Rebecca Blanchette moved to Park City full-time after landing her position as Development Manager, with a focus on Women’s Giving Fund, at Park City Community Foundation in 2022. She had been staying at home to raise her two children for the past 11 years and was nervous but excited about rejoining the workforce. The role at the Community Foundation was the perfect blend of her experience and interest.
Women’s Giving Fund is an endowment fund made up of women+ members — women+ includes nonbinary people, and trans and cis women — who make a $1,000 contribution to the fund and can participate in social events and voting for a local nonprofit focused on helping women and children to win an annual grant.
Now after Rebecca has spent three years in her role, Women’s Giving Fund has grown to over 2,200 members, 86 of whom are Wonder Women — those who give to the fund every year. With more money coming into the endowment, the largest gift being $15,000 last year, Rebecca is thrilled to grant more to deserving organizations each year.
“Women’s Giving Fund members get excited to give more money away,” Rebecca said. “It makes them want to give more money — that’s the power of collective giving, because we can see that we’ve increased the impact in the community over the last couple of years.”
Before moving to Park City, Rebecca and her family were living in Atlanta, Georgia, which is where she grew up. Rebecca’s previous work experience was in retail and leadership development, but helping to fundraise scholarships at her kids’ school made her realize she wanted to work in philanthropy.
“I wanted to work in something that was connected to a cause that I cared about,” Rebecca said. “When I wasn’t working for those eleven years, I was really involved in my kids’ school. I called myself a professional volunteer and I think a lot of women can relate to that.”
She discovered the Community Foundation while visiting Park City during November 2021’s Live PC Give PC event, and started to follow the Community Foundation on Instagram, where she saw the job posting a few months later. Her husband encouraged her to go for it, as they wanted to transition from part-time Parkites to full-timers at some point. It was the perfect opportunity.
The first year and a half was challenging as Rebecca adapted to full-time work again while her husband commuted back and forth to Atlanta every week for work, but the flexibility of her work schedule helped. Eventually, her husband was able to work remotely, and her family started to feel more settled in their new home here.
Rebecca is a naturally social person who thrives when she has friends and community. She found it easy to create bonds with other women who were also passionate about making a difference: something that she learned is called “purpose-driven friendships.”
Rebecca learned about the idea of purpose-driven friendship from a counselor at Treasure Mountain Middle School, Nikolai Jensen, who spoke about the idea of purpose-driven friendships in relation to his work with kids at a Park City Education Foundation panel. Nikolai researched the concept during his undergrad at the University of Utah with Dr. Donald Hartman.
One of Rebecca’s first friendship connections in Park City was with Sue Banerjee, who was on the Women’s Giving Fund Steering Committee at the time and who is now Executive Director of PC Tots. She and Sue met up for coffee after finding out they had kids the same age. Turns out Sue and Rebecca’s kids befriended one another at summer camp without any prompting from their moms, and their husbands who worked in the same industry clicked quickly as well. The two families are now close friends.
“Thinking about purpose-driven friendships, Sue and I met because we both cared about the same thing: issues related to women and children,” Rebecca said. “And we’ve been doing the work as we build a deeper friendship. I can’t help but think that we are able to increase our impact in the community through this connection.”
Rebecca’s hope for Women’s Giving Fund members is that they attend events, meet each other, and become friends that increase their impact on the community together, like her and Sue. This is why Rebecca has integrated monthly social events into her work. Last year was a combination of purely social events while other months centered around a service function to incorporate a local nonprofit, which she said helps include more nonprofits in their work than just the annual grant winners.
This year, Rebecca is looking forward to the annual book discussion in partnership with Park City Library featuring author Lane Moore and her book “You Will Find Your People,” which is all about making and maintaining adult friendships. The most exciting aspect of her job though, is seeing the power of collective giving.
“I find the power of collective giving incredibly inspiring,” Rebecca said. “It’s getting to be a part of something bigger than yourself.”
If you are a woman+ interested in Women’s Giving Fund, visit our website to learn more about how to become a member reach out to Rebecca at rebecca@parkcitycf.org or visit our website here: Women’s Giving Fund – Park City Community Foundation .