Women Empowering Women (WEW) was founded in 2013 by two businesswomen with a vision to bring like-minded people together to encourage and support one another. As experienced networkers, they had been part of many traditional networking groups but saw a gap of women who were unable to attend events due to financial constraints or time requirements. They created a vision to develop an organization where members would know each other well enough to provide authentic and knowledgeable referrals and leads. They were careful to curate a space where women could openly discuss struggles and successes while also collaborating with and mentoring one another. The goal was to create a forum for working women to exchange information and support one another’s businesses. But they didn’t want to exclude those knowledgeable women who were recently retired or those women fresh out of college or ready to begin their professional careers. Their initial plan for Women Empowering Women was to create a unique platform from other networking groups and release many of the restrictions that kept many women from attending meetings or events. Having a diverse membership was also their intention and they found that meetings could accommodate members within the same industry and many attendees embraced this format. Because of this atmosphere of collaboration many women have found ways to work together and grow because of this freedom. The main focus of Women Empowering Women is collaboration NOT competition!