Alumni & Student Stories

Making Connections, Helping People: She Creates a Nonprofit

Kristen Corning, M.A. Whole Systems Design, 2004

Websites have an uncanny way of bringing like minds together. A friend tipped off Antioch alumna Kristen Corning to the website of the Glass Slipper Project and the next thing Corning knew, she was collecting prom dresses and had a website called The Ruby Room.

But this story is jumping ahead of itself, although it has been doing that from the very start. The Ruby Room in Seattle, modeled after the Glass Slipper Project in Chicago, is part of a growing national network of nonprofit organizations that provides free formal gowns and accessories to high school girls who are unable to purchase their own prom attire.

"After the first couple of classes here, it was a coming home."Corning, then a whole systems design student at Antioch, gave her name to the Glass Slipper Project to be the Seattle contact. A flurry of e-mails brought 30 offers of dresses almost immediately. What prompted her to launch The Ruby Room in early 2002, though, was the Seattle teen-ager in foster care who said she didn't have the heart to give her once-worn prom dress to Value Village when she knew her gown could help another teen like herself.

Proms Can Be Costly

"That did it for me," Corning says with a soft smile. "Going to a prom is such an expense today. It's over the top. The dress alone is $150 to $350. It's about a $1,000 evening if you go for accessories, hair, nails, a limo, dinner before, dessert after and all the rest.

"So I grabbed a couple girlfriends who would do this with me. Right away we had an attorney who was willing to work pro bono to set up our nonprofit. It's amazing how many people respond to this."

By June 2002, The Ruby Room had a co-founder, Nyla Mead, who read about this growing network of prom dress nonprofits in Reader's Digest. Many volunteers emerged, including a seamstress who altered almost every dress.

"I was blown away by how many women found more than a volunteer experience. They found friendship there, too," Corning says.

A Rite of Passage

Corning wanted the Seattle nonprofit's name to signal a community of women, rather than the myth that if you wear the right dress, you'll be a princess and find the perfect man.

"I was interested in the self-esteem of teen-age girls and providing community support for this rite of passage," she says.

She describes those Saturdays in the spring of 2003, when girls arrived at The Ruby Room, many wearing jeans, stocking caps and attitude. "They'd put on that first dress and step out looking and feeling softer and really beautiful. I didn't expect to be moved as much as I was. Seeing those personal transformations and how they carried themselves was amazing," Corning says.

For each prom season since 2003, The Ruby Room has outfitted more than 150 girls with dresses, shoes and accessories. Corning and Mead drew media attention from the Seattle Times, KING-TV's Evening Magazine and KMTT Radio (The Mountain).

Whole Systems Degree Helped

For Corning, there's a lot more to this than starting a successful nonprofit.

"I can see now how getting my master's in whole systems design definitely played into this. Because of this experience, I'm now really interested in management, people skills and getting people to work with me on fund raising and developing nonprofits. This all feeds into what I'm doing and what my degree can do for me.

"I came up with this idea at the beginning of my master's program. By the time I got to the end and worked on my thesis, I was ready to push it up to another level."

Corning considered getting a master's in education. "But I didn't want to be in a classroom," she notes. "I wanted to be more community-oriented. I looked at other programs at other universities, but with most, you go to school, get a degree and that allows you to do very specific work.

"I've always wanted to learn more than what I was supposed to be learning. I like finding connections. I had no idea what whole systems design was. For me, it's about making connections, finding patterns, helping people. I've always been sort of a coordinator, pulling things together."

Ruby Room Continues to Grow

Thanks to community support and fund-raising efforts, The Ruby Room now provides dresses year round for not only proms but also other formal events such as homecomings, winter dances and festivals. The nonprofit also has a new location in the basement of Seattle's Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., on Capitol Hill. A youth council helps steer The Ruby Room and develops dress drives at local schools.

"My greatest success with The Ruby Room was creating an opportunity and a place for a team of great people to work together, giving of themselves and contributing energy to someone else's life. And I'm really proud of the youth council. I found such great joy working with those young women and they brought so much to the organization," says Corning, who retired from her role with the nonprofit in June 2005 to become community programs coordinator for The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation.

"I manage the grant cycles and will facilitate community dialogue around intentional philanthropy in Pierce County and how to create a healthy, vital community," she describes. "It is the perfect opportunity for me, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm meeting the people and agencies that make this region function and I have the opportunity to create connections and design new ways of giving for our donors."

She says she is amazed how many people she works with today inherently understand the idea of whole systems design. "It's great to be working with the people who are out there redesigning whole systems," she notes. "I feel very lucky that I am in exactly the right place at the right time."

Big School Wasn't Right for Her

Corning started her higher education at a state university larger than Antioch. "That just didn’t work for me," she says. She then went to Fairhaven College, where she was able to design her own major in film and obtain her bachelor’s degree. She worked as production coordinator on Sherman Alexie's film, Smoke Signals, then became an associate marketing manager for Disney entertainment websites.

"Today, I am immersed in civic and social services, as well as culture and education. I can just see how all of this is going to come together with my degree and help me see the 'whole' while holding all the little pieces at the same time," she says.

"My experience with The Ruby Room is also invaluable, just being able to relate to the people coming to us for grants, having been on the other side of that table, gives me wonderful perspective on the need and the possibilities for nonprofits in our world today."

Corning is confident Antioch was the right choice for her. "After the first couple of classes here," she explains, "it was a coming home. I had always looked at industries rather than my skills. It was an awakening for me: 'Oh my god, I'm not a flake.' I feel like I get it now."

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