By Maria Kolby-Wolfe
It’s hard to believe we’re already nearing the end of February. The first few weeks of the year have moved quickly at WaWF as we introduced our new flexible membership options, our new grantmaking process, and as we get ready for another year of collective grantmaking, learning, and connection.
Last week, I had the chance to jump into that work early as both a speaker and attendee at the 2026 Philanos Conference in Austin, Texas. For those who may be newer to this community, Philanos is a national network of women’s giving collectives that we are a member of. In 2009, Colleen Willoughby — WaWF’s founder and a trailblazer in the collective giving movement — gathered leaders from around the country to imagine what collaboration among women’s giving circles could look like on a national scale. That gathering became the Women’s Collective Giving Grantmakers Network, which reintroduced itself as Philanos in 2020. Today, the network includes 110 giving circles across the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, who have collectively given over $271 million to strengthen their local communities.
As the oldest organization in the network, WaWF is affectionately called the “grandmother” or “Founding Mother” of the movement. And as often happens with grandmothers, many of the trends newer circles are experiencing now are ones we’ve lived through and had to address ourselves. Throughout the conference, it was striking to hear how many familiar themes surfaced in other groups’ stories — a reminder that we’re not alone in either our challenges or our innovations.
One shared concern is a decline in committee participation and committee leadership. Many giving circles are experimenting with creative solutions, from inviting grantees into deeper roles to designing more flexible membership pathways. One session, titled One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Grantee Members, Fellows, and More, explored the many ways that giving circles are expanding and enriching their committee experiences to recognize the perspectives, needs, and strengths that today’s members bring to our organizations. At WaWF, we’ve recognized this challenge and have been taking similar steps to combat it: Simplifying our grant process while keeping it rigorous with our new rubrics and LOI process; Expanding opportunities for members to share their skills in more direct and meaningful ways through our Grantee Engagement Team; Boosting the facilitation work of our staff, freeing member leaders to focus on the grant decision-making itself.
A recurring topic at the conference that goes along with this shared concern of committee involvement was the shifting reality that many women in giving circles are balancing demanding careers and tight schedules. As one presenter put it, “most of all, these women did not want to do homework.” That sentiment rings true at WaWF as well (I have literally heard that exact “homework” comment from one of our members!), and it’s one of the reasons we’re working to make committee service lighter and more accessible. If you’re able, I hope you’ll consider joining a committee this year, even just to tell us whether the changes work better for you!
Another related theme was reimagining engagement and recruitment of members outside of traditional methods like committee work and member-to-member invitations. Sessions like Beyond the Committee: Creative Strategies for Member Engagement and Retention or Social Media: Successes and Challenges explored everything from media storytelling to using data to highlight impact, to creative approaches for welcoming new members and energizing long‑standing ones. One group in Aspen has even moved entirely away from committees, instead forming flexible cohorts that make decisions based on whoever is in the room on a given day.
Many circles are also talking about what happens as organizations reach the 15‑ or 20‑ or later- year mark. Founding members step back, energy shifts, and the question becomes: How do you keep a community vibrant as it evolves? Approaches ranged widely — shared memberships, expanded tiers, even closing their doors to give members the space to find new circles of their own. At WaWF, we’ve chosen to energize our future with a focus on women and girls, a broadening of our membership options, a lightened grant lift, an acknowledgment that some givers may not wish to be members, and a renewed commitment to bringing more women into collective giving.
Another question that surfaced often (and that I was keen to hear answers to) was this one of how to include donors who don’t fit membership criteria or who simply prefer not to join but still want to give. I was glad that I was able to share how WaWF approached this issue. As our business plan makes clear, we have opted to approach this new reality with full transparency, openness, and clarity about what it means to be a donor who supports our work. Many Philanos groups are moving in this direction with us, developing “Friends of” models and other structures that welcome donors who want to contribute without taking on formal membership.
And don’t forget: As a member of WaWF, you are eligible to receive a free individual Philanos membership of your very own! If you’d like to attend their webinars or this conference in the future, be sure to sign up for your Philanos account, which you can do by emailing us at membership@wawomensfdn.org.
I would love to have some of you join me at the next conference! Philanos always has amazing speakers that I think many of you would love to hear from. This year, we heard from Julian Castro, former Secretary of HUD during the Obama Administration, and current CEO of the Latino Community Foundation; Diane Yentel, President & CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits (and a personal heroine of mine); and Lynne Twist, author of award-winning book The Soul of Money: Transforming your Relationship with Money and Life. But beyond big-name speakers, the conference is also full of energy, insight, and community from like-minded and truly amazing women from all around the country.
P.S. Here’s a snippet from my presentation with Dr. Lourdes Rodriguez, CEO of the David Rockefeller Fund, titled Leading through Conflict: Finding Consensus Through Differing Perspectives.