A Vancouver-based group is taking a team approach in helping professional women return to work after an absence.

Starting this month, a new pilot program offered by the Minerva Foundation for B.C. Women will assist women aged 35 to 55 who have been out of the workforce for at least three years. A team of 10 mentors from sectors including marketing, university affairs, banking and law will be available to guide each protégé through the process of re-entering the jobforce.

“The ladies we talked to had been out of the workplace so long, they felt disconnected,” says Barbara Densmore, program co-ordinator for the four-year-old non-profit foundation.

“They didn’t just want to meet one mentor, they wanted to meet as many as possible.”

Karen Dyer, Business Edge
Minerva Foundation’s Danna Murray, Barbara Densmore and Judy Summers, left to right, are assisting B.C. women who want to return to the working world.

In Romano-Etruscan mythology, Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, reason and purity. She was benefactor of the arts, crafts and agriculture – and also managed to hold down a job as head female deity of war in charge of defence of the state.

If this sounds like a typical day in the life of a 21st-century multi-tasking woman, it is clearly no coincidence that the on-the-go goddess was picked as the symbol for one of the fastest-growing foundations in British Columbia.

Since 2001, the foundation has privately raised $1.25 million without government aid or grants. The money goes to assisting single mothers with educational costs, retraining mature women returning to the workplace, assisting immigrant, aboriginal and women with disabilities to overcome educational barriers, and to assist women to enter non-traditional areas of the workforce.

Judy Summers, a private wealth consultant with BMO Harris Private Banking and a mentor with the new Minerva Helping Women Work program, knows first-hand how difficult it is to get back into the working world after some time away.

In 1989, she had been out of the workforce for 10 years, but family and financial problems dictated an immediate return to the job market. She had often carried as many as three part-time jobs at once in order to keep her family afloat. “I didn’t know that juggling roles as household provider and part-time worker were giving me skills that could be put to good use in the workplace,” Summers says.

Now firmly established with BMO Harris Private Banking, Summers will put her experience to use as a mentor for other women facing the same dilemma: A need to return to the workplace complicated by a lack of awareness of their own strengths.

Other mentors include Joanna Ashworth, director of programs at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue; Lois Brassart, marketing manager at Premium Brands Food Group; Diana Reid, vice-president and managing director of B.C. for BMO Harris Private Banking; and Anne Stewart, a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP Barristers and Solicitors.

The program is designed so that mentors can come in and contribute a set amount of time – as little as two hours. Densmore acknowledges that busy executives rarely have time to take on an open-ended mentoring position as a volunteer. “The big challenge is that everybody wants to help, but nobody has any time any more,” she says.

“The concept of traditional mentoring scares a lot of people. People are not willing to make a time commitment that could evolve into a black hole.”

On the other hand, many would-be employees also can’t afford the time to learn or upgrade their skills through traditional classrooms or courses.

“They need to learn in hands-on ways,” notes Densmore. “That’s why mentoring and coaching have grown so much over the past five years.”

Besides working to help professional women return to the workplace, the foundation is also trying to build a template for future mentoring projects that will be aimed at women from other fields and abilities, including women with disabilities and others in need.

The Minerva Foundation was the brainchild of Sue Hammell, former B.C. minister for women’s equality.

The foundation was launched in 1999 to provide funds for projects assisting women to realize their potential and creating safe places for them to live and work.

“Our four priorities are education, leadership development, safety and economic security,” says Danna Murray, executive director of the foundation.

A recent meeting held around the dining room table at Murray’s West Vancouver home typifies the foundation’s grassroots origins.

“We didn’t even have an office until last year,” says Murray. The foundation has now evolved into an independent, non-profit society governed by a volunteer board.

TD Securities assisted the group in obtaining office space at the TD Canada Trust Tower in downtown Vancouver.

In addition to the Vancouver headquarters, the foundation has recently established a northern branch in Prince George and an Island branch in Victoria.

The group’s chairwoman, Nancy McKinstry, recently retired from her position as vice-president of Odlum Browne.

“Over the past few years we have seen a real and growing need for assistance to professional women returning to work, but until now this demand has not been met,” says McKinstry.

Under McKinstry’s direction, the foundation has partnered with the business community to foster financial, political and networking support. They also seek out service organizations in order to better direct funds to existing programs that require financial support.

The foundation raises funds through corporate donations from companies such as IBM, Please Mum and BC Hydro, and with endowments and memorial bequests.

Much of the funding so far has been directed toward scholarships and bursaries for women throughout B.C. “We have established relationships with just about every university and post- secondary institution in the province,” says Murray. The foundation’s co- operative bursary program has awarded more than $600,000 in educational grants and bursaries to women across British Columbia.

“We’ve been successful because our foundation is not steeped in bureaucracy and we can be flexible,” says Murray. “We have tremendous support from women in the business community.”

Web watch:
www.theminervafoundation.com

(Karen Dyer can be reached at karen@businessedge.ca)