Here’s how this Columbus woman uplifts women through organizing and her career
Tami McDonald made it her life’s work to uplift women and girls in Columbus as she’s advanced her career.
Ahead of the 11th annual Women United Power of the Purse event on Saturday, the CEO of Brookstone Wealth Management talked to the Ledger-Enquirer about her evolution and how she practices her mission.
The Power of the Purse luncheon, hosted by United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, was held at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center and raised funds for scholarships, programs and collect undergarments for those in need.
McDonald was a guest panelist along with Linda Dimmler, COO of IBM Global Asset Recovery, and Dionne Rosser-Mims, vice-chancellor for the Troy University Phenix City Campus.
Throughout her career, McDonald worked to uplift women and find opportunities to get involved in the community. She has worked with United Way and been involved with Power of the Purse for over 10 years, McDonald said.
People think they’re giving back when they start getting involved with their community, she said, but that’s not completely true.
“You think your purpose of doing it is ‘Oh, I’ve been blessed and I want to make a difference in other people’s lives,’” she said. “When in reality what happens is you’re continuing to get blessed.”
As part of an ongoing series for Women’s History Month, The Ledger-Enquirer sat down with McDonald and spoke with her about her work with United Way, her work to uplift women in Muscogee County and how she combines her passion for helping women into her career.
The answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Q: How did you get involved with United Way?
A: I started working for Synovus when I was 20 years old, and I give them a lot of credit for who I am today. They were highly involved with United Way.
As I was beginning to work more and more with women through Synovus — I was one of the only female (financial) advisors at Synovus — it happened organically. I started attending some of the meetings, and then I was asked to be on the board.
I just fell in love with it. It was probably that experience through the United Way that made me go, ‘This is what I’m supposed to be doing.’
So, the start was that I see a need, and I want to be a solution to that need. And then seeing the beauty and love beyond that need of women helping women lift each other up and make a difference in each other’s lives is what kept me involved for all of these years. I think the first year that I was involved was probably 2012.
Q: How was the idea to collect undergarments formed?
A: It was formed because we saw a great need in the community. We went to the organizations that United Way worked with and said, ‘Give us a list of your greatest needs.’
Every one of those lists had undergarments on it, so we knew that was a common denominator of a great need for the women in our community.
I was not part of the original founding group, but that group decided to host a luncheon where everybody brought undergarments.
‘Wear one, bring one.’
If people bring their sizes in a bag for someone else, then we’re probably meeting a greater need for all different sizes and all different women in the community. We also took donations during Power of the Purse, and from those donations we provided vouchers for women that we did not have the appropriate size for.
Q: What are some of the other initiatives of Power of the Purse?
A: We were successful through the years (collecting undergarments), and so we went on to the next step. We wanted to keep doing that, but what other needs were out there?
One of the other needs was scholarships for women who maybe had gone through some of the programs. They were not the typical college student, but yet they wanted to better themselves. And so we started raising money for and providing scholarships for underserved women.
Along with that scholarship opportunity, we started looking at mentorship. You can give a woman a fish and feed her, but if you teach her to fish then she’s going to fish for a lifetime.
We wanted to fulfill the need for the scholarships, but also going along with the scholarships, how could we mentor these women? How could we meet with them on a one-on-one basis to make sure they were still moving in the right direction and getting their questions and needs answered.
That morphed into the Women Helping Women Assistance Fund. So, now other needs like transportation, women escaping domestic violence and financial emergencies could be helped.
We can’t serve everybody, but we can serve a lot.
Q: When did you start Brookstone Wealth Management?
A: I started the company in 2017 after 28 years in Corporate America. I was almost 50 years old, and made some decisions. I’d always wanted to own my own business. I wasn’t 100% sure if I wanted to stay in the business of financial planning and wealth management. I wanted to get into coaching, but I couldn’t come away from it.
Coaching, mentoring and teaching is so much a part of what I do with financial planning and wealth management. It’s not just let me have your money and see what we can do with it. It’s the psychology behind money, and it’s the relationship that people have with money.
The business fed both sides of those needs for me of wanting to be a coach to others, but also loving money. I love numbers and numbers love me.
Q: How did you get into financial advising?
A: I started out as a teller (at Synovus), and then I did customer and branch management. I did a little bit of everything before moving into affiliate banking. We bought and sold commercial loans that were too large for some of our affiliate banks outside of the Columbus network.
And then I went into special projects. This was in the 90’s — I’m old.
I’d been with Synovus for about 10 years, and I was a little lost. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I talked to one of the senior managers.
He said, ‘Go home, pray about it and come back to me on Monday.’
And so I came back on Monday and said the only thing that I can think of that I would like to do is join the Financial Planning Group. His eyes got big and he said, ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’
That just sent me down the trajectory of going through my licensing and becoming a financial advisor.
Q: Why was it necessary to get specially trained to provide advisory services to women?
A: I’ve found that doing this since 1998 that so many women kind of have their heads in the sand when it comes to their finances. They’re embarrassed, sometimes they’re scared. They’re not educated enough around finances to understand the numbers.
And so many times either their dad took care of things when they were growing up, or their husband took care of things. Now, we are finding that more and more women are choosing not to get married and not be in a relationship. So, they’re having to take all that responsibility on themselves.
I went through an issue where my husband at the time unfortunately got on drugs and my daughter was three months old. I knew at that point that we’ve got to figure out a way to get through this and advance our life. I had to figure out a way to make sure that I was going to provide for her.
That’s where my “why” is because I know where I was at that point in time. I didn’t see a way out. I found a way out, but I didn’t see a way out.
I think that so many other women, whether they’re married or single, can find themselves in that situation. They can’t find a way to the other side, or when they want to start looking at reaching the goal, they can’t figure out the how behind it.
I don’t just do business with women. I certainly have male clients as well. But my focus has been women because I found a greater need that women have.
This story was originally published March 13, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
