Member Spotlight: Nancy Weber

Nancy Weber is one of six founding members of Impact100 SJ, as well as a Leadership Council member, and she takes great pride in what the organization has been able to accomplish in three short years.  Here’s how it all started…

In 2016 the Community Foundation of Southern New Jersey (CFSJ) facilitated a series of events to understand philanthropy from a woman’s point of view, specifically why and how they give.  Those events included a panel discussion of women philanthropists, a follow up survey to attendees, and focus group discussions to identify the type of women’s philanthropic efforts the CFSJ might want to sponsor.   Out of this process, women’s “collective giving” emerged as the model of greatest interest.  Subsequent research of existing women’s collective giving organizations by Nancy and fellow founding members Lee Albright, Theresa DiVietro, Kim Moon, Kyle Ruffin and Patti Withington culminated in the selection of Impact100 as the preferred model to pursue.  “I was really drawn to the democratic process of Impact100, where every member gets one vote, and we decide which worthy non-profit community service efforts receive our grants.”  With the generous guidance and mentorship from the Philadelphia Impact100 Chapter, Impact100 SJ became the 46^th chapter of this international organization, and the rest is history, as they say.

For most of Nancy’s adult life she has been involved in the non-profit world.  Upon graduation from Ohio State University, she worked as a social worker for Camden County Health Services at Lakeland Hospital, Blackwood, NJ.  Nancy worked at Lakeland for 9 years, while she was actively involved in the non-profit world as a volunteer, donor, board member and eventually board president of the Mental Health Association of Southern New Jersey.  In 2004 Nancy started a consulting business, working with non-profit organizations on such efforts as strategic planning, organizational assessments, board development, and capital campaigns, including the recent successful capital campaign to fund the Haddonfield Historical Society’s Archives Center.

Upon establishing Impact100 SJ in 2017, Nancy volunteered to chair the membership committee, developing the concept of member cultivation information sessions to spread the word about this newly formed organization.  And in 2018, the first “giving” year of operation, Impact100 SJ was launched with 74 members, including Nancy’s daughter Kelly Smith, who has inherited her mother’s passion for community service.  Although Nancy passed the membership committee chair baton to Angela Venti and Lauren Regina in 2019, she remains a very active member of the Leadership Council, working on membership and succession planning sub-committees, whose efforts continue to shape the strategy and direction of the organization.  

“One of the things I value most about my Impact100 SJ experience is the opportunity to meet interesting women I never would have met – women from all walks of life who collectively embrace and contribute to the impact we are having on our community.”