A 30th Anniversary Tribute to Dr. Diane B. Brashear

Dear Friends of the Women’s Foundation of Indiana,

As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Foundation of Indiana, we are filled with gratitude: gratitude for the women whose courage gave this organization life, for the people who have carried its mission forward, and for the generations of women and girls whose futures have been changed because someone believed in them.

For our family, this celebration is deeply personal. We are the daughters of Dr. Diane B. Brashear. Our mother believed that when something needed to change, you did not stand at the edges and wait for someone else to act. You stepped forward. You listened. You brought people together. And then you worked with them to build something better.

That conviction helped shape the conversations she and John Mutz, then president of Lilly Endowment Inc., convened with local stakeholders in 1991 about the barriers facing women in Central Indiana. Those conversations began the journey toward the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana, announced on February 28, 1996, and known today as the Women’s Foundation of Indiana.

Although we are enormously proud of the public legacy she left, the qualities that made her an effective leader were the same qualities we experienced at home. She was curious about people. She noticed them. She wanted to know their stories.

Only later did we understand the lesson.

She taught us that every person deserves to be seen and heard, that leadership begins with respect, and that relationships are not incidental to change; they are how change begins. Her gift was making people feel that their experiences mattered and that they had something important to contribute.

She wanted us to understand that progress is never guaranteed. When Allison was in grade school, our mother took Allison and a lifelong friend to the Indiana Legislature during the debates over the Equal Rights Amendment. She wanted the girls to hear the arguments for themselves, including claims that women did not need careers or constitutional protections.

She did not take them there to discourage them. She took them so they would understand that progress requires participation. That lesson has stayed with us: we have to raise our hands, speak up, build coalitions, and, sometimes, create entirely new institutions.

That was the spirit she brought to the Women’s Fund.

Our mother understood that philanthropy was never only about raising money. It was about creating possibilities. It was about opening doors, helping women find their voices, developing leaders, and investing in the next generation. She often described collaboration as “the way women do things,” and that spirit became part of the organization’s foundation.

From its earliest years, the Women’s Fund brought together grantmaking, advocacy, research, and philanthropy education. The On Shaky Ground research series helped the community better understand the challenges facing women and girls. OPTIONS invited emerging philanthropists to use their “work, wealth, and wisdom” to make a difference. By 2005, the Fund had awarded 150 grants totaling more than $1.5 million to nonprofit partners across the nine-county region. Those achievements were not simply milestones. Each represented a woman heard, a door opened, a community strengthened, or a girl given reason to imagine a larger future.

That last idea mattered especially to our mother because she was always looking toward what came next. She could see possibility in young people before they could see it in themselves. She encouraged curiosity, independence, service, and the courage to lead. Long before “empowering the next generation” became a familiar phrase, she was doing exactly that around our family table.

Some of our warmest memories are of her as a grandmother. When our mother passed away in 2002, Richard was five and Diane was two. That is one reason a particular photograph has become so precious to our family. In the image featured in the Foundation’s history, Allison’s daughter Diane, who proudly carries her grandmother’s name, is reflected in her grandmother’s eye.

The photograph captures something essential about our mother. She cared deeply about the women leading in the present, but she was always looking toward the girls who would lead next. Today, as Allison stands beside her daughter Diane at this anniversary celebration, the future our mother saw so clearly is standing beside her.

When our mother retired in 1999, she was looking forward to travel, family, and more time as a grandmother. Only a few months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even during her illness, however, she continued to think about the future of the Women’s Fund. Although she was too ill to attend the 2001 dinner celebrating the Fund’s endowment reaching more than $4.1 million, she was filled with joy at its success. Shortly before her death in 2002, she told Meredith that she believed the Fund would endure.

She was right.

She believed in the “founding mothers,” many of whom were lifelong friends; in the community that embraced the Fund; and in the lasting power of women working together. She understood that the mission was larger than any one person and trusted that others would carry it forward.

Over the years, Allison has seen that vision echoed far beyond Indiana. When her family moved to Winston-Salem in 2005, an invitation to the first luncheon of the local women’s fund was waiting in her new office. Years later, while she was being recruited to the University at Buffalo, she learned about the Western New York Women’s Foundation. That sealed the move to Buffalo, and she is now a proud member of its board. Wherever she has gone, she has found women’s foundations investing in women, cultivating leaders, creating opportunities, and strengthening communities.

Now, as the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana becomes the Women’s Foundation of Indiana and expands its impact and advocacy statewide, we know our mother would love the new name. But honestly, she would not be surprised. She always believed that statewide impact was possible.

We are profoundly grateful to the founders, staff, board members, volunteers, donors, community partners, and supporters who have sustained and strengthened this work over three decades. You have done far more than preserve an institution. You have kept faith with the women and girls for whom it was created.

“We are important. And by being recognized, we not only can dream about making a difference, we will.” — Dr. Diane Brashear

Thirty years later, her words continue to live in the work of this Foundation.

They live in every woman who discovers her voice. They live in every girl who gains confidence because someone sees her potential. They live in every mentor, sponsor, advocate, donor, volunteer, and community partner who chooses to open a door and hold it open for someone else.

When we think about our mother, we do not think only about what she helped start. We think about what she helped set in motion.

A conversation became a vision. A vision became a movement. And that movement became an institution that continues to change lives across Indiana.

As daughters, there is no greater comfort than knowing that her values live on. They live in the Foundation she helped imagine, in the women who continue to lead it, and in girls who may never know her name, but whose futures are larger because she and so many others believed they were worth investing in.

The spoken tribute at this celebration asks each of us not only to honor the past, but also to invest in tomorrow: to mentor someone, sponsor someone, open a door, create an opportunity, and see the potential in a young woman before she sees it in herself. We offer this letter in that same spirit.

The story of the Women’s Foundation of Indiana has never belonged to one person. It is the story of what becomes possible when women join together with courage, generosity, and shared purpose. Yet within that extraordinary story, we still feel the spirit of our mother, urging all of us to dream bigger, lift as we climb, and never lose faith in what women can accomplish together.

We could imagine no greater tribute to her life.

Thank you for honoring her memory, advancing her vision, and ensuring that every girl in Indiana has the chance to learn, to lead, to dream, and to know that someone believes in her.

We know our mother would be immensely proud.

With love, gratitude, and admiration,

Dr. Allison Brashear and Meredith K. Brashear
Daughters of Dr. Diane B. Brashear