Suzy Lanigan (with black Lab Molly) has made Impact 100 a family affair.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
The motto of Impact 100 Palm Beach County, the women’s charitable organization, is “One Woman, One Meeting, One Vote.” But for Suzy Lanigan of Gulf Stream, her involvement soon became “Three Women, One Meeting, Three Votes.”
“My mother, Patricia Bartlett, got involved soon after I joined, and now my daughter, Kathleen Lanigan, is a member,” she says proudly. “Getting to share this experience with them and teach my daughter the importance of giving back to the local community is very special to me.”
The idea is delightfully simple. Each member donates $1,000, and once a year they all meet to hear representatives from five local nonprofits make a seven-minute pitch for grants. Then they vote and present the checks.
Last year, the group’s 320 members gave away $320,000.
On April 16, about 400 members will meet at Lynn University to disburse around $400,000.
“Your involvement can be as minimal as the one donation and vote,” she says, “or there are so many opportunity to get involved further.”
Lanigan volunteers with fundraising and event planning for the group, talents she brought from Massachusetts when her family moved to Gulf Stream eight years ago.
A graduate of Bentley College in Massachusetts, she is a principal with Ocean Properties Ltd., a family business founded by her father and one of the largest privately held hotel management companies in North America.
In New England, she was a founding member of the Women’s Fund in Massachusetts, was a trustee of the private Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, and was active in local government, fighting for a community skateboard park.
In 1996, she ran the Olympic torch in Nashua, New Hampshire, for that year’s Summer games in Atlanta. In addition to daughter Kathleen, Lanigan and her husband, Jay, have another daughter, Tricia, and a son, Michael.
— Ron Hayes
Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. Brewer, Maine. It was a really nice community. I had a lot of family there. My cousins were all in the area, so it was nice way to grow up.
Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A. I’m in the hotel development business, a family business with my brother and myself. My father started it in the 1960s. He ended up buying a hotel and it just grew from there, from the bottom up. My brothers and myself have worked there, and now the next generation is coming into the business as well.
Q. How did you become involved with Impact 100?
A. I saw a story in The Coastal Star. I was looking for something to get involved with, and when I saw that I just jumped on it.
Q. Tell us a little about your involvement with Impact 100. Why is it important to you?
A. Specifically, I work helping with membership and getting the word out about what a great organization it is. This will be our fourth year, with over $1 million given in those four years. That’s a big accomplishment. It’s nice to see it go to the locals, where there’s so much need.
Q. How did you choose to make your home in Gulf Stream?
A. I have family in the area and we vacationed here when I was a child, so it just seemed like the right place to go, to be near my family.
Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A. I grew up on classic rock, but I do like all types of music, depending on the mood. Aerosmith, Tom Petty. I listened to Jimi Hendrix through the wall from my brother’s room.
Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. My mother always told me, “You’ll never regret being kind.”
Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. I learned a lot about getting involved in volunteer work from my sister-in-law, Paula Jerome. She founded the Woman’s Fund of Essex County in Massachusetts. I was newly married and having kids, and she was doing that, so I became involved and it evolved into all sorts of other organizations. She was the first one I knew who was really heavily involved in doing lots of good.
Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. Well, when Sally Field was younger people used to say we looked alike.
Q. Who/what makes you laugh?
A. My kids and my animals. I have a black Lab named Molly, a Yorkie named Annie and a cat named Max who make me laugh a lot. On TV, I love The Middle and Modern Family.
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