Philanthropy, large and small, can change somebody’s world.

Back in 2011, Michael Reid was serving as an Episcopal priest at St. Mary’s-by-the-Sea in Pacific Grove, when he received a letter from Joyce, a homeless woman in need of help. Moved by her struggle not just to find a home but to feel physically safe, Reid shared her story with two friends: attorney and former nonprofit executive Marian Penn and retired social worker Kathy Whilden, who herself has spent time contemplating how easily she could end up homeless, with just one stroke of bad luck or a financial mistake. The trio began talking about how they might be able to organize on behalf of Joyce, and other homeless women – at the time, a largely invisible group.

They pitched the Community Foundation for Monterey County with their rough idea, and in 2012 an anonymous donor gave $50,000, which was “the spark, the match that lit it,” says Community Foundation President/CEO Dan Baldwin.

Since then, the fund has raised over $2.6 million and distributed over $1.6 million to programs supporting unaccompanied homeless women. It gave critical seed money to groups that do frontline work: Gathering for Women, One Starfish, Women in Transition (within Community Homeless Solutions) and I-HELP for women.

More recently they launched a scholarship program for homeless women – a reminder that people need more than just food, clothing and shelter.

“These aren’t insignificant grants,” Baldwin says. “They’re not wallpapering a little bit of money. It’s done thoughtfully and strategically, and it’s a huge success story.”

It’s a huge success story that originated with three dedicated individuals who cared. Now, 10 years later, they’ve passed off the reins to new leaders.

Penn reflects on the institutional success of nonprofits and programs today that were then just getting started. “These organizations needed to exist, and they weren’t there,” she says.

I am thinking about the fund now because it’s a remarkable example, 10 years into its existence, of what three people can accomplish to help countless others. The team that started the fund didn’t have a lot of money, they weren’t frontline service providers prepared to house people or manage property. Yet they leveraged their passion to help, and in the process, transformed local homeless women from invisible into members of the community. “The major thing the fund did, and continues to do, is raise awareness that yes, we have homeless women right here,” Penn says.

Part of that came through a 2012 photography exhibit, Becoming Visible: The Face of Homeless Women in Monterey County, that offered something of an official launch for the fund and an awareness campaign. (Subsequent artistic collaborations have followed, most recently in 2022 with the show Courage Within: Women Without Shelter.) In 2016 the fund commissioned a study that looked at unaccompanied homeless women on the Monterey Peninsula and estimated there were 400 – more than Reid, Whilden and Penn had imagined – and 48 percent of them were over age 50.

“The Fund for Homeless Women has saved lives, and it has moved women out of homelessness,” Baldwin says. “Even more than that, it’s really helped to destigmatize what it means for women to be homeless and to shine a light on the scale of the issue.”

In its 10th year, the fund is part of Monterey County Gives! It’s one of 201 nonprofits doing essential work in our community featured in the 2022 annual giving campaign that are feeding and housing people, teaching children how to play music and make art, protecting threatened species and wild spaces, offering civic education to empower people to advocate for themselves. Collectively, they represent the diverse services that are needed to help a community thrive.

While the Fund for Homeless Women is just one of these 201 groups, it represents what can happen when a few people with an idea team up and dream big. I think MCGives! is just that: It’s a platform inviting everyone to dream big, even with just a few dollars to donate.

It’s an invitation to all of us to contribute to the ideas that make Monterey County better. You can donate (at mcgives.com) until midnight on Dec. 31, and I hope you’ll join me.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com