Mary Haggard: On target with the Women's Funding Alliance
Mary Haggard can trace her involvement with the Women's Funding Alliance (WFA) back almost three decades when she was a girl of 10 shopping with her family at Yard Birds, a huge discount store in Chehalis, Washington. When she walked into the store, she saw boys were lining up for a competition that involved shooting at a target with a .22 caliber rifle. Mary's dad, an ex-policeman who had taught her to shoot, suggested she try out her skill. So Mary got in line, the only girl in the group, and despite some stares from the clerks, picked up the .22 and promptly hit the bull's eye.
That might have been the end of the story except that the clerk wouldn't post her score. When her dad asked why, the guy laughed and said it was "just luck" that Mary scored a bull's eye because she as a girl. "Let her try again," Mary's dad replied. Once again she hit the bull's eye. When she returned after doing some shopping a boy named "Tom" had been posted as the winner even though Mary had actually scored higher. When her dad protested, they reluctantly redid the sign showing "M. Haggard." as the winner. She ended up not taking her prize which was a camouflage tent.
Driving back home in the family station wagon, one of her sisters asked why they didn't want to post Mary's score. Her mother turned to her daughters and told them, "There are a lot of people who don't think girls can do things as well as boys. It's up to you to change that."
Mary has followed that advice throughout her professional career, working in a largely male corporate environment. She has worked as a program manager at Microsoft, where she headed up a variety of high-profile Web-based initiatives and later at Amazon.com where she has driven several key corporate efforts, including managing the Home & Garden sales initiative and, most recently, starting a pioneering corporate effort to locate and market products through Amazon that consume less energy, use less packaging, and generally leave a lighter environmental footprint.
A couple of years ago, Mary started to look more closely at opportunities to become more active in the community and found herself naturally drawn to organizations that focused on women's issues. At the time, WFA was in the midst of working on A Closer Look, an in-depth study of the quality of life of women and girls living in King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Whatcom counties. Mary attended a briefing on the study and was impressed at the effort. "I really liked the fact that WFA was gathering data to find out what the greatest needs are and where it should direct funding," Mary explains. "It was clear that WFA was going to put its money where the data say the organization should. There is no B.S. in that at all."
Shortly after that Mary joined a communications taskforce charged with advising WFA on community outreach around its strategic planning effort. She joined the board of directors in January 2007. Key to her decision to make this level of commitment to WFA was that its funding was "going directly" to organizations working in the areas that A Closer Look identified as high priority, particularly poverty and immigrant rights. One highlight of serving on the board is "meeting the people on the ground who are making things happen." Mary says she feels really connected to the organizations that WFA funds, citing the example of Chaya, a Seattle-based community organization that serves South Asian women in times of crisis and need, and raises awareness of domestic-violence issues. "Chaya is so inspiring in what they are able to do with limited funds. It's eye-opening to see that they use the money directly to provide groceries and hotel rooms."
Serving on the board is not without its challenges. Mary realizes that WFA is entering a period in which the organization's role is shifting and expanding as it takes on an increasingly higher profile as a philanthropic leader and an active voice on behalf of women and girls in the region. While the future possibilities for WFA are exciting, Mary also realizes that making them real will take a lot of work and may push people beyond their traditional roles." She likens WFA's situation to an adolescent phase with its consequent growing pains and search for identity. But this is not new or something that WFA should be afraid of, she adds. She has seen similar developmental processes before in some of her private-sector endeavors. "It's going to be a tough process, but it is going to make us a better organization in the end."
