In today’s hyper chaotic world, we are hungry for connection and community. How are women being intentional about creating community to address big issues? How does technology both empower and hinder community-building?
Moderator | Jeannie Sager, Director, Women’s Philanthropy Institute
Caren K. Lock is the regional vice president and associate general counsel of TIAA. TIAA is a Fortune 100 financial services organization that is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, medical, cultural, and governmental fields.
In her role at TIAA, Caren is the primary interface for the company and its subsidiaries on all legislative, executive, regulatory, and administrative matters for the South and Midwest regions.
At the company, Caren is active in gender and racial diversity initiatives. She was the former corporate co-chair of the Women’s Employee Resource Group Denver Chapter andis currently a member of the Denver Leadership Council and Dallas Leadership Council.
Caren is the immediate past board chair and a member of the executive committee at the Texas Women’s Foundation. She serves on the executive board of the Texas State Bar College. In addition, Caren is a board member of The Dallas Assembly and a Leadership Dallas alumnus. In 2015, Caren co-founded The Orchid Giving Circle, which provides community grants to support social change and services to the NorthTexas Asian Community.
Her community engagement includes past service on multiple nonprofit and bar association boards. Caren’s community involvement and expertise in racial and gender equity issues led to her recent advisory board appointment to Kanary’s Inc., a technology company that aims to foster collaboration between employers and employees on diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.
Ashlei Spivey is a bold leader who actively works to create just and equitable communities. In her work as a community organizer, philanthropist, and activist, she champions racial and gender equity in hopes to create sustainable system change.
She is a graduate of Jackson State University where she studied communications and marketing, then attended University of Texas Arlington for her master’s program in urban social planning. She boomeranged back to Omaha nine years ago bringing racial and gender equity to the work happening in the city where she was born and raised. She has spent the last decade of her professional career working in spaces from organizational development to philanthropy.
Ashlei is the founder of I Be Black Girl (IBBG), a collective that supports Black women and girls to grow, give and connect. IBBG has had outsized impact since inception in 2017; it has invested more than $100,000 in Black women and girls through the giving circle and entrepreneurship programming. In 2019, Ashlei was chosen as an ABFE Connecting Leaders Fellow, one of 10 philanthropic professionals nationally selected for this opportunity. Ashlei also proudly serves on the ACLU of Nebraska board of directors.
Ashlei has been recognized as a 2018 Midlands Business Journal 40 Under 40 recipient, 2018 The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce Young Professional Changemaker, 2018 Omaha Women’s March Keynote, 2019 Ten Outstanding Young Omahan, 2019 Urban League YP African American Leadership Award, and 2020 Tribute to Women recipient.
Most importantly Ashlei is a mom, daughter, friend, and neighbor.
Women have always come together in this country to address social issues. The history of women’s philanthropy in the United States is intertwined with large social movements such as abolition, suffrage, temperance, prison reform, civil rights, and women’s rights. Then, as now, women often worked along parallel tracks according to one aspect of their identity—women of color on one track and white women on another—and often by class and religion as well as race.
Today, some organizations provide opportunities to create community according to donor interests and also bring people together across community. Sociologists describe the ways people come together as social capital. There are two main types of social capital—bonding capital connects people within community, and bridging capital connects people from different communities. For examples, the two giving circles featured in this podcast, the Orchid Giving Circle and I Be Black Girl, are examples of bonding capital. The board of the Texas Women’s Foundation is an example of bridging capital.
DISCOVER how people create community
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REFLECT and DISCUSS
