“The Impact 100 model was conceived in the summer of 2001, while I was on vacation with my kids in northern Michigan. From Michigan, I reached out to several Cincinnati women whom I believed could play pivotal roles on the leadership team of such an organization, if we were to create it. Their responses were positive and quite encouraging. However, upon returning home and getting the kids settled back in school, 9/11 happened and the whole world changed in one dreadful morning.
Several months later, I gathered the 15 women who had been identified as the potential leadership team together for dinner. With the heavy weight of world events on all of our minds, it was at that table, when we all asked ourselves whether we should move ahead with this new concept of a pass-through foundation.
In my mind, I knew that we could only move forward if at least ten of these women were ready to commit to launch. It turns out, that every one of those women felt as strongly as I did. We made the unanimous decision to build Impact 100 over dinner in November of 2001.”
