Category: Women in Business

Time and Space to Create: Ways Funders Can Help Women Artists

Artist Kathy Hodge in her studio. (Image credit: Kathy Hodge)

Being a working artist is demanding. Most artists hold other jobs to support themselves, which limits their studio time.

“It’s a cycle. You don’t have the time to create the work, so you can’t create enough work to sell to support yourself financially, so you need to have the job, which takes up your time. It’s hard to get out of that loop,” says Rhode Island artist Kathy Hodge. Hodge is an award-winning artist with many exhibitions and shows to her name who also served as the Artist in Residence at multiple U.S. national parks. Because the gender gap is still prevalent in the art world, as in many sectors and professions, women artists like Hodge are in particular need of support.

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Female Film Force: Bumble’s Grants to Women Behind the Camera

Feminist dating site Bumble is making grants to women filmmakers with its Female Film Force competition. (Image Credit: Bumble)

Bumble—the self-proclaimed feminist dating, lifestyle and career app—recently announced the five winners of its 2019 “Female Film Force” competition.

The competition, now in its second year, provides grants to female filmmakers in France, Germany, Ireland and the UK. Female Film Force received over 1,300 pitches by teams of women filmmakers (writers, directors, or producers) and awarded £20,000 (about $25,000 USD) to each winner.

The initial candidates had submitted their applications in March, and were subsequently reduced to a short list, following which ten teams pitched a film industry panel, and then that group was winnowed to the five victors. In addition to the grant, the winners will receive support and guidance from industry experts; the completed films will be released in January 2020.

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With Support of Founding Sponsors, WE Takes On Nonprofit Structure

Jackie Mattox, president and founder of Women in Electronics (Photo Credit: WE)

In 2017, what was planned as a 45-minute lunch turned into an hours-long planning session as Jackie Mattox and Monica Highfill, later in collaboration with Amy Keller, laid the groundwork for what would become the First Annual Women in Electronics Leadership Conference.

Now, with the support of its founding sponsors, Women in Electronics (WE) is taking the next leap into the philanthropic field with its establishment as a nonprofit organization, dedicated to empowering women in the electronics industry.

“At Arrow, we see the incredible benefits of being inclusive,” said Alan Bird, president of the global supply chain at Arrow Electronics, one of WE’s founding sponsors. “We are proud to be helping Women in Electronics fulfill its mission to expand inclusion throughout the industry through awareness, networking and training.”

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Ten Companies Join UN Foundation to Improve Women’s Lives

UN Foundation
Katja Iversen, President and CEO of Women Deliver, speaks at the Women Deliver conference held in early June, 2019, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau look on. (Image credit: Women Deliver 2019)

Women comprise a large and growing percentage of the global workforce, yet they often work under unhealthy and difficult conditions, including harassment and violence, that are damaging to them, and to their families and communities. In textile, garment and shoe manufacturing, as well as flower farming and tea, coffee, and cocoa processing, women comprise 50 to 80 percent of the workforce. Many of these female workers are underpaid and suffer from pervasive gender discrimination.

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Benny Bonsu and GiveMeSport Team Up To Boost Women’s Sports Media

Benny Bonsu, award-winning sports journalist and advocate, who founded the Girls in Sports Foundation, will be Head of Women’s Sports for GiveMeSport. (Photo credit: Benny Bonsu, Twitter)

It’s another win for women in sports media!

On May 29, 2019, GiveMeSport announced their decision to appoint Benny Bonsu as the new Head of Women’s Sport, building the foundation for the company’s new media outlet dedicated to covering women in sports.

GiveMeSport (GMS), a division of Bragg Gaming, is an online sports media outlet that provides real-time news and interviews for sports fans, focusing on exclusive content like interviews with players and managers. GiveMeSport Women will be GMS’s latest foray into female-focused media management, dedicated to complete coverage of women in sports.

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Canada and Equality Fund Commit $300 Mil CAD to Women’s Rights

A new initiative that crosses public/private lines, The Equality Fund, has formed in Canada to address women’s rights in some of the world’s poorest countries. (Image Credit: Equality Fund)

The Canadian government recently pledged $300 CAD (about $225 million U.S.) toward improving women’s rights and economic security in the developing world. Maryam Monsef, who serves as Canada’s Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality, made the announcement on June 2 ahead of the Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver, where she is a speaker.

The Canadian government is partnering with the Equality Fund to administer the funds. The Equality Fund is a consortium of Canadian and international organizations that is funding efforts to improve outcomes for women and support gender equality globally.

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Vodafone’s June Sugiyama Unveils New Mission for Women and Girls

Vodafone Americas Foundation celebrates ten years of winners from its Wireless Innovation Project. (Photo Credit: Vodafone)

The empowerment of women is going to require more intentional efforts to close the gender gap across all sectors of society. In the technology industry, corporate philanthropy has the potential to play a significant role in driving solutions to gender inequality.

On May 8th, 2019, the Vodafone Americas Foundation announced its new commitment to empowering women and girls through technology, utilizing new corporate philosophy, employee support, and a partnership with MIT Solve.

This is not Vodafone’s first foray into philanthropy: for the past ten years, the Foundation has committed itself to transforming communities around the world with technology solutions.

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More Than Survivors: Developing the Next Generation of Tech Workers

The Foundation for Gender Equality is launching a new initiative aimed at helping female survivors of gender-based violence learn tech skills. (Image Credit: The Foundation for Gender Equality)

The Foundation for Gender Equality aims to foster opportunities and remove obstacles for women and girls facing inequity, and its latest initiative targets female survivors of violence and sexual abuse with a program that teaches them tech skills. The goal is to enable victims to go beyond simple survival to earning a living wage. The Westport, Connecticut-based non-profit, which was founded in 2016 by Richard and Jill Fitzburgh and Theresa Boylan, has partnered with Tech Up for Women to develop the “Give Back” program to achieve this goal.

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How Queen Latifah Gets Women Behind the Camera

Queen Latifah in sunglasses
Queen Latifah in 2008 (credit: Affiliate Summit on Flickr, CC 2.0)

Minority directors are underrepresented in film at a degree of three to one, while women are underrepresented at a rate of seven to one, according to UCLA’s 2018 Hollywood Diversity Report. There is clearly room for progress here in terms of equality, especially for women who are black or of another minority identity. Rapper, singer, actress, label president, author, real estate developer and entrepreneur Queen Latifah is out to shift the scales; she recently teamed up with Tribeca Studios and Marc Pritchard, Procter and Gamble’s chief brand officer, to launch the Queen Collective (TQC). TQC has a goal of “accelerating gender and racial equality behind the camera.” Two inaugural documentaries backed by TQC premiered in April 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival, and they are now streaming on HULU.

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Women Missing From Research on Fake News and Politics

(Image Credit: Getty Images)

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) has awarded its first round of “Social Media and Democracy Research Grants.” The 12 projects provide “systematic scholarly access to privacy-protected Facebook data to study the platform’s impact on democracy worldwide.” The SSRC is an independent, international nonprofit led by Alondra Nelson, a Columbia University Professor of Sociology and inaugural Dean of Social Science for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Facebook data will be used by researchers to better understand the role of social media on politics and society, notably the spread of disinformation and fake news, and how social media users attach themselves to particular online narratives. Several of the projects analyze how social media has affected particular political events, including recent elections in Italy, Chile, and Germany, as well as public opinion in Taiwan. The projects also examine the relationship between Facebook and traditional news media, and delve into the complex question of what constitutes “fake news,” and how it can be distinguished from more fact-based reporting.

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