Champions For Change

Nicole Wild: Turning the National Vision into Reality

By the mid 1990s, several programs like Suited for Change had cropped up around the country and their leaders had begun to discuss the advantages of working together. By 1999, this informal collaboration turned into The Women's Alliance (TWA), a national organization of independent community-based members who provide professional attire, career skills training and related services to low-income women seeking employment.

Nicole Wild, now the executive director of The Women's Alliance, was at one point employed by a Women's Alliance member program in Miami. She was involved in some of the early organizing meetings for TWA and credits Suited with a key leadership role in forming the new umbrella organization. "[Suited's] support was critical to the formation of the alliance," she says. "[Suited] provided hours of resources through its leadership and staff. "

The official launch of The Women's Alliance, sponsored by Hecht's and former Suited board member Nancy Chistolini, was held in Washington, D.C. on October 22, 1999. Wild was impressed with the high-level participation at the meeting, including keynoter Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, WJLA-TV anchor Maureen Bunyan and Eli Segal, President and CEO of the Welfare to Work Partnership.

"The Women's Alliance is deeply grateful to programs like Suited for Change that stood for a national vision and scope and gave the time and resources to make sure that the organization got started for the benefit of everybody," says Wild. Lisa Woll, Suited's founder, was the Alliance's second president. Former Suited executive director Mary-Frances Wain served as an early treasurer. Members of Suited's influential advisory board also made themselves available to TWA.

"They held the vision and now look at The Women's Alliance. It is an organization that receives the president's volunteer service award. … We are small and grassroots, but we're known for being innovative and out of the box, one of the most exciting nonprofits that you can work with," says Wild.

Wild is passionate about empowering low-income women, because, she says, "I overcame situations that opened my heart to barriers women face." Originally from Australia, she once lived in a "tiny caravan with no electricity and no running water." Her mother worked in a jeans factory to keep food on the table. Wild herself went from "busboy to working in commercial lending." As a result of her work teaching young Australian women about volunteerism, she won a free ticket to anywhere in the world on Singapore Airlines, and in January 1996 landed in Miami where her boyfriend -- now her husband -- was working. She started telling friends that she wanted to do something to help women, which eventually led her to the organization she was working for when The Women's Alliance was formed. She became TWA's first employee. "It is a joy for me to be doing what I'm doing," she says.

Her work includes founding Chapter 2, TWA's upscale resale clothing store in a revival area of Miami, and garnering support from Bank of America, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (which supports Chapter 2), Jones New York, Ann Taylor and others. Wild also just launched the "You're One in a Million" campaign to raise $1 million for The Women's Alliance. Another longtime, innovative project, The Women's Alliance Collection, helps supply members with greatly needed plus-size career clothing for their clients. Today, TWA has close to 40 members who connect virtually as well as once a year at an annual meeting.

TWA provides start-up organizations with "best practices" materials, many of which were developed and donated by Suited for Change "because they believed in the gift of helping others," says Wild. These include everything from referral forms to start-up applications to tips from the "Dressing Fine for $29" campaign created by Suited. "All those materials are online at The Women's Alliance to be shared," says Wild. "No one has to re-invent the wheel."

"Our programs are independent, but they get the benefit of the umbrella [that The Women's Alliance provides]," says Wild "They are also able to respond to the needs of their communities in ways that are right for that community. Communities across the United States are very different."

While The Women's Alliance today looks like a model of cooperation, "it was not easy to bring everybody together in one voice," says Wild. "In that crucial early phase, Suited for Change played an instrumental role. … Suited for Change, led by Lisa Woll, was very passionate and deeply committed to the formation of The Women's Alliance because they understood that if this could happen and these groups could come together, it would mean that services to women would be enhanced, it would mean that communications could happen with different "closets" across the country to avoid duplication. It would mean that there would be a forum for best practices to be shared. Lisa and Suited for Change held that higher vision."

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.

Suited for Change © 2006 . All rights reserved.