Champions For Change

On the Ground Floor of Suited for Change: Claudia Askew

Claudia Askew was 29 years old in 1992 and working as director of media relations for a trade association when Suited for Change came into her life and helped marry her public relations skills to her desire to help disadvantaged women.

“I jumped at the opportunity,” she says. “I liked the idea of helping women transition to work. …Who can afford to go out and buy a new suit when they‘re already struggling? Even for those of us who are working full-time and are not disadvantaged, those things are expensive. I just thought it was a great idea and I thought it was something tangible that we could do to make a difference in people‘s lives.”

When Askew joined the Suited for Change board, “we had a name, but we didn’t have much else,” she says. Board meetings were held in founder Lisa Woll’s apartment. Like Askew, all the board members were young and energetic, but not experienced. Together they worked out how they would run the organization, from collecting clothes to legal issues to finding office space. There was no staff. “In the early days the board members did everything,” she says.

All the founding board members were holding down full-time jobs. They conducted Suited for Change business on their lunch hours, after work and even sometimes during work. “We used to joke that you couldn’t be a full-fledged board member until you got in trouble at work for spending too much of your time on Suited for Change,” says Askew.

“I really didn’t know anything [about starting an organization], but I knew I was smart and I knew how to work,” she says. “Not only were we helping women to step up the ladder in the work world, but we were taking a step up ourselves.” Askew credits her work with Suited for giving her valuable experience in hiring and managing staff and running a business. “We always backed each other up. There was never a problem that we couldn’t figure out, even if it took some teamwork,” she says.

In exchange, Askew brought her media experience to Suited. “I tend to be a nuts and bolts person,” she says. She arranged Suited’s first media coverage, helped plan the first Personal and Professional Development Seminars, worked on clothing drives and helped clients select clothing. As vice president of the board for several years, she also co-chaired some early annual galas. The first was held in the atrium at 1615 L Street, an office building, because the space was free. “I ran around from one caterer to another, because I could only get them to donate one item at a time, so I rode around picking up different items from five or six different caterers,” says Askew.

She says that Suited’s volunteers played a crucial role in getting the organization off the ground. Recognizing them was extremely important to her. “Sometimes we got so busy that we relied heavily on our volunteers. I didn’t ever want them to feel taken for granted,” she says. She created ways to recognize them. “They were small events, but I think the volunteers appreciated them.”

Seeing women transformed through the “suiting” process is the experience that most sticks in Askew’s mind. “The first time you see a woman come in and she’s been through a lot, she’s had a hard life and she doesn’t know what to expect … she would get individual attention from our volunteers. They treated her like she was a customer in Nordstrom’s or Neiman Marcus … and helped her pick out an outfit that really transformed her. The client stood a foot taller once she was in that outfit.”

Askew is also proud that she played a role in forming the Women’s Alliance, a national group for organizations like Suited. “We pulled together organizations from all over the country who were doing this kind of work,” she says.

Askew left the Suited for Change board in 2002, after ten years. “Every organization needs new blood, and I needed a change of pace, too,” she says. She is now board president of Urban Ed, a non-profit that teaches technical skills to young people. She also owns her own communications consulting business. She still attends Suited events regularly.

Askew likes that Suited has held steady to its original focus. “We always said we wanted to do one or two things and do them well and we always wanted to avoid trying to be all things to all people,” she says. She would like to see Suited expand the Personal and Professional Development Program. “I think that it is such an important part of Suited, in addition to the clothing. No one else is going to provide that type of confidence building and sharing of information with the clients,” she says.

Suited for Change thanks Kathleen Currie, a Washington, D.C. freelance writer for writing the profiles and Dara Walsh, a freelance Washington, D.C. photographer, for photographing some of the profilees.

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