Women in Noblesville was founded in 2014 as an outreach network of the Noblesville Chamber of Commerce to connect women business owners and leaders in Noblesville.
Now, the WIN network is gearing up to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
WIN Co-Chair Kathy Young said everything the network does is tied to the Noblesville Chamber of Commerce, whose staff helps implement ideas. In the last decade, Young said WIN has grown immensely.
“Ten years ago, we had the idea to start a women’s network,” Young said. “The first year, we called it WIN Week. We just had a week’s worth of events for women. So, we did that for the first two years. After that, the planning committee realized we were getting a lot of interest in what we were doing. And it was like, well, we don’t want to only do this once a year.”
WIN continued to grow over the next several years. It began its monthly networking event, Coffee and Connect, where women make connections, network and develop business opportunities over coffee at the Sagamore Club in Noblesville.
Kathy said WIN also began to hold a yearly women’s conference.
“We don’t really have a women’s conference or anything like that here in Noblesville,” Young said. “So, in the first year, it was a half-day conference. Over the next two or three years, it was a full-day conference with catered lunch, keynote speakers and breakout sessions. It was an opportunity for women to come and connect. We had the conference every year until COVID.”
WIN will celebrate its 10-year milestone at a gala Aug. 21 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Mustard Seed Gardens in Noblesville, 77 Metsker Lane.
The public gala will feature Debby Knox, a retired TV news anchor, who will emcee the celebration. The event will include networking, dinner and entertainment provided by The Sara’s Soiree Trio, featuring Sara Howe, owner of Sara’s Soiree.
The recipient of the Woman of Impact Award also will be announced during the event. According to Young, the award goes to a woman who lives or works in Noblesville and has made an impact through service, leadership, stewardship and compassion.
“We’ve tried many different programming things, but three years ago, we had someone on our committee say we didn’t have any kind of award program,” Young said. “There are so many amazing women in Noblesville doing such amazing things — and not just professionally. Many women who excel professionally serve nights and weekends on committees, volunteering, supporting the schools or giving back to the community in some way. This will be our third year giving away that award.”
The event also will provide an opportunity to support the launch of the new Women In Noblesville Business Fund, which will help support future events and programs.
“We have the Chamber Foundation, which is the nonprofit piece of the chamber,” Young said. “The foundation can manage the funds for us, but WIN is driving the (fund’s establishment). There will be a couple of fundraising components at the gala to help generate dollars for the fund, and a portion of each ticket price will go toward the fund. First Merchants Bank also made an inaugural contribution to get the fund started.”
Young said the goal is to use the funds over the next few years to support and promote women entrepreneurs and women trying to start small businesses.
Noblesville Chamber of Commerce President-CEO Bob Dubois said capitalizing on the funds can provide new opportunities for more robust programming.
“We convene and connect people, and we celebrate the ability to put more structure around it, particularly the convening of female small business owners,” Dubois said. “They have very unique needs. Many of them are trying to balance family and work, move forward and connect to the community, and we want to ensure we have a support system that adds value. We think we can be a backbone organization to keep that together. Still, it will be driven by the people sitting around the table, the women driving their businesses.”
Young said she hopes WIN continues to grow organically in the next decade.
“We want to continue to grow the impact and see more women get involved,” Young said. “One thing on our radar is that we’ve talked about looking at a roundtable for women, business owners and women entrepreneurs. We see that as an area of growth. We want to continue our educational programming and don’t have a definitive plan, but one thing we’ve talked about in the past is, at some point, having a philanthropic component. I would say the sky’s the limit within the realm of what we can accomplish.”
For more, visit noblesvillechamber.com.
10th Anniversary Gala
Tickets for the Aug. 21 WIN 10th Anniversary Gala at 77 Metsker Lane in Noblesville are $125 for individuals and $1100 for a table of 8.
Schedule:
- 6 p.m.: Networking
- 7 p.m.: Dinner served
- 8 p.m.: Award announcement and program
- 9 p.m.: Close
