Ten-year-old Blythe Bishop stood before a crowd of Women’s Giving Fund members with her two friends at her side and called for a “drum-roll please” before announcing the Fund’s 2024 high impact grant winner, People’s Health Clinic.
Soon after, an anonymous donor made a $50,000 matching grant to split between the two runners-up organizations, with a call-to-action for members to become Wonder Women and donate. Blythe insisted to her mother, Whitney Olch, that she must become a Wonder Woman, the term used to describe Women’s Giving Fund members who give more than the $1,000 entry donation. So, Whitney encouraged Blythe to call her grandfather to sponsor her donation, and he did! Whitney also donated to become a Wonder Woman herself.
Whitney has been a Women’s Giving Fund member since its inception. She joined because her friend Katie Wright, who was the Executive Director at Park City Community Foundation at the time, encouraged her to join. She made Blythe a member when she was born in 2014 but let her make her own voting decisions at age 7, when she felt she was old enough to understand.
“It’s been fun actually because we haven’t always picked the same, and I respect that,” Whitney said.
Whitney tries to raise her kids as she was raised, with a philanthropic worldview. She wants her kids to understand their privilege and know to judge people on their kindness and not what they have.
Whitney is most passionate about education. “But everything the Community Foundation does I believe in with my whole being — like mental health, women’s rights, women’s health care. There’s really nothing we’re doing that I don’t believe in to my core.”
It was the purpose-driven friendship Whitney developed with Katie that pushed her to become a part of Women’s Giving Fund, to serve on the Board of Directors for a time, and to continue to engage with the Community Foundation. Through these experiences, she’s gained new friends she never would have known before.
