July 23 Webinar: Lack of Funding for Women & Girls of Color

Join us at 2:00 PM ET on Thursday, July 23rd for the next iteration of our new Philanthropy Women webinar series: “Lack of Funding for Women and Girls of Color: What Donors Can Do.”

The Ms. Foundation for Women has produced a new report showing how rarely funders show up for women and girls of color. In this webinar, we bring three expert opinions in to discuss how to increase funding for this population, both in the United States and globally. Guests for this webinar are Roz Lee, Vice President of Strategy and Programs for the Ms. Foundation for Women, Tessie San Martin, PhD, President and CEO, Plan International USA, and Suzanne Lerner, Donor Activists and President and Co-Founder, Michael Stars Clothing.

As a critical follow-up to our last webinar, “Funding to End Violence Against Women of Color,” this conversation promises to be a sincere and poignant discussion of the ways feminist funding has historically failed women and girls of color — and more importantly, the ways today’s donors can step up to fix the problem.

In a new addition to our webinar series, we’ll be raffling off a print from Kiersten Marek Artwork: Entry into the raffle is automatic with your event registration, but you must be present to win!

Attendance is limited to the first 100 registrations, so be sure to snag your seat before they fill up!

Meet the Speakers

Roz Lee

Image Credit: Ms. Foundation for Women

Roz Lee has dedicated her career to advancing racial, gender, economic and LGBTQ justice through philanthropy, community organizing, legislative advocacy, and popular education. Currently, Roz serves as Vice President of Strategy and Programs at the Ms. Foundation for Women, where she leads efforts to invest in and strengthen the capacity of women-led movements, particularly by women and girls-of-color, to advance meaningful social, political and economic change in the lives of all women and girls.

As Director of Social Justice Initiatives at the Arcus Foundation, she designed and implemented innovative global and domestic philanthropic approaches to advancing strategies at the intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. She helped develop the Global Trans Initiative, a groundbreaking $20 million multiyear endeavor to improve the lives of transgender people. Roz was a founding co-chair of the Out in the South Initiative, a five-year project with the goal of leveraging $60 million in support of LGBTQ communities in the southern United States. She serves on the steering committee of Grantmakers for Southern Progress, a network and learning community of southern-based and national funders committed to advancing structural change and equitable outcomes in the southern United States.

Roz is the first-ever Professor of Practice at the Alice Paul Center/Gender Studies and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She volunteers for numerous organizations committed to advancing racial equity, gender justice and LGBTQ equality. Roz lives with her spouse and daughter in Harlem.

Tessie San Martin

Image Credit: Plan International USA

Dr. Tessie San Martin is the CEO and President of Plan International USA. She has overseen the inclusion of young people in Plan’s strategy and governance structures, including growing and strengthening Plan International USA’s youth advisory board, a yearly youth leadership academy, and a dedicated seat on the organization’s board of directors. Under her leadership, Plan’s portfolio of U.S. government funded work has doubled in size and expanded to include grants from the Department of Labor, Department of State, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. She has been a forceful advocate for aid effectiveness, serving as a co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), and on the board of InterAction, The Spoon Foundation, and Friends of Publish What You Fund.

Prior to joining Plan International USA as CEO and President, Dr. San Martin served as Group Vice President for International at Abt Associates, a consulting company providing research and technical assistance expertise on a wide range of social and economic policy issues. While at Abt Associates, she helped triple the company’s international development portfolio in less than five years.

Dr. San Martin previously worked as the Director for the Operations Group of the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Before joining MIGA, she was a partner in IBM Consulting Services (formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting Services); an adjunct professor at Florida International University in Miami; president of a consulting company in Washington, DC that specialized in strategic planning; and senior faculty advisor for a management institute in the Dominican Republic.

Dr. San Martin has a doctorate in political economy and government from Harvard University, a master’s in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two daughters. She is on the road frequently, traveling between Plan’s offices in the U.S. and abroad. But, she always finds time to go running, and as time permits, enjoys tennis and baking (and eating) bread.

Suzanne Lerner

Image Credit: Ms. Foundation for Women

Suzanne Lerner is an activist entrepreneur with a primary focus on gender & racial equality, and the economic empowerment of women & girls. In 1986, she co-founded clothing company Michael Stars of which she now serves as President. Her second career is philanthropy and giving back to communities both domestically and internationally through personal grants, impact investments, as well as the Michael Stars Foundation.

Born and raised in Chicago, she saw firsthand the racial injustice in her own backyard. Her commitment to this issue grew when she spent five years traveling the world in her early twenties, and observed the inequality that existed, especially towards women. Knowing that we’re all equal citizens of this world, Suzanne has made it her mission to support gender & racial rights both in her personal and business life.

Suzanne is a frequent contributor and speaker on the topics of philanthropy, achieving racial & gender justice, and running a socially conscious business. She was honored by the Ms. Foundation with their ‘Woman of Vision’ award in 2015, and was chosen as a 2018 ‘21 Leaders for the 21st Century’ by Women’s eNews.

Suzanne sits on the board of the Ms. Foundation, an organization dedicated to building women of color’s collective power for social, economic, and reproductive justice. She formerly served on the board of Women Thrive Alliance, which worked to empower women through grassroots advocacy initiatives. In addition, she is a board member of the ACLU of Southern California Foundation, and is an advisory board member of Prosperity Catalyst, ERA Coalition, Children Mending Hearts, and A Call To Men. She is an active member of both Women Moving Millions and Women’s Donor Network.

Suzanne resides in Los Angeles, CA with her #feministpup @ms_simba.

Register now for “Lack of Funding for Women and Girls of Color: What Donors Can Do.”


Related:

Liveblog: Funding to End Violence Against Women of Color

New Initiatives Launch for Women and Girls of Color in DC and Beyond

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

Author: Maggie May

Maggie May is a small business owner, author, and story-centric content strategist. A Maryland transplant by way of Florida, DC, Ireland, Philadelphia, and -- most recently -- Salt Lake City, she has a passion for finding stories and telling them the way they're meant to be told.

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