Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Kool-Wray.
Hi Katie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in Flushing, Michigan – which is where I lived until I moved away to go to Kalamazoo College. This was the beginning of my midwest tour. After getting my Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Business and a minor in Psychology (which I think that I use as much, if not more than my business degree!), I moved to St. Louis to get my Masters of Business Administration at Washington University. When I graduated, I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to work at Procter & Gamble in Finance & Accounting. P&G is a great company where I spent 27 years with jobs ranging from CFO of Gain laundry detergent to leading the General Ledger of the Americas from San Jose, Costa Rica to working in Investor Relations where I was one of five people with permission to talk to Wall Street for the Company to CEO of Tide Cleaners. My husband and I also founded and ran a successful CrossFit gym – KW CrossFit – with over 100 members for 5.5 years. We loved changing lives inside and outside the gym, and we got REALLY lucky and sold it the summer of 2019 – just ahead of COVID.
In 2022, I retired early from P&G so that we could move back home to be closer to family. We now live on Byram Lake in Linden, Michigan. and I have moved into my “portfolio career” where I get to choose how I invest my time. I am a Board Director for two public companies, where I am Board Chair for one company and Audit Committee Chair for the other. I am the Finance Director for Sonje Ayiti Organization, which is focused on educational and economic development work in Northern Haiti. And where I spend a lot of my time is on Impact100 Genesee County, where I am a co-Founder and the President. Impact100 is a giving circle of women who pool our resources to fund transformational grants of up to $100,000 each year to an existing nonprofit in Genesee County. We just wrapped up our second year and so far have granted $149,000 to local nonprofits!
Personally, I’m a wife, mom, daughter, sister and friend. My husband has a PhD in Ecology and is a world-class CrossFit athlete and beekeeper in his free time. My son is 25-years old and is currently working at a university in Bangor, Maine, and my daughter is 23 years old and is a chef living in Washington D.C. We love traveling the world together – meeting new people, trying different food, and learning about diverse cultures.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This question made me laugh because I’m not sure that I’ve ever met a person who would say that life has been a “smooth” road. I think that we are presented with challenges that force you to make choices and decisions using the best information that you have at that point. One of the best pieces of advice that I was given was that we will all fall down. It’s how you get up from these falls that show who you are. And sometimes just standing back up and putting one foot in front of the other is success. My struggles have ranged from significant personal challenges – like becoming a single mother of a 3 and 5-year old while living and working in a foreign county – to professional challenges – like navigating an essential retail business through COVID. Some of my key learnings included that you have to be very clear on your priorities, and you can’t do it on your own. It truly takes a village.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Vision: Empower women to transform lives in Genesee County.
Mission: Build a diverse membership of generous women who accelerate positive change in Genesee County.
What We Do: Women of all ages, stages in life, income levels, ethnicities, and backgrounds pool our resources to fund transformational grants of up to $100,000 for existing nonprofits in Genesee County.
Goals:
• Membership of at least 100 women. Our long-term goal is 500 women!
• Create a supportive community who provide energy and uplift one another.
• Make any person or organization who encounters us stronger and more capable.
The first Impact100 chapter was started by a woman named Wendy Steele in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2001. Wendy’s goal was to find a way for women in all chapters of life and from all different backgrounds to join their resources together to make a significant impact in their local community. They would do this by striving to give a grant of $100,000 every year to a local nonprofit. She wanted the grant to be significant – an amount to drive true impact – to open new doors and deliver new projects that couldn’t and wouldn’t otherwise happen.
Fast forward to today, and there are 80 Impact100 chapters in 4 countries around the world. Each is grassroots driven, and each is its own 501(c)3. Since Wendy started that first chapter, over $175 million has been raised by Impact100 chapters and granted back to their local communities.
When we started Impact100 Genesee County two years ago – we were the 74th Impact100 chapter and the 5th chapter in Michigan. At this time, we had a goal, and we had a dream. Our goal was to reach 100 members to present a grant of $100,000 – and we are getting SO close to that goal.
Our dream was and still is to reach 500 members so that we can give a $100,000 grant in each of our five focus areas: Arts and Culture; Children, Families & Seniors; Education; Environment, Recreation, and Animal Welfare; and Health and Wellness. Funding a grant in each of these focus areas would be funding all areas of a thriving community – making it a great place for everyone to live.
And this dream is not out of reach, for perspective the Impact100 chapter in Pensacola Beach has more than 1200 members – so they award $1.2 million in grants – 12 $100,000 grants – every single year! The Sarasota chapter has over 800 members and the Traverse City chapter has over 300 members.
Growing to 500 members in our chapter is a bold dream, but it’s one we know we can achieve together.
We began this journey just two years ago with two members. In year one, we grew to 57 members, and in 2025, we grew to 92 members – only 8 women away from our goal of 100 members. In 2 years, we have granted $149,000 to nonprofit organizations in our community. For our 2025-26 grant year, we are at 50 members – half way there!
In addition to our annual grant, another goal that we have – which we believe is just as powerful – is that any nonprofit who comes in contact with us walks away stronger and more sustainable than before they knew us. We do this through education and growing awareness of the amazing work happening in Genesee County. We currently have over 250 nonprofits in our “database” (aka our excel spreadsheet) – and we seem to add one or two every week.
We all know that change doesn’t happen overnight, and it certainly doesn’t happen alone. It takes a village, a community. It takes each one of us stepping up, using our voices, our resources, and our time to support the causes we care about. And that’s exactly what Impact100 does – we unite people who want to make a difference.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
It’s really hard to narrow it down to just one quality or characteristic because I don’t think that life is that simple. I think that resiliency is absolutely critical. You can never, ever give up – and need to get up and keep going. I also think that having a learning mindset is key to success. To have a learning mindset, it means that you are humble because you don’t need to be right – instead you need to keep exploring and learning to solve problems and reach your goals.
Contact Info:
- Website: impact100geneseecounty.org
- Instagram: impact100genesee
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Impact100GeneseeCounty
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-kool-wray/
