Women Leaders Archives

Frances Sykes: Women in Nonprofit Leadership Deserve Equal Pay

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Frances Sykes, President of the Pascale Sykes Foundation. The Foundation partners with nonprofits that serve working, low income families to increase their stability — financially, in relationships and in well-being.

Frances P. Sykes is the President of the Pascale Sykes Foundation, which serves working, low-income families. (Image Credit: Pascale Sykes Foundation)

“Hope is setting a goal and moving toward that goal, taking steps toward the future. That’s what gets families and individuals through challenges of daily life and makes a difference in the community.” – Frances Sykes, President and CEO, Pascale Sykes Foundation

wiseHer Launches Coaching for Frontline Workers

Put yourself in the orthopedic shoes of a frontline worker in the midst of this crisis.

Imagine you’re a young hospital staffer, supporting a team of other frontline workers through something no one has experienced before. On top of the physical and mental demands of a regular day in the ER, now you have to handle the mental and emotional load of an ongoing pandemic, figure out how to keep your team safe with dwindling PPE, and support the emotional needs of a group of people pushed past their mental endurance.

wiseHer launches coaching — *Kathryn Rose is the founder of wiseHer, an advisory platform for women in business. (**Image Credit**: wiseHer)*

When it’s your job to support the rest of the team, where can you turn for support of your own?

Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models (Liveblog)

At 2:00 on May 14, more than 100 attendees gathered for “Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models,” Philanthropy Women’s first-ever webinar.

Joined by Marianne Schnall, Surina Khan, and Emily Nielsen Jones, our Editor-in-Chief Kiersten Marek sought to explore the questions surrounding giving and COVID: how can a gender lens improve funding and make funding more accessible?

Marianne Schnall on Feminist Giving to Address COVID

To begin, Marianne Schnall, Founder of Feminist.com and What Will It Take?, took the lead to discuss what she sees happening in terms of the feminist approaches to addressing COVID. Schnall draws on her perspective from the media and activism space.

Greengrants’ Laura García on the Gift Feminism Gave Her

Editor’s Note: This interview in the Feminist Giving IRL series features Laura García, President and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund. Greengrants connects grassroots activists in under-served and under-funded communities with the resources and mentorship they need to fight for environmental justice, water rights, healthy ecosystems, and economic empowerment for women and families.

laura garcia — Laura García, President and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund. (Photo Credit: Global Greengrants Fund)

1. What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

When we are young, many of us begin our careers feeling insecure and that we are not valuable professionals in our workplaces. This insecurity has a lot to do with an organizational culture that exploits people who are young and inexperienced, without recognizing their value.

Influential Women Show Solidarity for DV Survivors in COVID

Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, Megan Rapinoe, Iman, Sheryl Sandberg, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amy Schumer, Awkwafina, Viola Davis, Mariska Hargitay, Patty Jenkins and More Pledge Support and Funds

LOS ANGELES, May 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — According to The United Nations Population Fund, six months of lockdowns could result in an additional 31 million cases of gender-based violence across the globe. The Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), CARE, and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) launched Together For Her last month to deploy funds, address the dire need for resources, and support the global response against domestic violence amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stacy’s Rise 2020 Opens Applications for Female Founders

If you’re a fan of hummus and veggie dip, you’re probably a fan of Stacy’s Pita Chips, too. However, like most businesses, the snack brand wasn’t always a familiar fixture in grocery stores. A combination of smart advertising tactics, mentoring, and financial support brought the female-founded brand from its origins in sandwich carts to its place in grocery stores (and our pantries!).

In honor of the brand’s rise to fame, Stacy and Frito-Lay partnered to create the Stacy’s Rise Project, a grant program designed to elevate female-founded brands. The 2020 application cycle is now open, the fourth in the Stacy’s Rise program, and it offers $10,000 grants to 15 women-owned businesses.

Grantmakers for Girls of Color Gives One Million for COVID-19

The Love Is Healing COVID-19 Response Fund is providing one million dollars in grants to resource organizations and efforts addressing the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls, fem(mes), and nonbinary/gender expansive youth of color. The grant-making initiative represents Grantmakers for Girls of Color’s first grantmaking effort as an independent entity.

(Photo Credit:) *Credit: Grantmakers for Girls of Color*

Monique W. Morris, Ed.D., newly appointed executive director of Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4CC), notes, “In this moment and beyond, philanthropy must address the lack of diversity, quality, and responsiveness of capital directed to support girls of color at the intersection of their complex identities and experiences.” Morris adds, “Even before this pandemic, girls and gender expansive youth of color have faced interlocking forms of oppression that prevent their full participation in our country’s future.”

Funding the World We Want to See: Sonal Sachdev Patel

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Sonal Sachdev Patel, writer, activist and CEO of GMSP Foundation.

Sonal Sachdev Patel, CEO of God My Silent Partner Foundation (GMSP) Foundation. (Photo courtesy Sonal Sachdev Patel)

1. What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

So much. I wish I had known to go straight to the grassroots. The civil society leaders on the frontlines know what their communities need and know how to deliver it. But they’re constrained by a funding environment that is too often inflexible, impatient and imperialistic in terms of who drives the agenda. When we started in 2006, we were giving project-based funds. After listening to our local partners, we shifted to unrestricted funding.

Lucina Di Meco: Why We Need More Women Making Decisions

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Lucina Di Meco, Senior Director of Gender Equality and Girls’ Education at Room to Read and author of #ShePersisted. Women, Politics & Power in the New Media World.

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?

May 14 Webinar: Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models

What can feminist giving do to help alleviate the COVID-19 crisis?

We’re seeking to answer this question in “Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models,” the first ever webinar event from Philanthropy Women. Join Editor-in-Chief Kiersten Marek and special guests Marianne Schnall, Surina Khan, and Emily Nielsen Jones to discuss key strategies to support women and girls through COVID.

COVID 19 is presenting humanity with extreme challenges and hardships, and particularly for women and girls, the impacts are, and will be, profound. This 45 minute session will feature expert insights on how to apply a gender lens not only to your funding, but also to your everyday life in COVID, in order to improve our collective response to this unprecedented health crisis.

Category: Women Leaders