Feminist Strategy Archives

Dr. Janet Wormack is the New CFO and COO of The Steve Fund

Since women are both the primary producers and consumers of mental health services, it’s heartening to see women being elevated into positions of leadership and influence in this arena.

Dr. Janet Wormack, new Chief Financial and Operations Officer at The Steve Fund. (Image credit: The Steve Fund)

The Steve Fund announced the appointment of Dr. Janet Wormack as the organization’s new Chief Financial and Operations Officer. The Steve Fund is a leading nonprofit organization focused on promoting the mental health and emotional well-being of young people of color.

“Dr. Janet Wormack brings a wealth of experience in public and higher education administration to The Steve Fund,” said David McGhee, CEO of The Steve Fund.

Institutional Shake-Up: WPI Names New Interim Director

Following the resignation of Director Jeannie Infante Sager, The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) has announced a new Interim Director.

Jacqueline Ackerman has been named to the role of Interim Director. Ackerman has been associated with WPI since 2012 and has held roles as Assistant and Associate Director of Research at WPI. Most recently, she served as Associate Director for WPI.

Outgoing Director of Women’s Philanthropy Institute, who recently participated in a webinar with Kiersten Marek and other women’s philanthropy experts. (Image credit: KLM)

‘Jaquie has been instrumental to the growth and evolution of WPI for close to a decade,” said outgoing director Jeannie Infante Sager. “[She has] led our research agenda, managed research reports and roll outs, served as primary author on many of our reports, and supervised grants and sponsorships. Her commitment to our mission and her enthusiasm for our work are evident, and I have no doubt that they will continue to make significant contributions women’s philanthropy.”

Janiece Evans-Page: Daring to Double Down on Racial Equity

With racial justice programs and DEI initiatives under threat, philanthropic organizations face an important decision – double down in the fight for justice or back down. Janiece Evans-Page, the CEO of Tides, is taking the harder road. She won’t back down, and she won’t let others shut her down. As the leader of an organization managing as much as $1.25 billion in assets at any given time, Evans-Page is carrying out a critical mission that other funders might want to emulate: upholding the American values of racial and gender equality.

Janiece Evans-Page, the CEO of Tides. (Image credit: Tides)

We were fortunate enough that Janiece Evans-Page was willing to share her time and her thoughts on the attacks on organizations like the Fearless Fund. Janiece shares her insights here on how philanthropy can prioritize racial and gender justice, and use core values as the building blocks to a healthier democracy.

Biden Helps Women, Fearless Fund Update, Little League Opens Grants

It should no longer be a secret that more than half of all college degrees are granted to women. This has been the trend for some time now. So when the Biden Administration announced the cancellation of student debt for approximately 153,000 borrowers, the math tells us that most of those benefiting are women. Finally, some good news.

According to the Fact Sheet released by the White House, a total of $1.2 billion in student debt will be forgiven.

Grants are now open for Girls with Game. See below. (Image credit: Little League)

To qualify, the borrower must be enrolled in the administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program. The initial debt must be under $12,000, and the borrower must have been making payments for at least ten years. The SAVE plan bases payment amounts on income and family size.

WPI Webinar: Women’s Political Giving Will Surge in 2024

On January 30, 2024, the Womens’ Philanthropy Institute (WPI) of Indiana University hosted a webinar to look into a crystal ball and discuss what members of the giving community believe is coming our way in the coming year.

Jeannie Sager of WPI kicked off the conversation with a thorough review of relevant topics. (Image Credit: WPI)

The moderator was Jeannie Sager, Executive Director of WPI. Panelists included

Elizabeth Barajas Romắn, President and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network (WFN);
Latanya Mapp Frett, President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA); and
Kiersten Marek, Founder and CEO of Philanthropy Women (PW)

To start, Jeannie Sager established five key trends as identified by research of WPI:

Attack on Fearless Fund Goes National in Time and Newsweek

As we reported both in October and December of 2023, the good work of the Fearless Fund has come under attack from right-wing extremists. The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) which is led by anti-affirmative activist Edward Blum, is the same conservative organization that convinced the Supreme Court to reject affirmative action criteria for college admissions in June 2023.

Since the Supreme Court decision, AAER has expanded its scope to target seemingly all efforts to promote social justice and equity. The Fearless Fund is a venture capital fund that provides pre-seed, seed-level, or Series A financing to businesses led by women of color. As their website states, “Our mission is to bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders building scalable, growth aggressive companies.”

Climate Gender Equity Fund Debuts with First Grants in Africa

The Climate Gender Equity Fund (CGEF) is a public-private partnership focused on catalyzing gender equity in climate finance. A year after launching, CGEF has announced the first cohort of women-led organizations selected to receive grants, each of which is focused on advancing gender-equitable climate action in Africa.

Women participate in Clean Tech Hub’s incubation program. (Image credit: Amazon news)

The three organizations selected include:

The Clean Technology Hub, a women-led acceleration hub in Nigeria that is scaling new climate technologies;
WomanHub, an accelerator in South Africa that supports female science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) business founders; and
M-Kayla Ventures, an incubator in Kenya that focuses on women entrepreneurs working on climate-smart agriculture solutions.

The founding members of CGEF include USAID, Amazon, Reckitt, Visa Foundation, and The UPS Foundation. Combined, they have committed $20 million to the fund; in addition, USAID announced an additional $5 million during the COP28 climate change conference.

Announcing New Documentary Work from Audacious Women

Charlotte Mangin and Sandra Rattley have launched a new production company together named Audacious Women Productions. This new company follows the success of UNLADYLIKE2020. This award winning series has reached over 6 million viewers to date.

Among projects in progress for Audacious Women Productions is Augusta Savage. (Image credit: Audacious Women Productions)

With a mission to uncover and elevate untold narratives of diverse changemakers in bold new ways, Audacious Women Productions extends the impact of its documentary films through the design of multimedia educational resources, and film screenings and events across the country in partnership with community and national organizations. Charlotte and Sandy are thrilled to continue working together to bring inspiring, innovative, and timely stories to intergenerational audiences.

Leah Hendrix-Hunt and Family Featured in New Yorker

At Philanthropy Women, we pride ourselves on being able to stay ahead of the curve in recognizing ideas, discovering significant trends, and identifying the people who make these things happen. We are pleased to note that the The New Yorker is now following our lead. Several years ago, PW ran an interview with Leah Hunt-Hendrix. As a reminder, Hunt-Hendrix is a scion of Hunt Oil, founded by her maternal grandfather.

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s book, *“#SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of State Violence and Public Silence”* was recently released. More details below. (Image credit: #SayHerName)

The August issue of The New Yorker ran a story that touches on many of the issues discussed on these pages. Attached below is a link to the interview with Leah that PW published previously. Our interview focused more on the hard news angle, discussing her foundation, Solidaire, and the work it does while the New Yorker article is a bit more chatty, with anecdotes of her family, social status, and the problems presented by being a progressive who happens to be the heir to an oil fortune.

Women and Girls Continue to be Underfunded by Philanthropy

Women and girls represent more than half of the population of the United States. Despite this, charitable giving to organizations serving them represents less than 2% of all philanthropic activity in the U.S. This is according to a new report published Wednesday, October 11 – the International Day of the Girl.

As a percentage of all giving, giving for women and girls decreased in 2020, despite much public discussion about the need to fund women and girls in COVID. (Image credit: WGI)

The Women & Girls Index (WGI), released by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, finds that while charitable giving to women’s and girls’ organizations in the U.S. increased by 9.2% in 2020, growth of support for women and girls was lower than the rate of growth in overall charitable giving in 2020 (11.3%), even though the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted women and girls in myriad ways.

Category: Feminist Strategy