The Difference Between Charity and Trust-Based Philanthropy

So what was that moment you realized, "You know, I really need to do this other thing"?

It was multilayered.

First, I would say I attended a conference where there was a breakout session where we were talking about the needs of women and particularly the needs of women in the South.

And I will never forget, I was sit- I happened to be sitting beside the president of the Ms.

Foundation, then Teresa Younger, and I looked at Teresa and I said, "You know, Teresa, there isn't a women's foundation in Louisiana." She said to me, "Start one, and I'll support you." I never forgot that moment.

As I became more aware of multiple issues impacting women in Louisiana, I began having conversations with my peers and my colleagues in, in other cities, and just to say, "Can you believe that women's mortality is as high as, uh, maternal mortality is as high in Louisiana? This isn't a priority.

We don't have any funds that are dedicated to this," so on and so forth.

And my colleague at the time, Cherise West Scannell-Beary, who was president of the Renthrop Rockefeller Foundation, said, "Carmen, these issues are not just endemic to Louisiana.

This is true in Arkansas, too." That started to push my thinking broader, just broader than the community foundation that I was in, broader than the region of Southeast Louisiana and Louisiana as a whole, to start thinking about what resources were there for women, particularly women whose lives are most impacted by injustice.

I found was that there wasn't a regional entity, and that even when you had sister foundations that were focused on women and girls, that often women and girls of color and gender expansive people of color were not the priority, or the issues that were being addressed were not being tailored to different communities, whether that leader was a woman of color or not.

That was really what sparked the impetus to say, "Can we do this? Can we start a foundation that would...

we could stand up as a regional entity in the South that would eventually become a permanent inheritance for women and girls of color in the South?"

You've said, and I read, that you asked women leaders you support about their past experiences with philanthropy, and the first word they gave was trauma.