Looking back, Claire Conway of Philadelphia says her mom gave her “the greatest gift.” Her mom supported her childhood ideas to “give back.”
Conway, now 25, co-owns Ringlet, an integrated marketing company based in Philly and Washington, D.C., whose clients include small businesses, especially women-owned. And Conway herself mentors many of them.
She traces her inspiration for helping others back to her upbringing.
“In all honesty, my mom never said no (to my ideas),” she says. “I remember sitting in church, hearing an announcement about clothing needed for a clothing drive. I asked my mom, ‘Are there kids who don’t have clothes?’ I was in first grade, but I wanted to find a solution.”
Conway devised a plan: She created flyers, then distributed them thanks to her mom driving her from house to house in rural Chester County. They retraced their steps two weeks later to collect bags of donated clothing.
When a tsunami hit Japan, and Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a pint-sized Conway once again swung into action, mobilizing her friends and organizing bake sales.
“My mom let me make an absolute mess while baking—she allowed me the space to think about a problem and then try to solve it,” Conway says. “She never told me I couldn’t help someone.”
She ran an Alex’s Lemonade Stand nearly every day for three summers straight to benefit a pediatric cancer charity.
“Once I got to business school and college, I saw that lesson in limitless potential isn’t something everyone had. My mom’s gift to me … left me without the barriers other people have,” Conway says.
At Ringlet, through a mix of paid and volunteer coaching opportunities, Conway empowers fellow female small business owners to apply that idea of limitless potential. She cites a motivational statistic: In the United States, 42% of businesses are women-owned, but they’re making one-third the revenue of their male counterparts.
“This is something I know I have the skills to change,” Conway says. “Since 2018, I’ve seen a dozen women make their first million.”
But she continues to carve out volunteer time. She currently lends a hand at Philadelphia’s Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (Manna).
“Volunteering, for me, is the only reason I know that the world is bigger than myself. It gives me a better understanding of the world, and it grounds me,” Conway says.
Although grounded, Conway also flashes star potential. She was one of the youngest “entrepreneurial heroes” featured in Forbes’ “Next 1,000 to Watch” this fall.
“It’s a nice little capstone, from the first grade when I knew I wanted to serve people and be in business,” Conway reflects. “It feels like a good validation.”
Claire Conway encourages people of all ages to volunteer in their communities: “Serving others serves you too. If you approach the world with a servant’s heart and understand you’re here to serve the world.”
