Leaders team up to improve opportunities for women

By Jonathan Horn

Contributor

Communities thrive when women and girls thrive, according to three local women who are striving to make it happen for all.

Jan Tuttleman and Gayle Tauber of La Jolla, and Linda Katz of Del Mar, have created Women Give San Diego, a donor circle that will research and invest in nonprofit organizations that support women. A donor circle is a group of individuals who combine their money and decide where it will be contributed. Women Give San Diego will focus on ending professional disparities between genders.

“We found in our research that there actually does not exist a single nonprofit organization that focuses strictly on women and girls in the economic and work force development category,” Tauber said.

“I believe we women play a whole key role in the family. When women are healthy, and that applies all across the board in every aspect, we will have healthier families and communities. I truly believe in the multiplier effect.”

Women, who make up about 47 percent of the work force, earn 80 cents for every dollar a man makes.

“There’s a real discrepancy,” said Tuttleman, the group’s president. “So what we need to do now is actually go around, talk to providers, and do interviews on what they really think their needs are.”

The group’s first meeting took place Sept. 15 in La Jolla. Its goal is to raise $100,000 by the year’s end, and it says it is already halfway there.

Tuttleman, who founded Women Give San Diego, was also the founding chairwoman of the Jewish Women’s Foundation San Diego and acted as president of the San Diego United Jewish Women’s Division.

“We have chosen Jan to be our president, so she is our lead voice,” said Tauber, who is a board member of the Women’s Foundation of California. “We’ve been an interesting blend. We come from kind of different areas of expertise, but we have come together in this passion of supporting women and girls.”

Katz, the third member of the donor circle, is the founding president of the San Diego Women’s Foundation. She currently serves on the United Way of San Diego board of directors.

For more information

on Women Give San

Diego, contact Tuttleman at jtuttleman@gmail.com.