“We have to vote like our life depends on it, because it does,” said Beyoncé in her pre-recorded acceptance speech for the 2020 BET Awards. The performer and philanthropist is 2020’s recipient of the Humanitarian Award, bestowed for her work through the BeyGOOD Initiative and other campaigns.
International superstar Beyoncé is the recipient of the 2020 BET Humanitarian Award. (Image Credit:BET/Twitter)
“Thank you so much for this beautiful honor,” she said. “I want to dedicate this award to all of my brothers out there, all of my sisters out there inspiring me, marching and fighting for change. Your voices are being heard and you’re proving to our ancestors that their struggles were not in vain.”
According to the Center for American Women and Politics, women make up only 23.6% of seats in the 116th United States Congress — and it’s far past time to change that. Through its Women’s Leadership Programs, Dare to Run, a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit organization, provides women with the leadership skills and political training needed to run for office in the United States.
Dare to Run’s Fall 2020 Women’s Leadership Program trains women to run for office in New York State and beyond. (Image Credit: Dare to Run)
“There is a lot of information that comes along with running a campaign in general,” says Rachelle Suissa, CEO and Founder of Dare to Run. “Then, for women, the knowledge and strategies for a successful campaign shifts fundamentally. Dare to Run wants to make sure that women are prepared to run successful, strategic campaigns for office that will bring them to victory.”
One of Many, a short film about the 2017 Women’s March, and an official selection of the upcoming 2020 International New York Film Festival, is seeking digital distribution. As the Trump era lurches to a close, and new rounds of protests occupy the streets, One of Many documents the women’s marches that occurred nationwide three-and-a-half years ago in opposition to Trump, and more broadly, to sexism, patriarchy, and racism.
One of Many documents the women’s marches that occurred nationwide three-and-a-half years ago in opposition to Trump, and more broadly, to sexism, patriarchy, and racism. (Image Credit: One of Many)
“The film captures the widespread, collective outrage that President Trump’s inauguration provoked while contextualizing it within historical human rights movements,” notes One of Many Executive Producer Jessica Good. The sixteen-minute documentary is directed by M.J. Bernier and debuted last fall at Atlanta’s Out on Film festival, one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ+ film festivals.
MILAN (May 20, 2020) — The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns imposed by the governments in countries around the world have intensified gender inequalities, including violence against women. Gucci, through its Chime for Change initiative, and the Kering Foundation have teamed to launch a new campaign to fund nonprofit organizations supporting women and girls around the world.
The Chime for Change Initiative will be working with Kering Foundation to increase funding for women and girls impacted by domestic violence in COVID. (Image credit: Chime for Change)
“Now more than ever is the time to join together to protect the health, safety and human rights of girls and women around the world,” said Salma Hayek Pinault, who co-founded Chime for Change in 2013 and is a board director of the Kering Foundation.
What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?
It’s more important to do what you truly believe in and makes you happy and excited, than what you think might look good on your resume. To a young woman in my field I would say: do the meaningful work that you enjoy doing, and trust that something good will come out of it.
2. What is your current greatest professional challenge?
The question is being asked all over the internet: why, oh why, are we following men?
For the sake of humanity, the only sensible thing to do right now seems to be to turn off the toxic male leaders, like literally stop broadcasting the President’s updates, and turn on the women leaders of the world who can get us through this crisis.
The Right Honourable Jacinda Ardern, 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand. (Photo Credit: Wellington Government, 2018)
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to pivot away from men’s leadership, especially here in the U.S. They are entrenched at the top, and seem to become more teflon as they ascend to higher levels of authority.
Why are women better leaders for this moment in human history? Let me count the layers of experience that result in women being the better leaders during COVID or any health crisis:
If you had the next $150,000 idea, would your job get in the way of making that idea a reality?
The Workers Lab is a funding outlet and think tank dedicated to finding real-world solutions for the problems workers face around the world. As the backbone of companies, countries, and economies, workers are the drivers of transformation in society, but they’re often the first to be cast aside during events like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Workers Lab recently announced an extension for the Spring 2020 Innovation Award.
In light of displacements and delays caused by COVID-19, The Workers Lab recently extended the application deadline for its Spring 2020 Innovation Fund award cycle to April 22. COVID impact has also led to the decision to cancel the Innovation Fund Finalist Showcase, typically held in San Francisco after each application cycle. This year, The Workers Lab is looking into virtual presentation options instead.
One small piece of good news about the COVID crisis is that there seems to be more awareness than ever about its gendered impacts. This piece in the New York Times, for example, discusses how women make up the majority of health care workers, and how, on top of that, they are more likely to take on the caregiving of sick people in their own families, and the care of children.
Texas Women’s Foundation has started a Resilience Fund to help address the COVID crisis for women in Texas. (Image credit: TWF)
There are lots of things we can do to mitigate these impacts, but it will take conscious effort to resist the pull toward harmful gender norms. More than ever, we need to defend women’s rightful place in leadership and decision-making to end the COVID crisis. Think about it: if we had more women’s leadership at the table right now, say, for example, if Hillary Clinton had become President, we might be taking a much different approach to addressing this crisis, one that recognizes the validity of science and the need for preventative measures in health care.
ReflectUS, the nonpartisan coalition of the nation’s leading women’s representation organizations, is pleased to announce the hire of Tiffany Gardner as the coalition’s new CEO.
Tiffany Gardner has been appointed as CEO of ReflectUS. (Image Credit: ReflectUS)
“Tiffany’s hire comes at a pivotal moment for the organization, and her leadership will help us capitalize on the heightened civic engagement of a presidential election year and advance the number of women in public office across America,” says Madalene Mielke, ReflectUS Board of Directors Chair and CEO of Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS).
Tiffany brings a decade of extensive international experience in human rights advocacy and domestic public interest. She has worked on women’s rights, human rights and grassroots organizing throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and the United States. She worked with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the United Nations International Law Commission and Human Rights Watch and recently was the co-founder and director of the One World Exchange Program for under-represented U.S. college students and organized international solidarity coalitions. She is a former Mergers & Acquisitions associate at the New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. She received a B.A. from Yale University, a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a LL.M. in human rights law from Columbia University Law School.
Time for a PW update about the future! We are now heading into our fourth year since our founding in January of 2017 here at Philanthropy Women. Starting and running PW has been a fascinating experience, and in an effort at radical business transparency, I’d like to fill you in on a little of the behind-the-scenes story of why we do what we do, and where we’re going.
Why Do We Do What We Do
Philanthropy Women was born out of my realization that very few people knew about the funders who have made gender equality a growing possibility in our world. Some 93% of these funders are women, and true to gender norms as women, they failed to promote their world-changing work.
Philanthropy Women celebrated its 3-year anniversary in January 2020. Where are we going from here?
This was a loss to society that I wanted to reconcile by showing what feminist givers looks like in real life. I also wanted to expand the definition of feminist giving to encompass a wide array of leaders at every level of society — from direct care workers to CEOs — who are giving their time, energy, and resources for the express purpose of seeing the world become more gender equal.
