Today, there are over 100 Webgrrls chapters around the world; and if there isn't one in your area, you're invited to start your own. Webgrrls International provides mailing lists and server space for Web sites, and lets local chapter leaders plan their own meetings, training sessions and special events. Members pay $55 in annual dues and local chapters can hunt for sponsorships, but all the money is coordinated and distributed through a central bank account managed by Webgrrls International in New York.

Webgrrls' mission is to "empower women through technology," specifically by encouraging them to network and mentor one another with the aim of breaking through the glass ceiling to claim top jobs in the high-tech world. But over the years, Webgrrls has seen a fair amount of internal strife. Three local chapters in Austin, San Francisco and Washington have seceded from the organization in the past year to launch their own nonprofit organizations (Her Domain, SF Women on the Web and DC Web Women, respectively).

The splits were officially described as "amicable" (despite the fact that in more than one case the departures prompted some nasty flame wars) and new Webgrrls chapters were subsequently established in those cities, headed by new leaders. The grumbling, however, continues on internal "Pointgrrl" mailing lists, where chapter leaders get together to discuss larger Webgrrls issues.

But nothing quite prepared Webgrrls for the summer of 2000, when the Boston chapter began a battle that eventually led to the departure of half a dozen Webgrrls chapters and the launch of a new organization called DigitalEve.

According to Diane Darling, the former leader of the Boston Webgrrls chapter and a co-founder of DigitalEve, problems had been brewing for a while. Some leaders, she says, were upset by the management of Webgrrls, which is run by Cybergrrl.com's 20-person staff in New York but lacks any Webgrrls-only staff. Although Sherman started as the Webgrrls director, in 1997 she stepped down to focus on Cybergrrl.com, handing over the reins to a series of short-lived directors. When the last director, May Leong, departed in February 2000, Webgrrls didn't hire a replacement; instead, the CEO of Cybergrrl.com stepped in.

The CEO of Cybergrrl.com -- a longtime partner of Sherman's -- just happened to be a man named Kevin Kennedy. Although Kennedy quickly defended his credentials as a women's advocate -- "It's true I am a man and it's not subject to change ... but it's always been a mission of mine to help people and teach people and help them strive for excellence" -- some chapter leaders were uncomfortable with the idea of a man running a women's organization.

And then there was the profit issue. Webgrrls is a "C" corporation -- that is, for profit -- for tax and banking reasons, and although the organization had never come close to breaking even, let alone made a profit, some chapter leaders felt that a women's community should, by definition, be nonprofit. Darling was among those who objected to Webgrrls' for-profit status: "Why was I volunteering for a for-profit? I decided that, for me, I couldn't continue to be the leader when it wasn't a woman management team, it was a man, and it was a for-profit -- people were volunteering their time for a company." After exchanging some strong words with Kennedy, Darling began polling both her chapter's members and other chapter leaders to see if there was interest in starting a different kind of organization. Not surprisingly, her chapter members felt less affinity with the international organization than they did with their local networks. In a town hall meeting, more than 95 percent of the group said that they were interested in starting their own online women's community. And in July they launched "Boston Web Women," which within a few months had pulled in more than 1,200 members, decimating the ranks of the remaining Boston Webgrrls group.

That was the rock that started the avalanche. Other chapter leaders contacted Darling, and she began to reach out to Webgrrls groups in large cities to discuss a new and bigger nonprofit organization for women. Darling found strong kinship in Canada, where Webgrrl members had grown frustrated with the inconvenience of dealing with U.S. currency.

Working with May Leong, the former international director of Webgrrls, and Jennifer Evans, the director of a strong Webgrrls chapter in Toronto, Darling officially launched DigitalEve in November, with chapters in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Boston, Houston and San Francisco. Most of these chapters were formed straight from the member rosters of the Webgrrls chapters in those cities. In some cases, the chapter leaders simply made an executive decision and informed the members that they would be changing affiliations; in others, the entire community voted to make the change.

Since they left, DigitalEve's founders have found plenty of criticism to level at Webgrrls. For starters, the name: "The 'Webgrrls' part of it was cute but people grew out of that. I had one person say, 'I haven't been a professional for 15 years to be called a grrl,'" says Darling. "It was uncomfortable for people to the point that they wouldn't join the organization."

Other chapters felt neglected by the organization, believing that Webgrrls was more interested in being a generalist group than a localized community. "If you want to start a chapter of Webgrrls, you apply, they give you Web site space and then that's it. That's the extent of the support," complains Evans, who switched her Toronto Webgrrls chapter over to DigitalEve. "There's no consistency of programs. We developed all the programs we had in Toronto in a vacuum -- that's why we feel such a sense of ownership in our chapter for what we're doing." DigitalEve, she says, will both provide more templates and assistance to local groups and give them room to tailor their chapters around their own needs.

Yet all of DigitalEve's founders profess admiration for the Webgrrls organization ("We have a lot of respect for the Webgrrls name and reputation," says Evans) and, especially, Aliza Sherman. What's more, says Anna Gonowon, director of public relations, "DigitalEve doesn't see itself as a competitor to Webgrrls." But it's clear DigitalEve can't help edging in on Webgrrls' territory. Gonowon admits, "We all compete for the same audience -- DigitalEve, Webgrrls, WITI, Wired Women -- we all compete for the same people."

That competitive drive is presumably what led DigitalEve's founders, despite their professions of love and respect, to invite the leaders of Webgrrls chapters to join their organization. In the earliest press coverage, the founders described themselves as an alternative to a problematic Webgrrls organization. And chapter leaders responded: In Seattle, Austin, Chicago, Philadelphia and the United Kingdom, they either defected along with their entire membership or simply left the leader position, began a DigitalEve branch and then invited former community members to join. Of the group's reported 10,000 members, 6,000 live in Canada, and Evans estimates that at least 4,000 of those came directly from Webgrrls chapters.

From the outside, it looks like DigitalEve is poaching Webgrrls' members, chapter by chapter. Evans says that Webgrrls CEO Kennedy has leveled such an accusation against her group, but she insists it's untrue. It's difficult, in this tangle of she-said-she-said stories, to figure out whether DigitalEve really has made a concerted, intentional effort to woo away Webgrrls' members and how much is simply a natural changing of the guard.

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