50th Anniversary Story

By: Melissa Weiler Gerber, former Board Member; former YWI co-chair; former Executive Director

I will never forget my introduction to WOMEN'S WAY. I was a VERY junior associate at my law firm. Stephanie Naidoff was a senior woman at the firm and a well-established civic and business leader. She had taken an interest in me and my professional development and invited me to attend WOMEN'S WAY's annual dinner with her. Within a few minutes of arriving at the reception, she'd introduced me to a state senator and countless civic and business leaders who were all welcoming of me and fired up to be at “the Dinner.” Those early conversations, my first time watching “Pomp,” my first experience of being in a room the size of a football field filled mostly with passionate and powerful women (and a swath of supportive men) who were joined together in their belief of women's rights was my first taste of the organization and my first touch point into a network that would soon become an integral part of my life.

A short period of time later, I was invited to co-chair the Young Women's Initiative with Wendy Rose, an assignment through which I would make my first stretch gift to a cause I cared about and meet incredible young women who remain among my dearest friends. A few years later, I would be offered my dream job, to lead WOMEN'S WAY as its Executive Director and to work alongside incredible staff members, board members, and supporters whose common commitment to gender equity forged a forever bond among us.

I'm proud of the work we did together to bring greater community voice into our grantmaking, to expand the number of organizations and causes we were supporting, and to launch advocacy as a core part of our mission so that we could galvanize our supporters to change the underlying systems that made our grants necessary in the first place – work that has expanded boldly and unapologetically since that time. In my final years at WOMEN'S WAY, we were just beginning, like many women-identified organizations, to explore and assess our organizational thinking as to the ways in which our traditional framing of women's rights and gender equity needed to expand, and to recognize that restrictions on, or stereotypes about, any and all expressions of gender identity were core to our mission and charge.

Since that time, WOMEN'S WAY has been deeply interrogating definitions and frameworks from the past to ensure that, as it celebrates its 50th Anniversary, today's WOMEN'S WAY is actively working, every day, to be an anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-classist champion of gender equity for all.

With thanks to Stephanie Naidoff for introducing me to WOMEN'S WAY so many years ago, and with deep gratitude for the courageous and visionary women and allies who have passionately guided WOMEN'S WAY over the past 50 years of its revolution and evolution.

This story is a part of the WOMEN'S WAY 50th Anniversary Storytelling initiative. To learn more and submit your own story, please visit: womensway.org/WW50