By Emily Williams
The mission of the Girl Scouts is to build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.
Gillian Goodrich, a Birmingham philanthropist and Mountain Brook resident, exemplifies those qualities, Girl Scout officials said.
The Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama announced their 2015 Women of Distinction earlier this year, naming Goodrich the recipient of the prestigious Mildred Bell Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award.
“She is a true Girl Scout,” said Hannah Wallace, director of communications and marketing for the GSNCA. “She exudes courage, confidence and character, and we are so thankful to have an extraordinary example for today’s Girl Scouts.”
Born in Birmingham, Goodrich grew up with a close connection with the Girl Scouts. She was a scout until high school, and her mother, Gay White, was involved in the Girl Scouts for much of her life. White was president of the Cahaba Girl Scout Council for several years in the 1960s and 1970s.
“The scouting tradition was just a huge part of our family, and those values are strong and they stay with you,” Goodrich said. “My father was a boy scout. Even my husband was an Eagle Scout.”
After graduating from Converse College and earning a master’s degree from the University of Alabama, Goodrich began teaching history at the high school and collegiate levels.
When Goodrich left the teaching field, she began serving her community as the charitable contributions coordinator for Protective Life Insurance Co.
Since then, she has served on the boards of directors for several local organizations, including the McWane Science Center, Children’s of Alabama and the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.
In 2008, she and her family started the Mike and Gillian Goodrich Charitable Foundation. The foundation was created after she had spent many years learning from and working with many other philanthropic women, she said.
“Early on, when I was on the Gateway Board, Mary Edna Porter was the executive director of that, and she was just a woman of infinite wisdom,” Goodrich said. “Then I was on, and still am on, the YWCA board, and Suzanne Doram just gave me a lot of wisdom. Hopefully a little bit of it got tucked in there somewhere.”
Goodrich said philanthropy is something that has always been a part of her life and that through her family’s foundation she is able to provide funding to nonprofit organizations working in the Birmingham area.
“We focus a lot on education and community revitalization. Also, the environment is important to us and arts and culture,” Goodrich said “We have really started to emphasize that we want to see some measurable results. We really want to see some lives changed in a measurable way.”
The Goodrich Foundation focuses on certain areas of Birmingham, most notably the Woodlawn community, which has been crippled by poverty. The foundation supports the work of the Woodlawn Foundation, whose goal is to revitalize the community.
“The goal is to change the lives of people born in poverty and to try and break that cycle of poverty,” Goodrich said. “You have to do everything to make that community livable.”
The Goodrich Foundation also lends its help to restoration projects, like the historic Lyric Theater in downtown Birmingham, and cultural companies such as the Alabama Ballet.
Goodrich said her advice to young women seeking to serve their communities is not to help for your own peace of mind but to help because you truly want to.
“Think not of what you can do for them, but of what would actually help them the most,” Goodrich said. “Spend time with people long enough to see what they really need.”
Goodrich accepted the Mildred Bell Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony on March 6.
“Like anything there have been less than perfect times, but it’s been interesting and fun to just see how the community has changed,” Goodrich said about her years of philanthropic work.