Gender Lens Thinking Archives

How Robert Wood Johnson Fdn is Funding Growth for Girls Who Invest

Girls Who Invest, being backed by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will bring 175 new students to its Summer Intensive Program.

Girls Who Invest works to include more women in the world of asset management and finances. (Image credit: GWI)

Girls Who Invest (GWI), a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in portfolio management and executive leadership in the asset management industry, welcomes a cohort of 175 scholars to its 2021 Summer Intensive Program.

Through GWI’s flagship ten-week program, each of these accomplished rising college juniors will complete a four-week rigorous program of study on the core tenets of investing. The program is taught by leading academics and industry professionals, including faculty from the Wharton School and UCLA Anderson School of Management. Scholars then complete six-week paid internships in frontline investing at one of GWI’s more than 100 partner firms. After completing the academic program (held virtually for the second year), scholars are equipped with the industry knowledge and financial, technical, and soft business skills required to excel in their internships and future asset management roles. The scholars participating in this year’s Summer Intensive Program will join more than 500 women who have successfully completed the program since 2016.

PepsiCo Boosts Women Biz Owners, Fights Hunger with New Grants

PepsiCo is popping the tab on a new funding program for women-led small businesses.

Through two of its charitable arms, Food for Good and WomanMade, PepsiCo recently announced the launch of its Food for Good Meal Solutions program, which offers women-led small businesses the resources and scaling strategies necessary to fight childhood hunger.

PepsiCo’s latest charitable initiative takes a multipronged approach: Fighting childhood hunger, supporting women-led small businesses, and providing pandemic relief all at once. (**Image Credit:** PepsiCo)

Supporting two of the food and beverage giant’s social campaigns — Food for Good, which combats childhood hunger, and WomanMade, which supports women-led small businesses in the US — this new campaign connects female entrepreneurs with the funding they need to produce reliable, effective products that will help end childhood hunger.

How Susan Blaustein Found Her Path to Empowering Women Globally

In the U.S and abroad, Dr. Susan M. Blaustein has helped women partner for gender equality through the nonprofit WomenStrong International.

Vital work being done domestically and internationally in the name of gender equality has come from a prolific nonprofit called WomenStrong International. Founded and directed by Susan Blaustein, the organization was an outgrowth of the Millennium Cities Initiative, a program Dr. Blaustein led for more than a decade at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

A person sitting at a table

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Susan Blaustein, Founder of WomenStrong (Image credit: WomenStrong)

Since its 2015 inception, WomenStrong International has grown steadily in size and scope and now has 18 partner organizations across 15 different countries. These partners include organizations as various and farflung as the Women’s Justice Initiative in Guatemala, Black Women’s Blueprint in the US, and Roots of Health in the Philippines.

Fiona McKay: Financial Sector Must Evolve to Prioritize Social Returns

Fiona McKay’s website asks a simple but striking question: What would the world look like if more women controlled the money? It’s a question I often find myself pondering, too, as a social worker, a small businesswoman, a parent, and a gender equality activist.

A person with blonde hair

Description automatically generated with low confidence — Fiona McKay, author of the report, Trailblazing Women in Investment. (Image Credit: Fiona McKay)

McKay isn’t just pondering this profound question, though. She’s actively doing research on the way that gender norms shape our experiences, particularly in the financial sector. She is the author of Trailblazing Women in Investment, a new report that discusses gender lens investing and the barriers that women still face with controlling the money in finance.

Why Do Major Ballet Companies Exclude Women Choreographers?

Editor’s Note: The following editorial by Elizabeth (Liza) Yntema was originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

It is the spring of 2021, except in the ballet world, which is apparently stuck somewhere in a 1950s deep freeze, where classical dance celebrates women by muting them.

Photo by David Hofmann on Unsplash. Dancer: Sydney Smrzel

Our team at Dance Data Project was stunned to learn that Pennsylvania Ballet, the 10th largest company by budget in the U.S., has chosen to “honor” its female Founder, Barbara Weisberger, with a spring digital season whose theme is “Strength. Resilience. Beauty” and features 3 programs with 11 works by male choreographers and zero—yes, that is zero—pieces by women.

Texas Celebrates Women Leaders with Virtual Awards and Forum

The Texas Women’s Foundation’s long-held tradition of honoring leaders in women’s philanthropy continues. Their virtual Leadership Forum and Awards Celebration will be held on April 29th. Amongst the recognitions, the Maura Women Helping Women Award and the Young Leader Award are highlighted.

As the Maura Award enters its 42^nd year, the five recipients are those who have adapted their own leadership roles to further the progression of women and girls in various innovative ways. With over 200 past Maura Award recipients, these women are now part of a bold and fearless group who have taken it upon themselves to make life better for women and girls in Texas, and around the world. The Young Leader Award spotlights two women who have broken glass ceilings in their own fields and industries, demonstrating the way forward towards a more gender-balanced society.

Innovative Alliance for Girls Report Defines Gender-Inclusive Solutions

The Alliance for Girls has just released a new, innovative report that defines solutions to creating gender-inclusive communities.

Radical Visions of Safety for Girls, By Girls aims to define how communities can create spaces that teach and nurture gender-inclusivity. (Image credit: Alliance for Girls)

Alliance for Girls, the largest alliance of girl-serving organizations, released its Radical Visions of Safety for Girls by Girls report. This groundbreaking report puts forward solutions for community safety based on the input and lived experiences of girls, gender expansive youth and their champions.

“COVID and the racial justice uprisings of 2020 exposed more people to how the top-down, punishment-based old ways of thinking about safety, and the entrenched systems that were supposed to keep us safe, have always failed Black and brown girls,” said Emma Mayerson, founder and executive director of Alliance for Girls. “This report features the leading edge of violence prevention informed by the practical vision of Black girls and girls of color, gender expansive youth, and the adults who champion them. These solutions will lead to our collective safety and freedom.”

Feminist Giving IRL: Hear From the Top Tier Winners (Liveblog)

On Thursday, March 25th, the Philanthropy Women team welcomed attendees and honorees alike to the first Feminist Giving IRL Top Tier Awards Ceremony. Celebrating the exceptional leadership of the interviewees from the past year, this year’s FGIRL Top Tier winners are Elizabeth Yntema (Dance Data Project®), Dr. Tessie San Martin (Plan International USA), and Sara Monteabaro (MIT Solve).

The FGIRL series started two years ago, inspired by Gloria Steinem’s idea that “people should be linked, not ranked.”

Ray of Hope for Women-Led Small Businesses

The funding platform Kickfurther has awarded a considerable amount of funding to Spinster Sisters, a women-led small business.

Funding for women led small businesses has often had a gender gap that has proven to be detrimental to them. In recent years, large strides have been made to close this gap and more funding has been allocated for women run businesses.

Spinster Sisters founder Kelly Perkins (Image credit: Spinster Sisters)

Recently, a no-cost financing giveaway held by Kickfurther was awarded to a women owned business called Spinster Sisters. This win for one small business signals the progress being made for all women owned businesses.

Kickfurther aims to help small businesses through the pandemic

Kickfurther is a platform for inventory funding that is supported by investors behind Robinhood, Tesla, Twitter and other investors. The platform allows for small businesses to be supported by those who like their product while allowing these supporters to make a profit when the inventory is sold.

(Liveblog) WPI Research: New Options as Household Giving Changes

On Tuesday, March 16th, representatives from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute hosted a virtual event to reveal the findings of the first new data in 15 years on household charitable decision-making. The findings came down to a key point: 61.5% of couples make giving decisions together, representing a drop from 73.4% in 2005.

So, what does this mean for feminist giving, women’s giving, and the power of household giving?

Women Give 2021 kicked off with an introduction from Jeannie Sager, Director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute. “We are so grateful to have allies and advocates in our work,” said Sager. She also introduced the day’s panelists, Yolanda F. Johnson (YFJ Consulting; Women of Color in Fundraising and Philanthropy); Adrienne Penta (Center for Women & Wealth at Brown Brothers Harriman); and Marty Cordes (Cordes Foundation).

Category: Gender Lens Thinking