Nonprofit ace grows own biz

FOLLOWING HER OWN LEAD: With nearly a decade leading the nonprofit The Women's Fund under her belt, Marcia Cone decided to tap into a longstanding consulting practice and strike out on her own in July. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
FOLLOWING HER OWN LEAD: With nearly a decade leading the nonprofit The Women's Fund under her belt, Marcia Cone decided to tap into a longstanding consulting practice and strike out on her own in July. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

Helping organizations grow by building on their strengths is Marcia Cone’s forte.

After spending the better part of a decade building the nonprofit The Women’s Fund, Cone in July decided to tap into a longstanding consulting practice and strike out on her own.

“So much of my work has been about growing organizations, so I’m really excited about growing my own business,” said Cone, an East Greenwich resident.

Gender equality and operating on a par with men in business and in life had always been on Cone’s radar, particularly since she was the older middle daughter in a family of seven children, and had watched her mother struggle when she had to go to work to bring in a second income after the economy tanked in the 1970s.

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Cone embraced gender equality in the early 2000s at the Women’s Fund when it was still a fund at the Rhode Island Foundation, she said.

“I just remember the moment I found out there was a Women’s Fund in Rhode Island,” she said, “and I was so excited and intrigued by that.”

Her career before becoming founding executive and CEO of the nonprofit Women’s Fund in 2005 at age 43 is marked by a record of leadership. She found herself being promoted wherever she worked – at Boysville Inc. in Converse, Texas, in the mid- to late 1980s; at the Key Program Inc., in Providence between 1988 and 1993; and at the Rhode Island Children’s Crusade in Providence (now the College Crusade), from 1993 to 2001.

In the early 1990s while at the Children’s Crusade, for instance, she developed, implemented and analyzed program evaluation systems and trained and supervised a team of 50 school case managers for AmeriCorps and Gear Up. The Clinton Whitehouse honored her work for the latter two programs, she said.

At the Women’s Fund, one of her major accomplishments was advocating for the temporary-caregiver insurance law in 2013, which allows people to remain a part of the workplace while taking time off to care for a loved one.

She also launched a program in 2010 in partnership with Vision 2020 called the Rhode Island Gubernatorial Appointment Project. RIGAP aims to get more women in leadership positions in government. Vision2020 is a national coalition committed to achieving women’s economic and social equality by 2020, the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage.

Working with then-Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, the Women’s Fund increased women’s representation on boards and commissions and in the governor’s cabinet from 15 percent to 34 percent, Cone said.

More than 2,000 women and men have already used the temporary caregivers’ insurance program, she said. •

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