoast, Portland and Waterville. While I may get the uncontrollable giggles about the program's demand being so wide and so disperse, the true power of this expansion of this program lies in bringing the "differences" of women in their twenties and thirties, from rural and urban communities across Maine into our philanthropic decision-making.

What will these differences yield? Better outcomes, I am sure; but what outcomes exactly is a story still unfolding.

Regards,

Eli

Making Change Happen

Megan Williams: Helping Girls Change Society

Written by Bethany Hutchinson

Megan Williams has seen what girls can accomplish
when they commit to creating positive change. She "envisions a world in which we celebrate those achievements instead of who wore it best,"
as many celebrity magazines would have us do. Six years ago, she began to make this vision a reality while taking a class at Colby College with Professor Lyn Mikel Brown, a well-regarded scholar of girls' development. As part of an independent study, Williams led a girls' group for middle schoolers that doubled as a pilot program for Hardy Girls Healthy Women, a nonprofit that Brown created in 2000 along with Karen Heck and Lynn Cole. An extension of Brown's research and Heck's and Cole's experience working with adolescent girls, HGHW aims to help girls in grades 2-12 be their beautiful, strong selves. View full profile.

Tammie Grieshaber: Moving in Creative Cycles

Written by Denise Scammon

Tammie Grieshaber describes herself as a Renaissance woman, someone who dabbles in what interests her. She says she's not a master of anything, but her artwork tells a different story. Nearly a year ago, Grieshaber opened Mainely Kids Photography, an Auburn photo studio where she works to capture precious moments in her clients' lives. View full profile

Women's Leadership Series

We invite you to learn more about our NEW Women's Leadership Series, a four part series that engages Maine's female leaders in juicy conversation and in community to support their efforts to create long lasting change.

Our first topic is Womenomics. Described as a mega-trend, Womenomics refers to the powerful collision of two simple realities: a majority of women are demanding new rules of engagement at the very moment they have become the hot commodity in today's workplace. Simply put, it's about businesses and women recognizing the power and position they currently hold in the marketplace. Never before has there been more hard data to suggest women's positive financial contributions to the bottom line of business. Coupled with the purchasing power women hold as consumers and the educational backgrounds women have achieved, this time in history is a fitting match for the strength and influence women currently hold, and positions them to be a force for change to both improve the bottom line for business and revolutionize workplace culture.

October 28 Portland: Maine Women's Fund Office, 12:00-1:30 pm
November 10 Lewiston: YWCA (130 East Ave), 12:00-1:30 pm
November 12 Bangor: Oxford Networks (60 Summer St), 12:00-1:30 pm
November 17 Midcoast: Rockland Library, 12:00-1:30 pm

Midcoast Kick Off

The Maine Women's Fund will kick off its first year of programming in the Midcoast area with a get-to-know-us party from 5:30-7:30 Sept. 22 at The Strand Theatre.

Roger Dell, Director of Education, Farnsworth Art Museum and Faculty Harvard Extension School of Museum Studies, will present The Art of Leadership: Women, American Society, and Maine, discussing the pion eering women whose le adership contributed to the artistic achievements in American art and particularly of Mi dcoast Maine. Following the talk is a reception at Eric Hopkins Gallery. JOIN US! Bri ng your friends and colleagues. The evening program will include opportunities to learn about the Maine Women's Fund and the Women's Leadership Series.