In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking about love in action.
At Washington Area Women’s Foundation, love looks like investing in a girl’s idea to make positive change in her community. It looks like ensuring a young woman has access to education and economic opportunity. It looks like supporting a mother through a safe and equitable birthing experience. And it looks like resourcing women leaders to disrupt or change harmful systems.
Love is equity that doesn’t begin at one moment in a woman’s life, but requires sustained investment at every stage. From early childhood education to entrepreneurship. From workforce pathways to leadership pipelines. From surviving to thriving.
Love, in our work, is not sentimental. It means changing the conditions that have historically limited women and girls, especially women and girls of color in the Washington, DC region, from accessing power and prosperity.
Love is philanthropy that moves beyond charity toward transformation. If we truly love our communities, we must invest in their full potential across a lifetime, not just in moments of crisis.
And that’s the kind of love worth committing to.
