M&T Bank's CommunityLIVE | Women Giving Back partnership highlight

Thank you for having me, first of all. And you know, the relationship with M&T Bank has been just an amazing one. But I started at Women Giving Back almost seven years ago as the first employee, because it was managed by a board of directors. And I came from the background of affordable housing, so I was working with another nonprofit. So I knew of the organization, I knew of the mission. But the mission is that we provide quality clothing to women and children in crisis. And we serve the whole greater Washington DC area. We're here in Tysons right now, but we serve the whole metropolitan area. And we do that through partnerships, through organizations. A lot of them are homeless shelters in the area, and their case manager, a social worker, will refer the women to us to come get the clothing that they need for themselves and their kids. And a lot of them are rebuilding their lives. A lot of them have experienced domestic violence, and they entered the shelter with their kids. And so they're coming to get a whole new wardrobe. And we could not do it without the community's support, because we do rely on a lot of the in-kind donations of clothing from organizations that are doing clothing drives for us around the area. And volunteerism, because we had last year, I think, about 2,400 volunteers that came through our doors. It's a lot of clothing to process and sort through. And then the boutique is about an 8,000-square-foot boutique, again, all free of charge to the women in our area. And the boutique is located in Tysons. We're located in Sterling, Virginia. It's about 20 minutes from here, from the Tysons office. And it's a 13,000-square-foot facility. It has a warehouse space that holds a lot of our clothing. And then the boutique, it looks like a high-end boutique. It doesn't look like a thrift store. We're all about dignity and making it a very dignified shopping experience when they come in. Volunteers are there helping them shop for themselves or their kids. We have childcare available as well, so they're on site. They don't have to worry about shopping with the kids pulling on them. And it's really a great volunteer experience too. It's a unique one, because it's a great way for women to enjoy other women's company while they're shopping. So they really let their guard down a lot in the boutique, and you get to hear more of their stories and what they're going through and their needs.

Awesome, thank you. And thank you again, Rene, for having me. My name is LaKendra McNair. I am currently with our amazing ESG group under Aaron Krowinski. I lead our climate resilient communities work across our footprint. And really what that is is how do we show up in the communities that we serve and making sure that we're empowering them and understanding what's important to those communities, particularly LMI tracts and communities of color, when it comes to climate resiliency. How can we make sure that we play a part in that, be a part of it, both physically through our volunteer efforts, public-private partnerships, and intentional and strategic community engagement. And from a WIN perspective, known as Women's Leadership Network, to our women's network, for anybody that's in the chat, I am the co-president with Christina Hendrickson for our Women's Leadership Network, which is the employee resource group for women across the bank. I have been with WIN as a member. I started off as a WIN member here in Greater Washington. That's how I learned about Nicole's organization when I joined the bank about seven years ago. I've been co-president for the last two years. And what we've done recently is really making sure we have embodied and embraced our former legacy, Pub sisters is what we call it. We've created an environment of sisterhood where we celebrate the diversity and the intersectionality among women. And a lot of it in the last six months was really just engulfing the culture and also embracing and learning and leaning in with our women in our previous Pub legacy and learning about what was important to them. So we had WIN in our legacy M&T footprint, and they had WIN in their legacy Pub footprint. And so when we were done with the merger and we were dealing with all those things, we said, 'Let's have the women and the sisters get together and learn and lean in with each other.' And we said, 'Well, what are we going to call ourselves?' And they said, 'Well, you have WIN, we have WIN. Let's merge the two cultures just like the banks just did and really just join in with sisterhood.' So we came up with a great compromise. It sounded amazing, and today we are known as Women's Leadership Network.

So when I joined WIN Greater Washington, Cecilia Hodges, who couldn't be with us today, she is the senior sponsor for WIN, now WLN Greater Washington, and she is absolutely amazing and engaged with that group. So one of the pillars for the resource groups is volunteerism and how do we connect with our community and make sure that our women in the bank and our male allies have an opportunity to strengthen any type of community organizations that we have. So Women Giving Back was our staple nonprofit organization that we chose to partner with Cecilia. And so we've done a number of different things, volunteerism, we have the margaritas, the Cinco de Mayo celebration event. And so we've done a lot of volunteerism. I think over the last five years, the time when it started really hitting home for me is Cecilia offered up to the board and to Nicole to host a women's luncheon for Women's History Month. And so we've been doing it for the last five years. And we used to do a lot of volunteerism and you get a little bit of the stories, but when we sat down to lunch with other women in the room at that first event, there was a young lady there that told her story. And she talked about the power of your confidence and clothing. And when she lost her job and lost everything, how she went in the room in the boutique and it wasn't like someone was a charity. They embraced her. It was like sisterhood, and she's been a part of them ever since. And that was powerful for me. So I started contributing and volunteering with Nicole. We've adapted that with her. Cecilia's done a great job of continuing the engagement. I'll tell you something that's funny that you might love. We've also, in the women's luncheon, it was super amazing and super cool. Cecilia enlisted the men across the Greater Washington and our allies in womanhood and sisterhood in this work. And they had their purple aprons and they would go in the room and they would be the ones that were soliciting folks. There's a raffle where we would raise funds. So Cecilia, the last five years, has raised over a half a million dollars just from that Women's History Month celebration and luncheon for Women Giving Back. So it's been awesome.

And I'd like to add too, like in addition to the monetary funds, what was important was that she was able to bring organizations into that luncheon space that otherwise would not have heard about Women Giving Back. And now they're all involved as well at some level, as far as working with the colleges to get career closets in all the local campuses at the community college. And so really, Cecilia's leadership and strategic thinking is really what boosted our organization as well in the community. And then even with the partnerships, partnering with other nonprofits that we can provide our clothing services to their clients as well and making that connection. Because the more people that know about us, the more that we can serve others that are in need, but also raise money to continue keeping our doors open.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. You know, every table sold is a corporation that is new and coming to Women Giving Back. And a lot of them are very moved by the message of the event that they're willing to get their organizations involved right away. And so they'll come back in as volunteers, or they might do their own donation drives on our behalf as well. So it really has kind of had a ripple effect for our organization. And as LaKendra just said, over a half a million dollars has been raised. And we really, there are a lot of individual donors that we can't even keep track of that are probably from that luncheon as well. So there's probably a lot more impact than we realize that the luncheon has had.

I think the power of women. You know, working in affordable housing, I was surrounded by a lot of men. Like I'm sure a lot of women in the banking industry can relate to. And I think being supported by a board of directors that are all women, they all run their own organizations, their companies, and are leaders in the community, and to have that support has really propelled me in my professional growth as well. And just the same, you know, as we do for women that are coming into our boutique, we want to be a support system for them. And it's just amazing how women and men, again, can support other women's growth. And I think that's the one thing I never had that experience before coming to Women Giving Back. And that's the one thing I'm so grateful for, and especially Cecilia Hodges and how much she has supported me in my career as well.

Of course. If you are not yet a Women's Leadership Network member, we welcome you. All of the women, no matter what your background or intersectionality is, we would love to have you as a part of our group. And we also welcome our male allies in that. Just to give a quick shout out while we're on Community Live, we have two new amazing executive sponsors, and I want to make sure that I say thank you to none other than Siobhan Cusins and Mike Keegan. So what a powerhouse between the two. It's the first time in the history of Women's Leadership Network, and I'm going to give you a kudos, Rene. We decided that we needed a male ally in this seat, so we welcomed a very engaged Mike Keegan to the table to do that. And a lot of that was that conversation that you and I had at Michelle Trolley's dinner for her award, and you gave that amazing speech about male allyship and you told the story about your wife. So we are going to move the needle forward in Women's History Month, continue to celebrate us, and welcome in our male allies this year to help bring more women to the tables where there are no women. So thank you again for celebrating Women's History Month, Rene.