Meet Patricia Donohue
2011-2012 SIA President

Patricia Donohue of Salinas, California began her one-year term as SIA president on September 1, 2011. In this role, Pat oversees strategic planning and program development for the organization. She will also help Soroptimist meet the goals of its Renaissance Campaign 2011: Strategies for Progress—a plan to strengthen the organization's brand.

A member of SI/Watsonville, California, since 1974, Pat has held several leadership positions at all levels of the organization, including club president; region governor and leadership development chair; and federation board director and Program Council member. She is a self-employed entrepreneur and works as a consultant for local government and non-profit organizations.

Pat believes she was lucky to discover her “calling” for service at the local government level through the parks and recreation profession while at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “I loved creating and developing programs with staff that were successful in meeting our residents’ needs,” said Pat. “Some of my favorite work included the development of young professional staff and the development of new parks in our community.” Pat was fortunate to work for the city of Watsonville for more than 37 years in the parks and recreation department, and was afforded the opportunity to become a part of the employee-training program. “Even after retirement, I continue to work for the City of Watsonville as an employee-training and development consultant—particularly in the area of sexual harassment and bullying prevention,” she adds. Pat has also taught classes in Customer Service, Ethics in the Workplace, Public Speaking and Effective Leadership and Supervision. She has also presented similar workshops for several community non-profit organizations.

After graduating from UCLA, and while working for U.S. Army Special Services in Germany, Pat met her first husband. During this brief 3-year marriage, she gave birth to her daughter, Michelle. For five years after that, Pat was a single mother with all the struggles of balancing finances, child-care, and career, and being attentive to this baby girl who she says, was her joy. This past year, Michelle completed her doctorate in educational leadership and married. She also recently re-joined Soroptimist. Michelle has also been a presenter, on her own, and with Pat, at several region conferences on Women in Leadership topics.

Pat with her sister, Carol (left), and mother (right) on her daughter Michelle's wedding day.

Pat married “an exceptional gentleman,” Jim Donohue, with whom she shared the same professional passion and an understanding of the work and political demands of her career (he too was a parks and recreation director in Salinas, California). He brought three children of his own to their family—two sons and a daughter. They were married for 27 years, when Jim died in 2002.  

Pat’s hobbies include reading, attending musical theatre, craft sewing and crocheting. She is an avid gardener (although she says, just keeping up with the weeds is about all she has time for right now!).   

Today, Pat holds an elected position as a member of the Hartnell Community College Board of Trustees.  She served as Board president for two and a half years and is currently campaigning for another four-year term beginning in January 2012. Pat credits her Soroptimist leadership training for the opportunity to have successfully led this Board through some critical times and issues. She also serves as a director on the Hartnell Community College Foundation and as a member of the Western Stage Theatre Council.

Pat is also an active member of the Salinas First United Methodist Church and serves as its Staff-Parish Relations Committee chairperson and is a member of the Leadership Team.

Meet President Pat.
           
What first attracted you to the Soroptimist organization?
My knowledge of Soroptimist began as a high school senior when I was awarded the “Girl of the Year” award from SI/Santa Cruz (California). I also won a book scholarship as a college junior from SI/Santa Monica and my UCLA department chair was a Soroptimist who encouraged me to join Soroptimist when invited. That “invitation” occurred in November l974 after speaking at an SI/Watsonville club meeting. What actually attracted me to the club was the opportunity, as the City of Watsonville’s first parks and recreation director, to network with other women and to share the programs and services we could offer their families. It was a great “marriage” as the Watsonville club, through the years, supported the department’s children’s programs through direct service as volunteers and financial support. 

Why has your involvement with Soroptimist continued, and how has Soroptimist membership affected your life?
My involvement with Soroptimist has continued not only because of my belief in our mission but also because of the passion I’ve witnessed in our members to truly help—by whatever means they can—to transform the lives of women and girls. Soroptimists, individually and collectively are women who want to make that difference, to make a dent in the work to be done, to be a voice against oppression, and to provide opportunities for access to education, health care, and safety nets. 

Soroptimist has affected my life in many ways, enabling me to gain:

• Enhanced leadership skills in a nurturing environment
• Greater awareness of the issues affecting women around the world
• Access to a network of other professional women who supported me in breaking through my “glass ceiling” barriers
• Opportunities to be “of service” and “in service” with others
• A wonderful extended family of friends with whom I’ve laughed, cried, celebrated and comforted
• Wonderful opportunities to travel, to meet Soroptimists in our federation, and learn about their work to transform the lives of women and girls.  

What function, in your opinion, should volunteerism play in today’s world?
I view volunteerism as the best way to thank those who’ve touched our lives by paying it forward. Volunteerism is the “gift that keeps on giving.” Volunteers have been vital to advancing the lives of females. Historically it has been women volunteers who have advanced our causes—the right to vote, the right to hold property, for example—and to be the voice for current women’s issues and human rights struggles.  

What are your thoughts about the new Live Your Dream participants strategy, given the state of volunteer trends?
This strategy is designed to attract those women who have limited funds, or time for traditional club membership. It does provide an opportunity for women to support our mission in a meaningful way. That support, as I envision it, could be as simple as writing a check in support of our Women’s Opportunity Awards or a Club Matching Project, to distributing Women’s Opportunity Awards applications and helping women to apply, to spending some time and money at a local club’s fundraiser or project, to attending a region conference to learn about a particular issue.

We can all grow this important new strategy by:

• ensuring that there is understanding of our mission and how we as Soroptimists accomplish it
• encouraging all of our friends and contacts to join the Live Your Dream community by visiting Soroptimist.org and signing up
• providing accurate and timely information about opportunities to volunteer for a special project or event, be it one time or an ongoing commitment
• welcoming the LYD participants whenever or wherever we encounter them.

This strategy can be a pipeline to traditional members, a source of donations, or simply a group of people who help us deliver our mission. The success of this initiative is very much up to all of us! Let’s make this an opportunity of a lifetime for them and the results will be fantastic, I’m sure, for all of our membership!

Why is it important that the organization’s focus be on women and girls?
How can we not focus on women and girls when they are often victims just because of their gender? How can we not focus on them when we know that educating a girl child will lead to better choices for her and ultimately the career path and/or family she will nurture? How can we not, in our heart of hearts, focus on females when they have yet to gain full value as humans in the world? How can we not, when women’s voices are still a soft whisper in the legislative and decision-making bodies around the world, when we actually need a much louder shout about women’s and girl’s rights? I ask, how could we as Soroptimists not bring our collective focus to women and girls?

What women-focused issue is particularly important to you, and why?
I am particularly concerned about access to education for girls and women. Education is the key to solving economic, trafficking, political, and social problems for women. We know, intrinsically and extrinsically, that educating a woman or girl leads to empowerment, self-esteem, and a voice in the human condition.  “Access” not only involves having the money to get that education but it also involves how and when she gets that education. We’ve heard of girls walking for hours to get to school—putting themselves at risk while doing so. We know of women who with just a few dollars could get herself to an adult education or college vocational program that ultimately would make a huge difference economically for her and her family.  I’m grateful that the Woman’s Opportunity Awards allow for the flexibility in spending that empowers the recipient to put the award to the greatest and best use for her educational goals—be it car repairs, assistance with child-care, or freedom spending a few less hours at work (and therefore, more time on her studies and with her children). I’m also grateful that our Club Grants and our Project Matching programs enable us to build schools and dormitories so that girls can learn and study during the week, while spending the weekends with their families. My own club annually provides more than $30,000 in scholarship funds to advance young women’s educational journeys. Access to education and the learning process itself will most certainly advance the status of women and girls—it’s what the Soroptimist mission is about. 

What are the most pressing organizational issues facing SIA, and what are your ideas to address them?
Due to the exceptional work of past federation Boards, our executive director and staff, SIA is in a strong position to advance our mission. Our strategic plan guides our work effectively, we are sound financially, and we have a mission we’re all committed to achieve. Our most pressing issues include increasing our visibility through strategic leadership, partnerships that will advance our work, and continuing to grow through traditional club membership and a large cadre of Live Your Dream participants.   

We can begin to address these issues through our strategic planning process that includes brave decision-making in areas of program and resource stewardship. I think the official visitor’s speech “Embracing Change” said it best: “we need to ask what’s working and then ask another question: How can we do more of it?” We all want to be an organization that attracts members because of our mission, our vibrant programs, the opportunity to serve, and to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. 

Strategic alliances and partnerships must garner an increased visibility for our organization. Our clubs and our members provide the hands-on, feet on the ground energy to make things happen—we need to get “credit” for that commitment through public awareness. We need to brag more loudly about who we are and the work we do at every level of the organization.  

What are your specific goals for your year as president?
I look forward to working with our new executive director, Liz Lucas, and introducing her to Soroptimists around the federation. Just as Executive Director Leigh had her strengths and talents, so too does Liz. We want to ensure that she has leeway to explore new avenues of strategic leadership without comparison to the past.

We are blessed to have a dynamic strategic plan that guides the work of the federation Board, officers and staff. Our region governors encourage clubs to engage as Renaissance Clubs in achieving the program, membership, public awareness and fundraising goals. With the opportunity to visit a number of regions during their annual conferences, I was impressed with the many local club projects that have a significant impact in their local communities—be it teaching women to sew or weave so they can gain employment or sell their wares locally, to the significant scholarship programs for doctoral students whose studies relate to women’s issues. I want to begin to capture that data. We’ve just begun to seek this information via the new club award form where clubs were asked to identify the total dollars spent in local and regional projects. I’d like to expand that to include the number of women and girls impacted by those local projects. I’d also like our members to begin to tell the stories of their work and of the women whose lives have been changed, improved and empowered. It’s those stories that will bring us funding from outside the federation, increase our visibility, and ensure that Soroptimist will not be the “best kept secret.”

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