Alisa Bales Baur joined the Women’s Fund group Helping Hands in 2019. She became a Grantee Liaison this year. Currently retired, she was the Art Director at Santa Barbara Magazine from 2000-2015. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she worked at the design firm Gottschalk + Ash in New York City and later formed her own practice in Houston, Texas, before moving to Santa Barbara with her husband Bob and two young children in 1993. Alisa and Bob have been making contributions to non-profits through their family foundation since 2008, primarily in the fields of education, the underserved, and the arts.

Chris is a licensed psychologist (now retired) with over 30 years of experience working in a university setting as an administrator, adjunct faculty member, and senior staff psychologist at a university counseling center. She is passionate about women’s issues, having been Assistant Dean/Director of the Center for Women and Men @ UC Irvine. She is a proud member of the 4 Empowerment group in the Women’s Fund.

Courtney joined the Women's Fund in December 2022 as part of New Friends, a newly formed group of mostly members of SB Newcomers. She is a native Californian, raised in Rialto and she earned a degree in English/Psychology from Occidental College. During her three careers, she was a public relations consultant, owned a cafe-catering business, and then served as a high school English Teacher with LAUSD (Los Angeles).
Since moving to Santa Barbara in 2019, she has been active with SB Newcomers (VP Activities and President) and with PEO (chapter president), and she has taken many classes at SBCC's Extended Learning Program (watercolor painting, woodworking, life drawing, and choir).

Danuta has been a member of the Womens Fund since 2020, and a grateful resident of Santa Barbara for 33 years. She is currently Co-Chair of the Educational Events Committee. Her professional life spans several careers including marine ecologist, marketing representative for the Consortium of Venetian Artisans, business consulting principal at IBM, and co-owner of Facilitate.com, developers of brainstorming and decision-making software. She is a member of the Grants and Partnership Committee for Together Women Rise, a women-based philanthropic organization dedicated to achieving global gender equality.
Danuta holds a degree in marine biology from UC Berkeley and an MBA in marketing and MIS from UCLA. She enjoys life with husband Mike and cats Rose-Tyler and Quinn the Eskimo, and revels in her two daughters and new grandson.

Diane is a retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has provided psychotherapy in private practice and community health centers. Among her community projects as an LCSW, she led a community task force on alcohol abuse among expat teens in Singapore, and founded a bereavement support group for young widows/widowers in Florida. She is a founding member of Maverick Collective, a women’s philanthropy group organized to benefit women and girls in developing countries. Through MC, she sponsored a pilot project in Senegal to reduce maternal mortality, and helped launch a women’s health center in Honduras. In conjunction with Vital Voices in New York, MC members funded the airlift of women activists out of Afghanistan after the collapse of the government in August 2021. Diane’s daughter was diagnosed In 2014 with idiopathic hypersomnia (IH), a chronic neurological sleep disorder. People with IH suffer from persistent, overwhelming daytime sleepiness, which is not alleviated by a full night’s sleep or napping. Soon after, Diane joined the Board of a nonprofit, The Hypersomnia Foundation. She served as Board Chair and CEO for several years before retiring in January 2022. Diane and her husband live in Santa Barbara and San Francisco. In addition to their daughter in LA, they have a son in Boston. Diane is delighted to be a member of The Women’s Fund and is excited to co-chair the COG.

Elizabeth enjoys organizing events for the Membership and Educational Events Committees. She grew up in Santa Barbara, attending Dos Pueblos High School and Santa Barbara Business College. She has extensive experience organizing large sand small scale events for the fashion and art industry. She is an accomplished professional portrait artist who has been in the arts for 30 years. She has two children, Kathryn and Charlie, both of whom reside in Los Angeles. She enjoys Pilates, Mah-Jongg and lunches with friends.

Kathy has been a member of the Women's Fund since 2018. She is Chair of the Volunteer Engagement Committee and a member of the Events Committee and the Operations Management Team. She has a B.S. in Elementary Education, M.S. in Elementary Education, and an M.A. in Educational Leadership. She has taught elementary through high school, and has served as a District Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, California State Board of Education Academic Trustee, and Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for the Santa Barbara County Education Office. She retired in 2019 after a rewarding 35-year career in public education. She and her husband, Whitt, have lived in Santa Barbara since 2009 and have two amazing children, Meghan (Washington DC) and Trey (NYC). She is thoroughly enjoying travel, hobbies, fitness, play and volunteering with the Women’s Fund in retirement.

Katie has been an active member of the Women's Fund since 2019, first as a group member and later taking on the role of captain of her own group in 2023. She has loved growing within the organization and is excited to step into her new role as the volunteer coordinator for the educational events committee.
Passionate about supporting women-led initiatives, Katie has been involved with several organizations over the years, including the National Charity League and Junior League.
She earned a bachelor's degree in Child Development and spent many years teaching preschool at a local school before making the decision to stay home with her four children.

Kelly joined the Women's Fund in 2021 with her mother to give back to the community together. Kelly came to Santa Barbara in 2010 from San Diego to study Hydrology at UC Santa Barbara and later received her Masters at the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. She currently works as an Engineering Capital Project Lead at Goleta Water District managing the research, design and construction of drinking water infrastructure projects, as well as performing as-needed water and economic data analysis. Kelly is involved locally volunteering with Angels Foster Care and a Bren Alumni group focused on water markets research funded by the Walton Family Foundation. She enjoys DIY remodeling of her home, kayaking, sewing and is a passionate Formula 1 Racing fan.