Champions For Change

Mary-Frances Wain: Hooked on Suited for Change

Mary-Frances Wain says she lost her heart to Suited for Change nine years ago.

She has been executive director, twice (1998-1999 and 2002-2006). She’s been a corporate and individual donor. When she isn’t employed by the organization, she’s a volunteer.

Currently, Wain serves on the Fifteenth Anniversary Task Force. She also helps clients select professional attire as a "suiter" one day a month, a job that she has performed through all her incarnations at Suited. She loves it because it allows her to see what the organization does to help individual women.

One client in particular captured what Wain believes makes Suited so effective. The client arrived dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans, a pair of work boots and body language that screamed, "show me that you can change me." Wain helped her select a pair of black Liz Claiborne trousers with a ninety-eight dollar tag still on them, a crisp white shirt and a red jacket. She pulled the look together with a black, white and red scarf and a pair of gold earrings. And then Wain stepped back to watch the transformation.

"She was giddy, pointing at herself in the mirror," recalls Wain. "So many times, just putting on the clothes made women stand taller, smile, look in the mirror, and cry."

Wain first became acquainted with Suited for Change in 1997 when the organization held its fifth anniversary celebration at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, where she was director of corporate relations. Shortly after that, Suited needed a new executive director. Attracted to the organization’s "simple concept that you instantly get" and the opportunity to support a women’s organization, she applied for the job and got it. Then just 30, Wain was one of two paid staff. The organization was stable, with a healthy income stream, and the Personal and Professional Development (PPD) program was in its infancy. During her first year on the job, Wain, along with founder Lisa Woll, helped create The Women’s Alliance, a non-profit organization that links programs similar to Suited from across the country. Wain became the Alliance‘s first treasurer.

After a year, Wain was recruited by Neiman Marcus, but she stayed tethered to Suited. Three years later, when Suited was again in the market for an executive director, she returned to the job, even though she knew that the organization was facing a financial crisis for the first time in its history. Among Wain’s daunting goals were to quickly raise one hundred thousand dollars and pare back programs.

With the help of the board of directors, she developed a SWAT team to raise money from individuals, foundations and corporations. "We didn’t want to put up a white flag and say we were in trouble, because we felt that would scare people away," she says. "I took it as a personal challenge."

"The board came together and claimed ownership of the organization. The volunteers were fantastic. They sensed trouble. They wrote some pretty big checks from their personal funds. They really worked their contacts."

Wain estimates that it took nearly two years for Suited to get back on its feet again.

And then it came back fighting. Providing professional work clothes for women completing job readiness programs remained the backbone of the organization. The PPD program took on new life and "evolved over the years in response to clients needs," says Wain. "A growing number of women, especially after welfare reform, needed a lot more help in getting job ready," she says. So, Suited expanded its seminars to include sessions on presentation, hygiene, dressing dos and don’ts, sexual harassment, money management and dealing with difficult people at work. Women in the PPD program also started taking field trips to see how corporations, from the trend-setting AOL to traditional law firms like Shaw Pittman, organize their workplaces.

"The PPD program is almost like a mentoring program," says Wain. The mentoring, she adds, can be from volunteer trainers to clients, and also from client to client. She measures its success in employers’ reactions to it. "We had employers say, ‘I will look for Suited for Change seminars on resumes, because these people are going to make the best employees,’" says Wain.

Still, Wain is not naïve when she assesses what Suited for Change’s clients are up against. They have to make extraordinary efforts to take advantage of what Suited has to offer, often taking multiple bus transfers and dealing with sick children and homelessness, among other obstacles, she says. She remembers one woman who showed up with a wet form from a referral partner. The woman explained to Wain that she had taken her purse into the shower with her, soaking its contents. Wain was perplexed until she noticed the woman’s address. She was living in a homeless shelter and had to keep everything she owned with her at all times or it would be stolen.

With challenges like these, "It is not uncommon for our women to fall down again and again and again," says Wain. "What is amazing and so courageous about them is that they continue to pick themselves up. … It was a constant education to me about how rough life is. I used to say, I can never have a bad day in my personal life because so many people have to go through so much more."

Wain is now an independent consultant to non-profit organizations. When asked what she hopes for the organization’s future, she says she dreams of it going out of business because its services will no longer be needed. Short of that, she would like to see Suited become more independent, with its own revenue stream from selling clothing in a thrift shop, developing and marketing its seminars or writing a book about how to dress professionally. "I would like to see Suited rely on itself -- much as we ask the women to do -- to generate its own independence," 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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