Editor’s Note: Angela Z. Dailey is CEO of the Lake Forest nonprofit Women Investing in Security and Education, or WISE, which was founded in 1997. Last year it was honored as an Outstanding Philanthropic Group on Orange County’s 2021 National Philanthropy Day.
Dailey, who was on the board of Drexel Burnham Lambert, is also founder of Anaheim-based DAI Partners, a public relations firm for financial services companies.
The Business Journal this week highlights nominees for its annual Women in Business Awards: a special report starts on page 17. The annual awards event is scheduled for Oct. 20 at the Irvine Marriott.
WISE will hold its 25th anniversary on Oct. 25 at the Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach.
WISE is an Orange County-based nonprofit focused on financial empowerment for women and girls, with a small budget and no full-time staff.
Yet, we have national reach, an impressive track record, top-tier partners and was named Outstanding Philanthropic Organization for OC in 2021.
How did we do it? Like many nonprofits in Orange County, our revenue is under $500,000 (way under!) So many of us have to stretch resources.
How did a small group of women and a few men with a simple mission and a powerful plan accomplish outsized results?
Hint: It is all about the board and partnerships.
Invest in Yourself
WISE traces its roots to an Invest in Yourself Conference held in 1997.
The organizers expected a hundred or so to attend—500 registered and the organizers knew they were on to something.
Twenty-five years later, WISE continues to focus on financial literacy and empowerment for females of all ages and all socioeconomic background.
Today, we have national reach via an impressive group of partners and influence 100,000s of people each year with our empowerment message. We want to share how we grew into a community force with little financial resources in the hope that it will encourage and inspire other nonprofits with limited funds to find ways to grow and prosper.
Here is how we did it and you can too:
• Enlist a board with intelligence and a can-do attitude, but no “attitude.” In my opinion, WISE’s most distinguishing characteristic is its board.
I have served on many boards of nonprofits, corporations and professional organizations.
What makes the WISE board different is the intelligence, humility and willingness to pitch in. Keep in mind all our board members have successful careers. In their day jobs, they are quite competitive, but in our boardroom, we work so well together and all really like to spend time together!
Our 30-member board includes women who have started their own wealth management firms and who are top executives at firms like Pimco and the Capital Group.
• Build a strategic board and sympatico board. While WISE is selective and strategic in recruiting new board members, one quality that is not negotiable is like-mindedness.
In a successful corporate environment, the ability to work together is critical. We believe that we can accomplish so much more when we focus on a common mission. The enthusiasm of our board for financial empowerment is palpable.
We all know stories about women left alone by widowhood and divorce unable to cope with finances. Then there are those who lack of financial savvy that puts them in a precarious position in retirement. We are dedicated to ameliorate this.
• Recognize the importance of diversity. We are a women’s organization with an overriding commitment to diversity and holding everyone accountable for a diverse work environment.
One day we looked in a mirror and it dawned on us that we were not practicing what we preached. While the women on our board come from varied backgrounds and span decades in age, there were no men.
We decided this would not do and recruited two men to join us. They’ve been a fabulous addition to our thinking and approach and have helped us grow over the past few years. A real-life example of the importance of diversity.
• Celebrate the board’s diverse talents. We all have our strengths and “no big deal things”—those things are easy to us to accomplish. For example, I am great at organizing, but don’t ask me to follow-up on details, this puts me in a tizzy. Another board member is fabulous at strategic planning, but don’t ask her to organize workshops. Another is great at execution, but don’t ask her for marketing advice. You get the idea.
At WISE we work hard to encourage board members to contribute in areas that suit their skills and talents. This eliminates frustrations on both sides and burn out.
• Check egos at the door; the power of collaboration. Amazing what can be accomplished when no one is looking for credit. The best ideas come from brainstorming and collaboration, we all know this and put it to practice. When an initiative comes up for discussion, we are always open to better ideas and do not hesitate to pivot.
• Think outside the box. WISE is a small organization with no full-time staff—so how do we pull off 10-15 major workshops a year, keep up a robust website, enlist prestigious speakers and attract thousands to our events?
Creative planning, assigning board members to tasks that suit their sweet spots and selecting the right partners. If we don’t have a budget, we just get more creative with our marketing.
We keep thinking of better ways to communicate and better ways to market programs. One example is while recently attending a Girl Scout breakfast, we heard a speaker who headed up a coalition of women colleges—a perfect partner for our university-focused events.
One of our board members jumped right on this, connecting with the group and extending our reach to an additional 83,000 college age young women!
• Value the power of partner networks. We can reach 100,000s of people with a financial empowerment message via our partnerships. WISE has a mailing list of over 3,000 but our networks exponentially extend our reach.
For example, some of the largest financial institutions in Orange County support us by distributing information on our workshops to their internal networks. These include Pimco, Pacific Life and the Capital Group. These organizations also provide high-profile women to speak at our workshop, enabling us to both educate and inspire the community, under the mantra—she can be what she can see.
When WISE launched its Tearing Down the Pink Wall series, we believed that our ideal partners were universities. So, we set out to partner with the most prestigious in our community including UCI, Chapman and UCLA.
Through these partnerships, we reach young women and men with both investment education and career inspiration by showcasing the best of the best in financial services.
• Reach for the stars—Why not national broadcast? This year, WISE formed a partnership with PBS’ popular money show, WealthTrack and its founder, Consuelo Mack. Being part of this world-class show is a groundbreaking initiative for us and brings our message to a national audience and additional prestige, which in turn attracts additional partners.
Consuelo has been an important part of the WISE family almost since inception and a key part of our Pink Wall series. Through creative thinking and collaboration, and the quality of our programming, we found a way to provide content to the WealthTrack website and reach many thousands with inspiration and education.
• Finally, take advantage of resources available. Orange Country offers us many resources to up our game. Organizations such as Executive Coaches of OC, Octane, and family foundations can help with board governance, CEO training and fund raising.
What’s in our Future
We are planning more outreach into the community, starting with women’s shelters, more university partners in California and across the country, and more valuable content for our website.
We see no roadblocks—just more opportunity to bring our financial empowerment message to women of all ages and socioeconomic background. If you would like to help us grow or need our expertise, please connect with us at www.wiseinvestors.org.
