Today is Women’s Equality Day – the anniversary of the day that women finally won the right to vote in 1920.  In a year when a woman was a serious contender for the Presidency and another woman is Speaker of the House, we should take a moment to celebrate how much has changed thanks to the work and sacrifices of the suffragettes.

But when that moment is over, we need to start having a serious conversation about how far things still have to go.

Ironically, today is also the day that the Census Bureau releases the annual poverty statistics. It spells out just how unequal things still are for women when it comes to dollars and cents.

Single-women headed families are still far more likely to be in poverty than families headed by married-couples or single men.  More than 28 percent of families headed by a woman live in poverty.  In fact, of the 7.6 million families living in poverty, 4.1 million (well over half) are headed by single-women.

This has consequences not only for the women themselves, but for their children as well.  Between 2006 and 2007, the poverty rate for children increased. And, children living in women-headed families are far more likely to be poor. Forty-three percent of children under 18 living with a single mother were living in poverty and 54 percent of children under six living with a single mother were living in poverty as well.

What is one of the major reasons that women are poorer than men?

The fact is that women still earn less than men. In 2007, women earned 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man. 

This is the smallest the wage gap has ever been in history. So, let’s recognize it for what it is – a small step in the right direction.  But, it is a very small step. The reality is that the wage gap has barely increased in the past 20 years.  In 1983, the wage gap was 19.9 percent.  Today it is 22 cents.

So, to honor Women’s Equality Day, every person reading this blog should go out and demand that all candidates for office champion laws and programs that will assist women to have jobs that pay enough that they can support their families.  We need bold leaders if we are going to address the big issues like the wage gap and the poverty rate for women.

I know that The Women’s Foundation community is filled with the strong, visionary women that we need to get this job done.

Sharon Levin is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Major Events and Policy Advocacy.

I always knew the Women’s Foundation’s grantmaking process was rigorous, but it wasn’t until I joined the Open Door Capacity Fund Committee that learned why it is so successful in identifying the most deserving organizations and in holding each of them accountable for the greatest possible impact in their community.

My first round on the Open Door Capacity Fund Committee was this past spring, and I’ve been reflecting on it lately since we’re about to head into another round in a few weeks–what will be my second as a committee member. 

The committee makes relatively small grants to existing Grantee Partners for capacity building.  Because the applicants have already been vetted by The Women’s Foundation, I figured the process would be somewhat relaxed.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Each organization that applied for a grant was asked to provide detailed information about the history and operation of the organization, its governance, financials and the project for which the money would be used.  Each member of the committee was then assigned to do a detailed evaluation of the information provided and present that analysis at a committee meeting in which all members assessed and questioned the organization, the information provided and the merit of the project proposed.

Next, site visits were set up and two members of the Open Door Committee met with members of senior management at the applicant organization’s headquarters to see the operation first-hand and discuss the committee’s findings, any reservations and questions.  Detailed site visit evaluations were then completed and the committee mets one last time to make final decisions on the grants.

It was so inspiring to me how hard this committee works to ensure that each donor dollar is devoted to the worthiest, most vibrant organizations and the projects that would make the greatest difference.

Cathy Isaacson is a member of The Women’s Foundation’s board of directors and serves on the Open Door Capacity Fund Committee.  She is also a member of Washington 100.

The Open Door Capacity Fund is now accepting proposals from eligible Grantee Partners.

I was thrilled to open the Washington Business Journal last week to see the work that we’re doing to form a collaborative around the issue of child care and early education in our region highlighted!  (To view the article online, click here.  Or, for a PDF, click here.)

Seeing the article inspired me to offer a bit more detail about our work on the collaborative and the issues around child care and early education that are impacting the region, and particularly low-income families throughout the region–many of them headed by single mothers.

Research shows that young children (ages 0 to 5) need a strong social, emotional and intellectual foundation to succeed in school. Parents and caregivers have the responsibility to ensure young children get off to a strong start and establish healthy patterns for life-long learning. Young children who enter kindergarten without this foundation for learning are more likely to face significant academic challenges than peers who come prepared.

Quality early care and education can successfully close this “preparation gap,” while facilitating the economic security and long-term financial success of low-income families by supporting parents in the workforce, and by preparing the workforce of the future to meet the needs of the regional business community.

The Women’s Foundation established the Early Care and Education Collaborative (ECEC) to meet these pressing social and economic needs by focusing on improved access to quality early care and education for low-income families in the Washington metropolitan area. A multi-year, multi-million dollar collective funding effort, the ECEC is supported and directed by corporate funders and local and national foundations. Members of the ECEC believe that strategic collaborative efforts can create meaningful change in the early care and education field by improving the quality of services and influencing public decisions.

The ECEC’s mission is threefold: To increase the capacity and institutional stability of the early care and education programs in the region, enable these entities to develop and manage their resources more effectively, and to improve early care and education programs through grantmaking, training and technical assistance.

In keeping with this mission, ECEC’s goals are to:

1.  Encourage and strengthen partnership(s) among early care and education practitioners and key stakeholders.
2.  Support changes in the early care and education programs that will improve learning and ensure the overall quality of care among the very young (ages 0 to 5).
3.  Promote early care and education programs working towards long-term sustainable systemic reforms.
4.  Strengthen the capacity of early care and education professionals by investing in training and technical assistance for Grantee Partners.
5.  Invest in evaluation to ensure the investments and programs have the desired impact.

The ECEC will do so by funding programs or capacity building efforts to enhance the overall scope and effectiveness of the quality of services, which could include professional development, assessment, quality assurance and accreditation and public education and advocacy efforts affecting the early care and education field.

Grant recipients will be limited to organizations working in the District of Columbia, Arlington County, City of Alexandria, Fairfax County, Prince George’s County, and Montgomery County. They will be chosen based on a demonstrated ability to support long-term sustainable early care and education efforts.

For more information, feel free to contact me at hchung@wawf.org.

Hye Sook Chung is The Woman’s Foundation’s consultant on the Early Child Care and Education Collaborative.

I frequently ponder and analyze various issues affecting women, and the lives of women in general.  How far we have come over the last few decades, how grand the numerous obstacles that still hinder us are, what the plentiful definitions of feminism are and how women choose to adopt them.

But lately, my mind has been on a different spectrum of women, namely older women. Specifically, I’ve been thinking more and more about services for older women- or the lack thereof. I don’t really know why, or if there was a specific event that triggered this novel introspection, but I became curious, and began asking myself what services are available for elderly women, what are their needs, and how do their needs differ from those of younger women?

It’s easy, for me at least, to focus on helping young girls and middle-aged women.  I think I’ve always had an ability to conjure up images of little girls, young adults, and middle-aged women when I am doing work around issues specially related to women, or analyzing “women’s issues.”   When I read success stories on women working their way out of economic poverty, landing better jobs, getting landmark promotions, or something of the sort, I generally picture someone in their twenties, thirties or forties.

But now, a change has come. I visualize women like my mom. I wonder about the lives of female baby boomers.

What happens with older women recently released from prison?  What sort of assistance is readily available for them to get back on their feet (e.g., finding safe shelter, food, financial assistance, quality health care, etc?) 

How many are still in prison for non-violent crimes committed decades ago and how do their hardships differ from that of their younger counterparts?

What about the homeless? What kinds of services specially catered to their varying needs are readily available?

How much attention is being paid to the increasing number of retired women who fall prey to investment schemes and lose all or most of their life savings to skyrocketed and/or hidden fees?

How do the ones who are out of work on disability and depend on social security income to make ends meet spend their spare time?

How big of a problem is a lack of health insurance?

My wide spectrum of questions applies to older women all over the world. I wonder what everyday ills plague their lives. These women are mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, care-takers of their children’s children, widows, divorcees, survivors of war, cancer survivors, retired professionals, etc.

It would behoove me to learn more about the older age bracket, because they always have and always will be an intricate part of my life, and life in general.

Even though so many great projects and initiatives exist today to sustain young girls and help them grow into adulthood with security, success, and the knowledge to fight against discrimination, we can’t afford to forget about the older generation. They might not be creating communities anymore, but they sure are sustaining them, all over the world. They are our bloodline.

I even put these thoughts in connection with recent and past natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the recent earthquake in China that left a daunting amount of fatalities, the May 2008 tsunami in Myanmar, and countless others.  How do these life-changing calamities alter life, particularly for older women?

I don’t really have any answers, yet.  But I think it’s important that we consider these issues, and work towards their solutions. 

I intend to start with me.  Once I learn more, I can also learn what I can do about some of the problems. Just remembering that I have to consider all women when thinking of women is a turn in the right direction.

Just laying these words down helps awaken my senses.

Thankfully, I do know that there are many wonderful people and programs that have been way ahead of me! They are on the front lines working to combat the hardships that are unique to older women.  There’s the Older Women’s League with many initiatives geared towards helping and caring for older women. There’s also The Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, a nonprofit housed in Philadelphia that offers a comprehensive list of activities and services for older adults.

Even some of The Women’s Foundation’s Grantee Partners have services that directly and indirectly benefit older women. The vast array of Grantee Partners’ work focuses on issues such as mental health, homelessness, incarceration, domestic violence, immigration, finding good jobs, etc., and these types of broad issues affect women across the age spectrum.

It’s now my preliminary mission to learn specifically about the problems that plague older women, determine how I can help at an individual level, and discover what other organizations exist for older people, namely women.

I have a feeling that it will be cumbersome to find organizations working solely with the issues affecting older women, but it’ll be interesting to see how I can play a role in fixing that problem.

Sherell Fuller served previously as The Women’s Foundation’s program assistant.

Last week, seeing the story of the African American Women’s Giving Circle gave me such a professional high.  Nothing I had been involved in to date had been deemed so newsworthy as to grace the front page of The Washington Post!  So I was thrilled to be connected to this. 

As I read the story, I was enthralled with the description of the circle gathering place, the spirit of sisterhood shared by the participants, the commitment to community, and the excitement of nurturing their own philanthropic spirits.

I was thrilled with the tone and appreciation of the article, but couldn’t help but find myself wishing that all 20 of the amazing women in the circle could have shared the spotlight.  I know that a newspaper has limited real estate and that not everyone could be pictured or quoted, but knowing all of the dynamic and wonderful women who make up this group, I really wished that we could somehow reflect that collective spirit more clearly.

Then I glanced at The Women’s Foundation logo with our tagline, The Power of Giving Together.  And it made me wonder: Where is the power in “giving together”?

In the first few months that I was at The Women’s Foundation, I saw very clearly the power of the multiplier factor in giving together.  In a flash, a single contribution of $1,000 could be turned into $1 million! 

That is pretty darned powerful!

But as I reflect on the African American Women’s Giving Circle and the Rainmakers Giving Circle, and indeed all giving circles, I am struck by something else. A deeper, more subtle power…the qualitative power of the collective.

In North American, there is a lot of focus on individualism.  It seems that our entire culture is built on it. So I did a little research on the subject of individualism and found this:  "Individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only."*

Individualistic cultures like the United States (highest score = 1st rank) and France (10th rank) emphasize mostly their individual goals. People from individualistic cultures tend to think of themselves as individuals and as "I," distinctive from other people and emphasize their success/achievements in job or private wealth and aiming up to reach more and/or a better job position.

Now clearly this is not the sum total of the North American experience or values. But the basic elements are undeniable. Looking specifically in the world of philanthropy, some of the oldest and most established foundations derived from the wealth of an individual or of a single family.  When we traditionally look at donors, we tend to look at the individual.

From this perspective alone, I can understand why the draw is to identify with a single person or a few people. But a giving circle is really the antithesis to that.  It is about the collective, not the individual.

That is what makes giving circles so powerful and unique. And in fact, we can generalize that even more to say that The Women’s Foundation is really the antithesis to that with our overarching emphasis on collective giving and our inherent belief in The Power of Giving Together, whether through the giving circles, the 1K Club or Washington 100.

I think that most of us can recognize that power from a fiscal perspective, but perhaps not as much from a cultural and philosophical perspective.

Looking at the definition from the same source on the collective, or collectivism, I found this.  Collectivism "stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong cohesive groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty."*

Collectivistic cultures have a great emphasis on groups and think more in terms of "we".

The sociologist in me is fascinated by this juxtaposition of the social pull in our culture to the individual and the increasing popularity of giving circles that exists only as a collective. But more importantly, the humanist in me is really heartened that we are redefining philanthropy in such an amazing way. There is no question that the sense of individualism is a critical part of what has made North America what it is today.

But, to me, there is always room for the “we,” and if we are to move forward, truly move forward in a way that supports the “global village” that we are creating, we are going to need to find the balance between the individual and the collective.

But for today, I am thrilled to work with women who put the “we” back in philanthropy.

Nicole Cozier is Philanthropic Education Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Source: "Cultures and Organizations - Intercultural Cooperation and its importance for survival" Hofstede, Geert (1994)

I didn’t do it because I had the perfect body.

I did it because I didn’t.

I was just recovering from the birth of my second child, and needed to shake a bit of baby fat, in fact.

And, after 10 years of caring for my mom, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and becoming a mom myself, I needed to turn my attention back to taking care of myself a bit.

So when my girlfriend told me that she was entering the Mrs. Maryland pageant, instead of putting it off in hopes for a better time, or a better body, I decided to enter with her.

Life was short, I had realized as I cared for my ailing mother. Entering a pageant was on the bucket list I’d created for myself when she became ill.

In December 2007, when I officially decided to enter and prepare for the pageant, I had crossed off a few things on the list. I had run a marathon and earned a master’s degree.

Both were challenging. But neither involved a swimsuit competition.

I knew that this experience would push me further beyond my comfort zone than I ever had been.

So, I didn’t do it because I had the perfect body, or because I was dying to parade around on stage in a swimsuit.

I did it because I didn’t, and I wasn’t.

And because I wanted my daughter to see that when there are challenges, when you have to go outside your comfort zone, when you aren’t sure, that you can still take on anything you want, and succeed.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved watching the Miss America pageants on television, but it had never occurred to me that I could be in one.

Much less win one.

But on June 25, 2008, I did.

And while the crown is nice, I have been more struck by the process itself. Of learning about and testing my limits as I got back into shape and prepared for the various aspects of the pageant, including the interview.

It was through the interviews—which counted as half of our score—that I learned the amazing stories of my fellow contestants. About their careers as engineers, their PhDs, about their extensive community service.

About my fellow contestant who immigrated to this country 15 years ago, and has worked for seven days a week at her own business since then to create a future for her children. This year, her daughter graduated from the University of Maryland.

And every woman I met through the pageant had an inspiring story like this, of how she is impacting her family, her community and her own individual self-confidence.

And that is where the true beauty in the Mrs. Maryland pageant lies for me.

Because each of us was uncomfortable with the swimsuit competition and with being on stage, but we did it anyway.  Because of our sense of what we had to offer, as women, beyond what we looked like, beyond what everyone might see on the outside every day.

And yes, I enjoy wearing the crown. It has great meaning and significance for me.

But what I most treasure about it is the opportunity I have while I have the honor of wearing it to serve as a role model for other girls and women.

And what I hope I am able to convey to each of them is a concept I heard in a Tiger Woods commercial, where his father says to him, "I promise you that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.”

Because I believe that the strongest gift we can give to each other as women, and pass along to our daughters, is the idea that the greatest goal is mental strength, and that each of us possesses it. That if you can dream it, you can make it happen.

At 37, I never thought it possible that I would be wearing a crown that I didn’t buy for myself.

And having the honor of wearing this one reminds me every day that its beauty has far more to do with the pretty face it frames, and actually represents the whole of the mind, spirit and strength that it surrounds.

Siobhan Davenport is a member of The Women’s Foundation’s board of directors and is the reigning 2008 Mrs. Maryland. She will compete in the national Mrs. America pageant in September. Siobhan’s platform and philanthropic interests include support for Alzheimer’s treatment and research, and increasing awareness of and support for early child care and education. She is an investor in The Women’s Foundation’s Early Child Care and Education Collaborative.

I hope you all have had a chance to read Phyllis’ commentary in the Spotlight on Poverty.

I am one of the staff here at The Women’s Foundation working on the Women’s Economic Security Collaborative (WESC) and I think it is a very exciting project.  We have the opportunity to really help low-income women and their families throughout the country by bringing greater attention to the issue and the policies that affect it.

One of the things that I love about this project is that I get to work with some of the other really incredible women’s foundations from other cities. Our partners are The Women’s Foundation of California, the Chicago Foundation for Women and the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis.

Already, we are learning so much from one and other – and I think the fact that we will be able to meld all of our experience and focus it on one common goal makes the WESC a very powerful group. Also, it gives Washington Area Women’s Foundation the opportunity to take the best of our partners’ work and use it here in the Washington metropolitan area.

I want to share with you just a few of the great projects that our collaborators are working on:

• The Women’s Foundation for Greater Memphis is the only women’s foundation in the nation to lead the fundraising for a Department of Housing and Urban Development HOPE IV project (these projects provide funds to revitalize some of the country’s most distressed housing projects). In Memphis, the women’s foundation has partnered with the Memphis Housing Authority to redevelop two of the largest public housing developments in Memphis and to provide comprehensive community support services.
• In Illinois, the Chicago Women’s Foundation has launched a state-wide public awareness campaign to address domestic violence called “What Will It Take”. Their goal is to end the abuse of women and girls, and they have used a wide-range of tools– including town-hall meetings, PSA’s, an action packet, concerts and more- to educate and involve the people of Illinois.
• The Women’s Foundation of California houses The Women’s Policy Institute – the only project in the nation of its kind. It is a year-long program for community leaders in California that combines advocacy training sessions and actual work to develop and implement policy advocacy projects. Thus, the Institute meets the twin goals of increasing the number of women’s advocates in the state and increasing the number of policies that reflect the needs and realities of low-income women and their families.

And, of course, our partners are learning from us as well. In fact, the Stepping Stones Initiative’s success in helping single-women low-income families increase their financial independence is not only influencing the work of our partners, but of many other women’s foundation around the country as well (including Colorado, Maine and the Nokomis Foundation to name a few).

Over the next year, we will be working locally with Grantee Partners, poverty experts, policymakers, women throughout our region and other key stakeholders to review the local landscape and to discuss ways to improve policies that impact low-income women – including the use of a Poverty Impact Statement.

Then, we will meet with our partners in the WESC so that we can all share what we have learned in our communities and what we have learned nationally. Our goal is that, by working together, we can each exponentially increase our knowledge and our ability so that we can have a deeper impact on the lives of women and girls at home.

I think we will.

Sharon Levin is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Major Events and Policy Advocacy. 

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led initiative that aims to build and sustain public and political will to alleviate poverty.  This week, The Women’s Foundation’s president, Phyllis Caldwell, had the opportunity to write a commentary focusing on the importance of developing a Poverty Impact Statement to measure the effect of proposed policy on women and their families.

The commentary, and the work of a coalition of women’s funds throughout the country–of which Washington Area Women’s Foundation is a part–are focused on the need for policymakers and advocates to truly understand the day-to-day realities that make it challenging for women living in poverty to follow a traditional path to economic security.

Check out the commentary to learn more about this important work, the unique challenges impacting women living in poverty and how new policies could drastically change the lives of women and their children, here in the Washington metropolitan area and throughout the nation.

Lisa Kays is Senior Communications and Marketing Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

The Post headline, "Africa’s Last and Least: Cultural Expectations Ensure Women are Hit Hardest by Burgeoning Food Crisis," really strikes me.  And not just because I’ve been there and have seen it firsthand. 

That women eat last, at every meal, every time.  After their husband, and after their children.  Even after their foreign guest, who has more than enough money to fend for herself (and who falls, incidentally, after the husband, but before the children, in the hierarchy of food service).

This, they tell me, is culture. 

So if resources are tight, she gets the smallest portions, the least desirable, least nutritious parts of the meal.  And sometimes, nothing at all.

I have been there, wondering how they can do this, given that these women also consume the most energy–fetching the water (sometimes miles away), buying the food, cooking the food, doing the laundry, caring for the kids, and generally while either pregnant or nursing a newborn. 

I would be exhausted just watching them go through their day from my comfortable position as the ex-pat teacher.  I couldn’t imagine how they did it, and on so few calories, such little sustenance.

Nevermind that other sacrifices would impact them first, because they were women.  If there wasn’t money for school fees, the girls would be the first to be pulled out to help earn extra income, or to care for younger siblings so that mom could go to work seeling wares at the market or on her front stoop.  More work.

Yes, the headline struck me, but not just because I had seen it before, because I knew it not only as newsprint but as a daily reality of women and girls that I had known, but because it didn’t seem that far removed from what I hear now, about the impact of our own economic downturn on women.

Because the articles findings about Africa and the impact of poverty on its women, didn’t seem that far removed from the words of Tracey Turner in one of our annual reports, saying, "I know about the sleepless nights.  I know about the emotional breakdowns.  I know what it’s like to go without a meal so your children have something to eat." 

Tracey Turner, in Washington, D.C.  Not Windhoek.

The Post article states, "It’s a cultural thing," said Herve Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso. "When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less."

Leading me to wonder.  Is it really a cultural thing, as in an African cultural thing?  Or a cultural thing as in a gender normal, spread throughout not only Africa, but the world. 

And is "cultural thing" just a convenient way of pretending to be unable to change something that really should be changed?

Because really, how different were these two women, a world apart, caring for their children in tough economic times?

How different were these women from my own divorced, single mom who raised two girls on a tight salary.  Who didn’t buy herself clothes and gave up on the activities that she loved and worked two, exhausting jobs, so that we could eat, feel good about ourselves at school and not end up in debt after college?  The economic times may not have been as hard, and the sacrifices not as great, but the principle still applies.  She sacrificed her own needs, first, for her children. 

The article about Africa explains that when money is tight, mothers are first to give up their own medical care to conserve resources.

Something jogs me.  This sounds familiar.  I go back to a Post story a few weeks back where single mom Christina Hall was profiled, discussing the challenges she faces living on food stamps in this economic crunch with children to support.  The article states, "She has employed a few tricks to save here and there: picking up food from food pantries, grilling meat and vegetables on the porch to keep the gas bill down; rationing the medication that manages her Crohn’s disease by only periodically taking pills that she is supposed to take daily."

Cultural differences?  Perhaps in extremes, in scope, but fundamentally, I am not entirely convinced.

I Google "women + economic downturn".  The headlines that pop up are not optimistic.  And they are not about women in far off places.

I scan our blog, find Jennifer’s post on surviving in a tough economy, and the impossible decisions that come of it for low-wage workers. 

To pay for health insurance or food?     

This is an unfair choice, in any culture.  And yet over and over, research, observation and experience show us that it is women, every day, making these impossible choices.  The choices may vary in their specifics from country to country, culture to culture, but the principle seems to always remain the same.

That when women must make sacrifices, they will, inevitably, put their children and their husbands before themselves, and stand on the front lines alone, facing down poverty.

Wherever they are.  In Africa, in America, in Asia. 

Imagine my delight yesterday at opening the Washington Post to see a front page article on our African American Women’s Giving Circle. The title of the article said it all, “A Circle With a Deep Center: Black Women Pool Resources in Grass-Roots Effort to Alleviate D.C.’s Social Ills.”

Unfortunately, my delight was tempered upon noticing the article printed just above it, which detailed the Bush Administration’s most recent attempt to limit women’s access to birth control.

An interesting juxtaposition—local women joining together to support organizations providing health care to disenfranchised communities in Southeast D.C., right next to federal efforts to further limit access to health care, particularly for the underserved.

And we wonder why we’re not making headway on health care in the United States?

Earlier in the week, there was an article contrasting federal support for HIV/AIDS programs globally and domestically. According to the article, the District of Columbia has the highest prevalence of HIV infection of any jurisdiction in the U.S. at about 1 in every 20 residents. The DC Department of Health states that women account for nearly one-third of all newly reported HIV/AIDS cases, with African American women accounting for the majority (9 out of 10).

Similarly, a women’s health report card published by the National Women’s Law Center gave D.C. a failing grade in its efforts to meet the health care needs of women. The neighboring jurisdictions of Maryland and Virginia did not fare much better, both receiving unsatisfactory grades.

I am truly inspired by the efforts of the African American Women’s Giving Circle because together they are making critical investments to improve the lives of women and girls in D.C. where others have turned a blind eye.

However, it is disheartening to think that their efforts are not fully supported on a much larger scale by our government, policymakers and other key decision makers, who have the ability to truly enact widespread change and to make  a systematic difference in the lives of women and girls and their health and well-being. 

Because, in the end, it truly does take a village.

Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation, responsible for grantmaking in the realm of health and safety.  She has more than a decade of experience as a policy advocate on reproductive health issues impacting the low-income and uninsured.