...at our 6th Annual Site Visit on Thursday, Sept. 23. The five nonprofit agencies who received Women's Fund grants last February will be featured at this inspiring tour and luncheon which is free to our members and their guests - thanks to the generous underwriting of our members.

Invitations will be mailed soon and are available now on our website. In either case, reserve Sept. 23 from 9:30 to 1:45 for this moving event. This is also a perfect opportunity to interest others in joining the Women's Fund so we hope you'll invite a guest or two.

...that will improve our ability to research local community issues and agencies and operate the fund more efficiently. These changes will not affect how Women's Fund members contribute to the Fund, how members vote on which agencies will receive grants nor how we celebrate the agencies who receive our support. The only change is when these milestones will occur in the future.

In a nutshell, we're moving the Awards Presentation Luncheon (which serves as the end of one granting year and the start of the next) from early February to early May. This allows the Research Committee to focus on their rigorous research process from September through March, using the summer months for orientation and preparation.

Since joining the Women's Fund has tax advantages for members, we'll remain on a calendar year for membership but extend the deadline for paid memberships to December 31. That means the deadline to join the Women's Fund in 2010 (for grants that will be made in May 2011) will be December 31, 2010.

Here are the key date changes we're implementing for this year's membership and grant cycle:

Dec. 31, 2010 -- Deadline to become a 2010 member of Women's Fund (was Dec. 1)
Late March, 2011 -- Ballot sent to members for selecting agencies to receive awards (was January 2011)
May 2, 2011 -- Presentation of Awards Luncheon for announcing grants from funds raised in 2010 (was Feb. 7, 2011)

Other activities will shift in 2011 as well (membership mailing will occur in summer, annual site visit will move to November). If you have questions, please e-mail us at info@womensfundsb.org

We're extremely close to triggering Betty Elings Wells' 2-for-1 matching grant. Every dollar raised after we reach our threshold will be matched by $2, up to $250,000. And now we have until Dec. 31 to raise funds for our 2010-11 grants that will be awarded May 2, 2011. So join now if you haven't already!