About the Utah Women's Alliance for Building Community
| Women's |
For, by, and about women. |
| Alliance |
A joining of individual powers to accomplish goals that the members cannot do individually. Alliance results in power and synergy. |
| Building |
Creating, growing, and expanding our horizons, both as organizations and as individuals. |
| Community |
A group with shared interests and goals. The Community we are building is characterized by a fundamental respect for everyone, and a belief in accountability and honesty.
Community leads to a feeling of safety, safety to grow in our professional and business endeavors, and in our personal lives; safety to find and act on opportunities; safety to develop our potential.
This is the path to a life in balance and for continued success. |
UWABC History
An Idea Whose Time Had Come…..
Phyllis LeFevre
Co-founder and Emeritus Board Member
The Utah Women’s Alliance for Building Community (UWABC) began with an idea, a belief that Utah was really ready for a Women’s Chamber of Commerce. With Kathy Hillis and Kayleen Simmons, I began the process of bringing together various women in the community to determine how ready we were.
After many meetings, discussions and ideas, Elizabeth Guss, Kami St. John, Danielle Lin and I moved in a new direction—that of an alliance toward a goal. Lori Chillingworth of Zions Bank suggested creating an umbrella organization as a forum for various women’s organizations to network with one another.
We soon discovered there was a women’s organization for every type of industry, i.e. lawyers, accountants, sales, owners, education, communication, construction, just to name a few. But how to bring them together — that was the question. Elizabeth described community building as a compelling, engaging focus. Suddenly, we had a concept, a focus, and a name.
Our goal was to create something new, diverse and inclusive. We wanted to give added value without additional expense for our members. Through our umbrella concept, organizations would join UWABC as an Affiliate Member (now Member Organization) and their members would automatically become members of the Alliance. Our organization began to take shape.
We initially partnered with First Security Bank, Women’s Financial Services and participated in their quarterly Women’s Leadership Panel Discussion. We invited the panelists and attendees to a dinner after the discussions. At these intimate dinners, we realized people were doing more than just networking. These gatherings gave women an opportunity to share their interests and passions that always moved beyond their work lives and toward the “what else” they cared about.
At our first dinner, Shelley Osterloh, KSL-TV, asked us to create a Resource Directory of credible spokespersons that media could use for their stories and articles. With diverse members, expertise was also very diverse on a range of topics. While it took time and persistence, the end result is worth the wait and the work. Our Resource Directory is contained in our web site at www.uwabc.org.
Soon, Elizabeth Guss started to realize we needed to live up to our name and the Community Builder Award began. To highlight the positive efforts and initiatives as well as to define community building ‘in practice’, the program began in 2001.
The first award celebration came at a critically needed time—just one month after the attack on the World Trade Center—and showed the power of individuals and groups to improve lives and foster healthy conversation about controversial issues. Since that time, we have honored ordinary people who choose to make a positive and meaningful difference in their corners of the world.
Today, the UWABC provides monthly opportunities to connect, learn and get involved. Through the well-attended breakfast meetings and the evening events, members and guests share passions, information and a commitment to the larger community of which we are all a part.
