Earlham Echo

July 30, 2024

All great things come from small beginnings. For Connie Terry, founder of Chicks With Checks, the beginning of that organization couldn’t have been much smaller.

“My husband and I were talking one day and we kind of cooked up just an initial bug of an idea,” said Terry. “I reached out to two close friends, Kayla Reynolds and Christie Goodrich. I sought those two out in particular because I thought they were pretty open minded, and they’re risk takers—but they would also kind of ground me. So I floated the idea to the two of them and they tweaked it, and we kind of took off with it, the three of us.”

That was in 2014—and they quickly got to work doing great things. The idea was to pool money and donate it to worthy causes. That year alone, they donated funds for an electronic scoreboard for a little league field, Earlham High School band equipment, the Earlham Food Pantry, classroom library books, a youth softball pitching machine, and a new teepee at Kuehn Conservation. Ten years later, the organization has grown to 55 members, has funded 141 projects, and has donated over $210,000.

While her vision for CWC was clear, Terry didn’t really envision it getting as big as it became.

“I don’t think I had that much forethought about it,” she said. “It was more of an immediate interest when we first developed it. I don’t know that I had really thought through how long it might be around. So, I’m actually really quite proud to look back on 10 years and think about what we’ve done.”

Terry and the early members were prescient enough to adopt a slow-growth philosophy, and that certainly helped lead to its success.

“We wrote a mission that was really broad,” said Terry. “We said that we were going to be a collective, a group of women pooling money for the betterment of the Earlham community. That left things very general, so that people could envision it however they wanted to over time. We have very few restrictions. After about a year we got our 501c3 designation and that allowed us to be a formal charity. And then after that, we were able to give pretty broadly. We started with 24 members, and we invited people that were close to us so that we could kind of get our footing before opening it up a little more broadly. We wanted to either succeed or fail with our close friends first.”

There were a few minor bumps in the road for some of the early projects, but nothing the group couldn’t overcome.

When we bought the new scoreboard for little league, we realized just buying the scoreboard itself isn’t the only cost involved. We weren’t going to put it up,” said Terry with a laugh. “So we realized that getting plans in place before you brought a project was important. How do you install it? Who else needs to be involved? So that was a good lesson.

Since they are a 501c3, they are able to leverage grants from other organizations for ‘bigger projects.’ They have worked with the Levitt Foundation on the Levitt Amp Earlham Music Series, the Wellmark Foundation on the Harskamp Family Courts, and the Greater Madison County Community Foundation, most recently on the Red, White, and Blue Night at the Levitt Amp Series on June 30.

Potential projects for funding are brought by an individual to the entire group.

“Members are always asked to be on the lookout for projects,” said Terry. “They get to present them to the members each quarter and the membership gets to vote. It’s really grass roots. It gives people a perspective of looking for things that can be improved around our community, kind of keeping that top of mind all the time. Some projects get funded right away and some don’t or take longer. But it’s a powerful thing for citizens to be looking around the community for ways that it can become better.”

Terry said the individual members all have their favorite projects. One of her favorites was the small skating rink that was constructed in the park one winter. The ‘big money’ projects have been rewarding, as well. One those is it Levitt Amp Series, which has become Chicks With Checks signature project. The Sunday night concert series features internationally known musical acts and routinely draws hundreds of people during its summer run.

“We actually walked into that a little cautiously,” said Terry. “We had put some money in getting that cover over the stage. And we did little concerts—’a guy and a guitar concert.’ We think our first concert ever had about 30 people, which mostly were Chicks and their families. It has obviously grown from that. But that was a big moment for us to kind of come out from under cover. We had kind of been pretty quiet about ourselves and just donated a little more under the radar. And that was our moment to announce ourselves as a public organization here in the community. And we’re really proud of how that took off, of course.”

Ten years after it was founded, Chicks With Checks is still well-organized and forward looking. Terry isn’t the president anymore—and she’s not even on the leadership board—but she’s certainly still active. The group makes sure that one of the original members is always on the leadership board. Jen Caskey currently serves that role. Sara Slagle is the current president.

“As I get a little bit older, I’m not always about growth; a little more about sustainability,” said Terry.  “So, I’m really proud that we have new leadership in place. As others have taken over the board, I think it’s in a really healthy spot. We always stay true to that original mission 10 years ago. We’re quite proud. Hitting that 10 years, it kind of startled me, as well. It’s been kind of fun to think about how it’s been stable and successful for that long.”