NAME Jacqui Ibrihim

WHAT SHE DOES International consultant for organizational development and economic modeling. Former senior vice-president at Wells Fargo Bank. Chief operating officer of Suncoast Capital, a lending and real estate company run by her husband. Mother of three children ages 4, 11 and 13.

CHARITY ORGANIZATION San Diego Women’s Foundation. The Foundation has 180 members, ages 20 to 70, from a range of backgrounds. About 70 percent are professionals and businesspeople. Others have sold businesses or inherited wealth. They are grandmothers, daughters, wives and granddaughters.

WHAT IT DOES Pools women’s funds for investment in philanthropic groups endowment AMOUNTS Each woman commits to $2,000 a year for five years. Half the funds are used for grants that year —about $250,000 total— and half goes to an endowment fund, now worth $1.3 million.

WHY SHE PARTICIPATES “The Women’s Foundation is a great organization because it affords women the opportunity to connect their passions in the area of giving, ” said Ibrihim. “It’s a very flexible organization and extremely committed to the region.”

MEN AND WOMEN Men tend to give for practical reasons such as tax benefits, while women tend to give to causes, according to studies cited by Ibrihim. “It’s a function of the fact that wealth historically was held in the hands of men,” said Ibrihim. “There’s no shame or problem in it. That’s just the historic way it was.”

“Yet, as more wealth transfers into the hands of women, philanthropy is changing,” said Ibrihim. “More and more women have asset decision making.

Whether it’s because we live longer than men, we are holding higher-paid positions, we are members of boards ourselves, heads of companies, tenured professors and so forth —we have access to money. And because women are more mission-driven in their giving, a women ’s philanthropic group makes sense.”

NOT JUST RICH WOMEN “We don’t want to be a bunch of women with assets who give money to people who are needy, ” said Ibrihim. “It’s a very, very collaborate partnership.”

Many members like the educational aspect of the group. They can participate at their comfort levels. All members are welcome to join in researching community needs, go on site visits, review proposals, assess grant applications, vote and assess impact.

BUSINESS MINDS “Our process is great, because the members who join often have business experience. The business experience level is broad, ” said Ibrihim, who uses her former banking experience to manage the foundation’s finances.

“In the grant process, as it relates to business modeling, we do very objective scoring. Women sit together and look at the scoring system and metrics, variance, and various things like how will we make sure with this many people, with this many projects, it ’s likely to receive the same degree of thoroughness, that the scoring would be highly similar.

“We do mandatory training, where we physically do sample proposals, score them, re-enact a process that wouldn ’t be live soon, look at what the convergence is, road test our processes, before we give it out to the community, to make sure we work out any bugs. I think that is very business-like. ”

NOT A MUTUAL FUND “In a mutual fund, there are investors and there is someone else managing your money — you give up control to someone quite experienced to manage and make selections for you. Where this is different is that everyone who puts money into the pot is equally capable and manages that process directly. It ’s not delegated to anyone and everyone participates in the selection and the granting. It ’s one woman, one vote.”

FAMILY “As a family unit, we talk about philanthropy, the idea that we exist here to make the world a better place, and that true happiness comes from service.

“I don’t see a difference between my money and the family money. We’ve been married for almost 16 years. We make a decision to pool our assets. That’s not a decision everyone makes. Some women want separate funds. Everybody’s family situation is different. Our assets are pooled in our relationship, that’s why our assets are a communion and dialogue.”

ALL ROLES “I don’t compartmentalize my life. I bring all of my multiple identities–I am a wife, I am a mother, I am teacher–to the table wherever I am. I think being open to these [roles] creates opportunities for service. ”

WEB sdfoundation.org/sdwf P