Women-centered networking

COEUR d’ALENE — Marilee Wallace is something of a matchmaker.

“I’m really good at connecting people,” she said. “I connect women with other women who might be an outlet for them in business or a personal skill or mentorship.”

After 23 years with the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce, Wallace retired in 2020 and leveraged the relationships she’d built with women who are active in the community to create something new: North Idaho Alliance, a woman-based leadership organization.

Though women in leadership positions are more visible than ever, Wallace said many women don’t feel empowered or feel they don’t have the right skills to succeed in business or other public arenas.

Wallace wants to change that. She estimates North Idaho Alliance has reached more than 4,000 women since 2020, through roundtables, workshops and conferences that always feature speakers from within this region.

“Everyone is unique and everyone has something of value to bring to the table and women need to own that,” Wallace said. “We need more women on nonprofit boards. We need more women involved in community leadership, whether that be political or spiritual or with children. We need to own leadership roles because we’re natural leaders.”

Women-centered networking groups provide an opportunity for women to share experiences, advice and resources related to challenges women face in the workplace.

“Even in my industry, I have made less than male counterparts when I had the same experience and the same level of education,” said Jocelyn Whitfield-Babcock, a grant writer and managing director of the North Idaho chapter of Polka Dot Powerhouse. “We need that support from each other as we’re growing in our careers.”

Polka Dot Powerhouse is a networking and connection company focused on sisterhood and positivity. The North Idaho chapter launched in 2020, during a time of uncertainty when some other local, women-centered networking groups were shutting down.

Whether they come to Polka Dot Powerhouse primarily to grow friendships or to grow a business, women in the community put relationship-building at the center of what they do.

“When we come together, it’s like a think tank,” Whitfield-Babcock said.

She’s experienced it firsthand. Whitfield-Babcock is a grant writer who joined the Polka Dot community during a transitional period in her career. In 2020 and 2021, grants were hard to come by.

“I thought my career was over and I was in that uncomfortable in-between,” she said. “The women in the room put me back on track. I relaunched my business and it’s more successful than it was before. I know that’s because of the advice and the support I received from these women.”

Some women are building their communities from the ground up.

In 2021, Nici Craft was juggling working from home and caring for her daughter, who had not yet turned one. She eventually left her part-time job and instead focused on the administrative and marketing side of the family business, Craft Tree Care. But she it was tough to get out into the community to build the business with an 11-month-old daughter in tow.

“I thought, ‘There’s got to be other people like me,’” she said.

Craft drew on her background in event planning and put together a small event with a local female entrepreneur as the guest speaker. About 20 women showed up, many of them also working moms — and they wanted to know when the next speaking engagement would be.

Mamas in Business North Idaho was born.

“We started a Facebook group and did a lot of casual meetups,” Craft said. “We were just a group of ladies.”

The group soon grew beyond that. More than 150 people from all over North Idaho have joined Mamas in Business — not all of them moms or women these days, Craft noted — to build connections and share their expertise.

Mamas in Business brings these entrepreneurs together for speaking events, coffee chats and other meetups. Craft said cultivating these relationships has helped businesses grow through the best type of advertising there is: word of mouth.

“North Idaho, our community, is strong and it stays strong through thick and thin,” she said.

Wallace expressed a similar sentiment.

“It’s all about honest relationships,” Wallace said. “Women have an innate ability to do that. When we are comfortable around each other and authentic around each other, the network can happen and it usually is long-term. I think women-based networking really does establish long-term relationships.”

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Read Marilee Wallace's North Idaho Alliance monthly column in this issue of the North Idaho Business Journal.    Women of Mamas in Business North Idaho gathered for a recent happy-hour networking meetup.
  

    Whitfield Babcock
  

    Marilee Wallace