Elect Women by Funding Them at Every Level: Paula Hodges

I was sitting in my office, wincing at the mid-afternoon sun bouncing off the gold dome perched atop the New Hampshire State House five years ago. The slant of the light created a glare that made it hard for me to look interested in the droning of a DC consultant who had cornered me there. He had scheduled meetings with operatives like me to talk about something “big” and “early” in the First in the Nation presidential cycle in New Hampshire – a $15 million spend to “draft Elizabeth Warren.”

elect women
Photo by chloe s. on Unsplash

Warren had just been elected to the U.S. Senate three years prior. His idea was nested in a paid and earned media schtick. He had donors. He had ideas. I was the lone progressive infrastructure staffer who had just gotten a crash course on running the state’s super PAC coalition to elect democrats up and down the ballot. I had seen a glimpse of the battlefield ahead and could have cared less about his ideas, mainly because he wasn’t actually looking for feedback.

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Texas Women’s Foundation is 100 Percent Invested in Women

The Texas Women’s Foundation (TWF) recently announced that 100 percent of its $36 million dollars in financial assets are now invested in a “gendered impact” portfolio.

The gender impact strategy seeks a strong return on investment while having the investment itself—and not just the return that accrues to Texas Women’s Foundation—benefit women and girls. This approach makes TWF the first and only women’s fund or foundation to move all of its financial assets—which include endowments, operating investments and donor-advised funds—into gendered impact.

texas women's foundation
The Texas Women’s Foundation recently announced the gender-alignment of 100% of its assets. (Image Credit: TWF)

“We hope that we can inspire others to become part of what is now a global movement around impact investing,” says Roslyn Dawson Thompson, Texas Women’s Foundation president and CEO. “Specifically for women’s funds and foundations, we can demonstrate how, by mission-aligning 100% of our assets with our philanthropy, we can powerfully accelerate the change we seek in the world.”

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Blow to Gender Equality as UN Curtails CSW Due to Coronavirus

NEW YORK, March 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Curtailing a major United Nations meeting on gender equality over coronavirus fears could be a blow to progress in women’s rights and needs to be rescheduled to include diverse voices, participants and observers said on Monday.

CSW was scaled by to a one-day meeting due to the global outbreak of coronavirus. (Image credit: UN Commission on the Status of Women)

The annual two-week U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) promoting equality and women’s empowerment was scaled back on Monday to just one-day next week due the global outbreak.

In its abbreviated version, the CSW will hold a procedural meeting on March 9 – the day after International Women’s Day – to adopt a draft political declaration marking 25 years since the historic women’s rights declaration signed in Beijing.

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Slaight Family Fdn Launches $15 Million for Global Women and Girls

OTTAWA, 3 March 2020 – The Slaight Family Foundation will launch a $15 M Global Initiative for Women and Girls which will be donated to 15 international organizations around the world to mark International Women’s Day. The Initiative will improve the lives of women and girls in developing countries around the world. CARE Canada will partner with The Slaight Family Foundation in Somalia.

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Gary Slaight of the Slaight Family Foundation (Photo Credit: Slaight Family Foundation)

The Slaight Family Foundation will support CARE Canada’s work in Somalia to innovate and improve menstrual hygiene management for school-age girls, many of whom have experienced female genital mutilation. The donation will help to develop and test new solutions with established women and girls’ groups, train women to produce hygiene products locally, improve school sanitation facilities, and increase community awareness.

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Alliance for Women in Media Announces New Board

The Alliance for Women in Media and its Foundation (AWM/F) are pleased to announce their 2020 National Board of Directors.

The Alliance for Women in Media recently announced is 2020 National Board of Directors. (Image credit: Alliance for Women in Media)

New to the AWM Board are: Katina Arnold, vice president, corporate communications, ESPN; Abby Auerbach, executive vice president, chief communications officer, TVB; Michelle Ray, executive director, The Walter Kaitz Foundation; Sandra Rice, senior vice president, outreach and strategic partnerships, Center for Talent Innovation; and, Esther Mireya Tejeda, senior vice president, head of corporate communications & PR, Entercom.

Officers of the board have been announced as Keisha Sutton-James, Chair, vice president & CEO, Sutton Button Productions LLC, serving as chair, Heather Cohen, executive vice president, The Weiss Agency, serving as incoming chair, Christine Travaglini, president, Katz Radio Group, serving as immediate past chair, Josie Thomas, CBS, serving as treasurer, and Annie Howell, co-founder and managing partner, The Punch Point Group, serving as incoming treasurer. 

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Rachel’s Network and People Over Petro Battle Industry Giants

Ecofeminist funder Rachel’s Network is collaborating with the People over Petro Coalition in combating the petrochemical industry in the Ohio River Valley.

rachels network
Rachel’s Network is collaborating with the People over Petro Coalition to increase civic engagement.

The Ohio River forms at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, and flows southwest nearly 1,000 miles to southern Illinois where it meets the Mississippi River. Several corporations, notably Shell, have projects in the works to produce plastics and chemicals in the Ohio River Valley, and have already begun building ethane cracker plants, pipelines, storage facilities, and other dirty infrastructure. These projects will foul the air and water, exposing residents of parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to toxic emissions, sending health costs from just three proposed plants into the billions over the plants’ lifespan. Moreover, such production exacerbates climate change and make local economies vulnerable to the boom-bust cycles typical of the energy industry.

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Verizon Creates Future Fund with $5 Million for Women in Film

Verizon “Future Fund” supports females in entertainment and technology

LOS ANGELES, CA (February 11, 2020) – Today, Verizon announced the creation of the Future Fund, a $5 million dollar commitment to support new and emerging female talent across entertainment and technology. In addition to funding, Verizon will provide Future Fund recipients with access to state-of-the-art production facilities, including the Verizon Media RYOT 5G Studio in Los Angeles and Verizon 5G Labs, as well as distribution opportunities across the Verizon Media ecosystem, which reaches nearly 900 million global consumers per month.

Verizon recently announced a new philanthropic effort called the Future Fund, which will support more women film makers. (Image Credit: Verizon Corporate Giving)

In addition to introducing the Future Fund live on stage at The 2020 MAKERS Conference in Los Angeles, Verizon Chief Marketing Officer Diego Scotti named the first project to receive its support: a feature documentary called NOT DONE. This film will examine how feminist change makers of today are carrying the torch and making real progress toward true equality.

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Bloomberg’s Billions and Why it Matters to Women’s Giving

Editor’s Note: This post is not intended as an endorsement for any candidate for public office. Philanthropy Women is partially funded by fiscal sponsorship through the Women’s Funding Network, a 501c(3) organization, and therefore cannot make any political endorsements.

Many of us have probably read the articles about Bloomberg’s multiple lawsuits involving sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment for women. This post isn’t about that, and that topic is deserving of its own discussion in feminist giving circles. This post is about Bloomberg’s philanthropy for women, and the way his billions impact not just gender equality movements, but also environmental movements and movements for racial justice.

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Platforms for Good: Summer Sanders and Plan International USA

On February 20, 2020, global development organization Plan International USA announced its newest Ambassador, Summer Sanders Schlopy.

An Olympic athlete and most decorated U.S. swimmer in the 1992 Olympics, Summer is known for using her platform for good. She rose to precedence as a member of Stanford’s swimming team, taking on the 1992 National Championship and Olympic Games. In Barcelona, Summer became the most decorated U.S. swimmer with one bronze, one silver, and two gold medals.

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Summer Sanders Schlopy joins Plan International USA as their newest celebrity ambassador. (Photo Credit: Outside Online)

In the early 1990s, Summer turned to television, commentating the NCAA Swimming Championships for CBS Sports, and hosting MTV’s surf-and-sun competition show Sandblast. Her numerous television accolades include correspondent, co-host, and host for a range of sporting events, TV series, and competition shows.

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New YouTube Documentary Follows Gender Justice Pioneers

(Feb. 20, 2020) Today YouTube and Global Fund for Women unveiled the official trailer for “Fundamental. Gender Justice. No Exceptions” – a brand new 5 episode documentary series that follows dynamic activists from five countries who are disrupting the status quo and radically altering the course of history.

Global Fund for Women and Youtube recently announced a new documentary series focused on gender justice pioneers. (Image Credit: Global Fund for Women)

What does it really look like to be a feminist leader in 2020? Partnering with Refinery29 on the series, the first episode of “Fundamental” will launch on March 4, 2020 on Refinery29’s official YouTube channel and YouTube.com/Learning.

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