SUSAN CHAITYN LEBOVITS | PEOPLE

For women, a chance to dream

By Susan Chaityn Lebovits  |  October 28, 2007

'Nearly everyone working in the field of domestic violence has a story to tell," says Johanna Crawford. "I watched my father attempt to kill my mother when I was 13 years old."

For three years, Crawford witnessed the abuse her mother endured, which culminated when her father, an engineer for an oil company, tried to strangle her. Crawford and her older brother were able to pull him off and get him out of the house where they lived in Merion, Pa.

Today, at the age of 61, emotional scars remain, says the Wellesley resident, but her desire to help others also endures. In 2004, Crawford created Web of Benefit, a nonprofit organization that awards self-sufficiency grants to survivors of domestic violence. They have been used for a wide range of purposes, such as education, computers, child care, transportation, healthcare, and financing small businesses.

The grants are specifically designed to help each woman define and realize her own goals and dreams, says Crawford. She has forged a network with agencies in and around Greater Boston, including Second Step in Newton, Transition House in Cambridge, and the Elizabeth Stone House in Jamaica Plain.

Web of Benefit operates under a "pay it forward" philosophy whereby each woman receiving assistance is required to contribute to the network by doing three good works, in whatever capacity she is able, for other women in need.
They can include baby-sitting or helping a peer with a job application.

The term "pay it forward" first appeared in the 1951 science fiction book "Between Planets" by Robert A. Heinlein. Catherine Ryan Hyde used the term for her 2000 novel, which was adapted into a popular movie with the same title that year.

Since each woman needs to "pay it forward" three times, the 160 women to whom Crawford has awarded grants have in turn helped 450 other women.

"The biggest part of what we do is the dream proposal," says Crawford. That, she said, entails answering three questions: What is your biggest dream? What are the steps and goals to reach your dream? What is the estimated cost for the first step?

Most of the goals, Crawford says, are small at first, as the women start out by asking for things like home basics until she encourages them to think big.
One of Crawford's favorites came from a Japanese woman living in Boston on $300 a month: to win the Nobel Prize in quantum physics.

"She came to us because she needed her transcript translated from Tokyo, which cost $400, and she needed to take an academic writing class at Harvard Extension School at the price of $875." The woman is currently a student at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Another grant recipient is a 36-year-old woman who asked to be referred to as "AZ." She moved to Massachusetts from Morocco in 2004 with an abusive husband.

"He became very upset when he learned that we were going to have a baby," says AZ. "He wanted her to be in another room when he returned home from work."

Things went from bad to worse, as she could not speak English and her husband forbade her to leave their Boston apartment. "It was like I was living in jail in his apartment," says AZ. "He wanted our daughter to be asleep by the time he got home, because he said she bothered him."

AZ left, went to a shelter, and was eventually referred to Crawford.

When Crawford asked AZ for her dreams, she listed a backpack that would hold up in the rain, sunglasses, and a shopping cart. Crawford coaxed AZ to share her real dreams, which were to learn English and have a computer to communicate with her family and friends in Morocco. Crawford made sure all of her wishes were granted.

"It would have taken me an entire year to save for that computer," says AZ, who now speaks English well. The $1,000 grant also paid for a bicycle with a baby seat that AZ uses to get around. She is now working at a domestic violence agency and taking English classes during her lunch hour.

Crawford says that an interaction back in 2004 was the impetus behind starting the Web of Benefit. She was working at a crisis hotline and received a call from a woman who had left Chicago with her two children and arrived in Boston with their belongings in a plastic bag.

"She came in and asked for $40 to get replacement birth certificates for her children so she could apply for welfare," says Crawford. Since it's forbidden to give money to a client, Crawford said, she felt torn.

"I never carry money in my wallet, but that day I had three $20 bills," she recalls. Crawford met the woman downstairs, handed her all the money, and told her to get the replacement certificates, buy a stamp and an envelope, and take her kids to McDonald's.

"I thought if $40 can change a life, I could do that," says Crawford.

Within a year, all of the legal work for Web of Benefit was complete, and some of the grants were up and running.

Crawford admits that sometime boundaries are really difficult. "Although our average grant cannot exceed $1,000, I have had women come back for more, and have had to say no."

One situation she recalls was a mother living at Second Step in Newton who needed gas money to drive her kids to their after-school programs. "Her ex-husband wasn't paying her child support, and after I honored her third request, I finally had to say 'No, you need to do this through the courts.' "

Since Web of Benefit has no red tape to navigate, Crawford and her seven-person board can offer a grant in a matter of seconds, which has come in handy on a few occasions, such as when state funding fell through for housing deposits.

Crawford is not a novice in the business world. Before starting the Web of Benefit, she was an international distributor of garden supplies in the early 1980s; a licensed real estate broker from 1983 to 1995; and for three years owned and operated a social networking service called Table for Eight.

Crawford and her former husband have two daughters; one is a teacher in York, Maine, and the other, Needham resident Lucy Noise, is a clinical psychologist and sits on the board of Web of Benefit.

Tonya Johnson is another recipient of one of Crawford's grants. "She pulled me through some dark days," Johnson says. "She told me to dream when I was at a really low point."

Johnson, 43, now works for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and is about to launch a business that uses plants to re-create traditional cooking ingredients for those with food allergies.

"There's nothing like living in a domestic violence shelter," says Johnson, who fled an abusive relationship in Chicago. "You need all your stamina and wits about you to function in there. It's a process of recovery, but it's one of the hardest."

For more information, go to webofbenefit.org.

To suggest a People item, e-mail Lebovits@globe.com.

Innovative Program Launched to Empower Women in Japan to Become Leaders for Social Change

Simmons School of Management, Fish Family Foundation Lead New Initiative

BOSTON (September 25, 2007) In an innovative new program designed to help empower women in Japan to break through their traditional background roles and become leaders in social change, several Japanese women have come to Boston to receive intense exposure to American women’s leadership strategies, and the strategies of successful American non-profit organizations. The Japanese Women’s Leadership Initiative, organized by the Simmons School of Management, is an unusual collaborative effort funded by the Fish Family Foundation and founded by Boston civic leaders Atsuko Toko Fish, Catherine Crown Coburn, and Mary Lassen. The Simmons School of Management is the only business school in the world designed specifically for women.

Fish, a Boston civic leader who moved to Brookline, MA, in 1983, said she was so impressed with American women’s leadership in non-profit organizations and social policy that she joined forces with the other women to design an initiative that would begin showing Japanese women how they can and should take a leadership role in helping solve Japan’s growing societal needs.

Under the initiative, the women are paired for five weeks with executives of leading non-profit organizations in greater Boston, shadowing the executives daily to learn about successful practical strategies for dealing with a variety of social problems. The immersion is supplemented by tutoring and mentoring in non-profit management through the Simmons School of Management executive education program, led by SOM professor Patricia Deyton, a national authority in non-profit management. The women also are participating in the SOM’s executive education program, Strategic Leadership for Women.

The women, who began their fellowships in early September and return to Japan Oct. 18, are keeping daily diaries and developing their own ideas for implementing social change in their native country. After they return, they will meet regularly among themselves; create networks with other women; and meet with a wide range of university, business, political and media leaders to begin a dialogue about social responsibility and policy change in Japan.

The partnering Institute of Cultural Affairs in Japan selected the women through a competitive process, including a written essay about personal goals for non-profit leadership and social reform. They must have seven to 10 years of experience in the social, political or business sector in Japan, and demonstrate a strong commitment to leading social change. Fish said the goal is to have the program grow yearly, ultimately building a network of empowered women in Japan who will support other women in social change, and, eventually, policy leadership.

Two of the women are working closely with leaders of two non-profit agencies: Ellis Memorial & Eldredge House, Boston’s first settlement house, which has a wide range of educational and social services for children and adults; and the Web of Benefit in Wellesley, MA, which works throughout greater Boston to promote liberation from domestic violence. The third woman is meeting with a number of women executives of leading non-profit agencies in the area.

Co-founder Fish says that while there are numerous non-profit groups in Japan, most of them are small groups of volunteers working in their immediate community, with no experience in systemic social change. The groups often receive their direction and their funding from the government; donations are not tax-deductible.

Fish says Japan has growing social problems in areas such as domestic violence, trafficking from abroad, and lack of childcare and eldercare services. She said Japan’s shrinking birthrate means that the population is aging quickly; if the leadership role is dependent solely on men, Japan will experience a shortage of labor and of leaders in social change. And while the traditional non-assertive role of Japanese women is changing, she says, the pace must quicken.

“Who will support our society if Japanese women don’t help lead?” Fish asks. “Women must learn to lead and to become deeply involved in moving Japan forward. Our country needs them.”

“Our hope is that women in this program will learn a great deal about social and political change from American women leaders and successful non-profit organizations, and then take it back to spread to other women. These women are passionate about helping their country. We want this initiative to be an important way to help empower them, to unlock their potential and the potential of other Japanese women to lead social change.”

The women awarded fellowships in the inaugural Japanese Women’s Leadership Initiative all from Tokyo are Masako Hiramatsu, Sun-hae Bae, and Yuka Hayasi.

For further information about the fellowship, contact Atsuko Fish at asiandv@atask.org or Simmons School of Management Professor Patricia Deyton at patricia.deyton@simmons.edu. Reporters contact Diane Millikan at diane.millikan@simmons.edu