Category: Women Leaders

Love is What’s Needed: Justine Bevilacqua on Everett

Justine Bevilacqua, Director of Video Program, Marketing and Fund Development, Everett

“Unconditional love for people is what’s needed,” says Justine Bevilacqua. She speaks with a calmness that somehow also conveys how strongly she feels about this. “Of course, you have to draw the line sometimes,” she adds, “and there are bad people in the world, but just seeing people as humans, I definitely think the world needs more of that.”

Bevilacqua was 3 years old when her maternal grandmother Dorothy Jungels and several of Dorothy’s children acquired the carriage house that would become a place dedicated to the arts and social justice in Providence, Rhode Island. Doing most of the renovation themselves, they turned the neglected building into a studio and theater and named it Everett, after Everett Weeden, a fellow artist and family friend.

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Ana Morales: Building on her Family Legacy with Philanthropy in Mexico

Ana Morales, Philanthropist and Founding Member of Maverick Collective

When you meet Ana Morales you are immediately struck by her charm. She is warm, funny, approachable, accessible.

But if you stop there, you’d be missing out on the full picture. Morales is also a philanthropist who is constantly working to understand the world and give back.  And given how fearlessly she approaches this mission, she is a great study in how women are changing the face of global philanthropy.

Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Morales credits her interest in community and social change to her grandfather, Roberto, a man who epitomized giving back.

“My grandfather was an entrepreneur. Starting at the age of five he shined shoes and sold vegetables,” said Morales, in a recent interview with Philanthropy Women. “He believed in business as a force for change and he believed in community.”

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Challenging Norms and Beliefs with Gender-Lens Grantmaking

Illustration by Pierluigi Longo.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Stanford Social Innovation Review and is co-authored by Emily Nielsen Jones, Musimbi Kanyoro & Neera Nundy. 

Philanthropists and for-profit investors are increasingly using a gender lens to screen opportunities for funding social change as awareness of the need continues to grow. Funders now take it for granted that empowering women is a linchpin of global advancement. Yet report cards marking the 20th anniversary of the passage of the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995—a blueprint created by 189 governments for advancing women’s rights in 12 areas—show that progress toward gender equality has been painfully slow.

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Gloria Feldt: Take Risks and Build Big for Social Change

Talking to Gloria Feldt is like talking to someone who has been through just about everything as a feminist leader, and yet somehow still finds the strength to tackle ongoing social and political challenges. The word unstoppable comes to mind.

gloria feldt
Gloria Feldt, Founder of Women Take the Lead and former Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1996 to 2005.

In 1996, People Magazine captured her phenomenal early career in a story called  The Voice of Experience. Indeed. And Feldt has just the kind of experience we like to talk about here at Philanthropy Women: experience that mobilizes funding for big visions.

Feldt married her high school sweetheart at age 15 and had 3 children by the time she was 20. She began her professional career as a Head Start teacher for five years, and went back to school as a young mother. In the process of writing a paper for a science class, Feldt chose to profile the local Planned Parenthood affiliate in West Texas, interviewing the local President, nurse practitioners, and board members.

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Some Words of Advice for the Next President from Jacki Zehner  

Editor’s Note: The following post is from Jacki Zehner.

On January 29th, 2009, a mere nine days after being sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It was his first piece of legislation as President, and it set the stage for a presidency that has been visibly committed to equal rights for men and women.

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Since that historic day over seven years ago, Obama has reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, signed into law the Affordable Care Act, created the Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and the White House Council on Women and Girls, issued an executive order that mandated federal contractors to publish pay data according to gender and race in order to combat the wage gap, and this May, the White House will host The United State of Women, a three day summit in Washington DC that will tackle gender inequality across a range of issues, including education, health, leadership, and economic empowerment.

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Meet the 50 Most Powerful Women in U.S. Philanthropy  

Two years ago, we published a list of the 15 most powerful women in U.S. philanthropy. The idea for that article emerged because we were struck by how many women are involved in philanthropy at a high level—and equally struck by how little attention they tend to receive. In particular, while the spouses of billionaires often play a lead role in charting a couple’s giving, the spotlight usually falls on their better-known husbands when major gifts are made. Not only is this unfair, but it misses the real story of how today’s big philanthropy is unfolding as new mega-donors enter the scene—with women in the lead.

Source: Meet the 50 Most Powerful Women in U.S. Philanthropy by Kiersten Marek and David Callahan

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Path to Empowerment: A Women’s Fdn Focused on Economics

Nearly every week at Inside Philanthropy I meet another woman leader who shows me a way that women’s funds and foundations are impacting the philanthropy landscape, and breaking down barriers to equality for women and girls. This week I talked to Roslyn Dawson Thompson, President and CEO of the Dallas Women’s Foundation (now the Texas Women’s Foundation) and the chair of the board of directors of the Women’s Funding Network.

Much of our discussion was about the role of economic security in empowering women. “If women are not able to achieve economic security then it has massive implications for workforce development and the economics of every state and the country overall,” said Thompson.

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