Last summer, as a pandemic and a racial justice movement exposed deep inequities in the United States, two powerhouse women funders launched a grant contest to seed social progress for women, Equality Can’t Wait. Their goal: to surface the best ideas for expanding women’s power and influence in the U.S. by 2030.
More specifically, the initiative sought out innovative work in the areas of economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, health and survival, and educational attainment. Lever for Change, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation affiliate that hosts contests to raise philanthropic capital, was tapped to manage the process.
The idea gained steam. All told, 550 organizations sought funding for their work. Late last month, just a year after launch, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett, and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies announced four winners, each of which will receive $10 million in strategic capital over five years. Two finalists were also awarded funding, lifting the total beyond $48 million.
Much of the buzz around the competition has been about the big-name donors involved, and understandably so. All eyes are on Scott, who has been rewriting the rules of philanthropy with her billions in no-strings giving, and French Gates, who has personally committed $1 billion to gender equity through Pivotal Ventures, and is poised to become an even bigger force. Schusterman, meanwhile, is itself an important presence in gender equity, Jewish causes, education and more.
High-profile team-up aside, Equality Can’t Wait also represents a lot of cash going to grantees working on an underfunded issue. Part of the competition’s goal is to model more high-dollar giving to support women and girls and encourage others to do the same. As such, we wanted to take a closer look at who took home the prizes, and what a $10 million infusion will allow each of them to do.
Here’s how the women-led organizations that rose to the top are using their lived experiences and strategic partnerships to create concrete change. Their work aims to put 5,400 girls on a trajectory to the C suite, boost earning power for women in tech by up to 160%, create a thriving care economy that transforms the ideas of unpaid work, and increase the economic agency of 3,000 Native women business owners.
Ada Developers Academy (Ada)
The first winner is challenging the status quo by “Changing the Face of Tech,” which is both a tagline and the name of Ada’s Equality Can’t Wait proposal.
The academy boosts opportunities for women and gender expansive adults in the tech sector, whose workforce is overwhelmingly composed of white and Asian men. Ada’s inclusive approach to increasing representation welcomes underserved and disinvested communities, with an eye on increasing income parity.
By the numbers, the project’s national expansion goals for corporate social justice and management training are to reach 500 leading global tech companies, and expand an immersive coding program to 6,000 new tech leaders. Another 3,600 students will receive software development training.
Equality Can’t Wait’s support will help to expand Ada’s reach nationally.
CEO Lauren Sato explained that Ada Developers Academy’s model has been tested and proven over the past eight years in Seattle, and is ready for replication in communities across the country. Its “uniquely sustainable” financials draw 90% of funding from corporate partners, which will allow ECW funding to go directly to national expansion.
Ada is currently prioritizing markets that “sit at the intersection of tech sector growth and highly diverse communities,” so is headed first to Atlanta, with plans to add an additional community annually over the five-year ECW grant span.
At the end of that period, Sato expects that Ada will be in a strong position to continue its growth, and hopes to double the number of BIPOC women and gender expansive people entering the tech field annually in the next five to seven years. Currently, there are around 3,000 BIPOC computer science grads annually.
Sato said the cohorts’ growing influence will be evident in earning power: “The average pre-Ada salary for an Ada student is $45,000 per year, and the average starting salary for an Ada alum is $117,000 per year,” not including benefits. “That’s a 160% increase in compensation in just one year.” In terms of lifetime earnings, the bump adds up to a whopping $7 million each.
Like the other awardees, Ada appreciates the big vote of confidence from the trio of funders. “We are incredibly grateful for the Equality Can’t Wait investment in expanding this opportunity to people across the country, because we know that this work is our biggest opportunity to shift who holds economic power in our country—and that leads to a more resilient economy and healthier communities that benefit all of us.”
Girls Inc.
Girls Inc. will invest the Equality Can’t Wait funding in expanding the college and career horizons of the young women coming up in its programs.
President and CEO Stephanie Hull explained that Project Accelerate, which officially gets off the ground in September, is a natural progression of the relationships it’s built with its community of five- to 18-year-olds, and grew out of work that was already happening informally.
The project allows years-long support systems to continue as the girls find their places in college, then join the workforce. Girls Inc. and its social impact partners can now stay engaged from junior year of high school forward, guiding everything from the college application process to career guidance that will help them land good jobs—and ultimately, progress to the C suite.
As with Ada’s work, corporate backing is critical. Hull sees sponsors as equal partners, and said paving the way to positions of influence depends on both sides of the equation, “As Girls Inc. changes the talent pipeline, companies must also change reception. Workforce equity is up to them, too.”
The program’s corporate partners are meeting the program halfway by committing to mentor and guide candidates through long-term career progression, and measuring outcomes.
While acknowledging that “bad things had to happen for us to get to this point,” Hull thinks the growing racial equity movement has “absolutely helped” program progression, as corporations work to live up to the substantial public commitments they made to diversifying their workforces after the murder of George Floyd.
Despite all its challenges, Hull views changing times as an opportunity, and the basis for meaningful engagement: “This is a moment when there’s a recognition of leaders who are women and women of color that open doors of conversation.”
Through its network of 78 affiliates, Project Accelerate expects to put 5,400 diverse women on the path to positions of authority over the next five years, shifting the equity landscape in corporate America for generations.
Hull is “hopeful and optimistic” about the road ahead, and confident that the inroads they’re establishing will shift long-term power dynamics for women leaders, especially women leaders of color. “All girls need to be prepared to lead, and workplaces need to create pathways for them. Those are the two aims of Girls Inc. Project Accelerate—to equip young women not only to stay, advance, and succeed at work, but also to lead cultural change from within.”
Building Women’s Equality Through Strengthening Care Infrastructure
Ai-jen Poo, director of Caring Across Generations and co-founder and director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), champions a holistic approach to creating the infrastructure that can transform antiquated attitudes toward caregiving and unpaid work, and create a thriving care economy.
That attitude, and a global pandemic, brought the six organizations that collaborated on this winning project together, and helped determine its goals.
Speaking on behalf of the group, Poo said they began making connections when they turned to each other as COVID hit, and women were being “pushed out of the workforce by the millions.” The organizations grappled with ways of supporting the unpaid caregivers and domestic workers that were slipping through the cracks of mainstream relief funding.
Advocacy work began on initiatives like “Care Can’t Wait,” which urged Congress to include the community of care on the road to recovery by “forcing conversations about how essential the work is—like roads and bridges.”
Poo noted that the cross-movement coalition works across the lifespan of the care community, the vast majority of which are women, and women of color.
Each of the six partners in the proposal has unique strengths and constituencies. Caring Across Generations focuses on community-based care for aging populations. The NDWA advocates for the rights of nearly 2.5 million house cleaners, homecare workers and nannies. The National Women’s Law Center fights the legal battles of gender justice. The Arc advocates for people with developmental disabilities. And two organizations focus on the dynamics of family-based equity: MomsRising Education Fund (MREF), and Family Values @ Work, which leads the fight for paid sick and family leave.
The group has been working at the national level on rescue and recovery efforts for a full 18 months, working together “in real time” to advocate for a robust care economy. In contrast to Ada’s national aspirations, the project plans to use ECW funding to bring its national platform to the state level.
Over the next five years, ECW funding will be deployed on data collection, research and case-making, for use in advocacy work. It will also sustain progress won at the national level to change embedded narratives on the value of unpaid work, combat gender and racial biases, expand paid family and medical leave and shift the cultural norms that leave women behind.
The Future is Indigenous Womxn
Native women entrepreneurs lack equitable access to capital, business development resources, financial capability and career opportunities. The partnership behind another winning project, The Future is Indigenous Womxn, is working to change that by making catalytic investments in Native women-owned businesses.
New Mexico Community Capital (NMCC), which provides culturally appropriate support for Native American-owned businesses, and Native Women Lead (NWL), which specifically focuses on systems supporting Native women business owners, combined forces to unlock the potential for long-term wealth creation for their community.
Liz Gamboa, executive director of NMCC, and Jaime Gloshay and Vanessa Roanhorse, co-founders of Native Women Lead, said in a joint response that “collaboration has been years in the making, seeds that we planted together over seven years ago.”
When Native Women Lead was first starting, it held its first meetings at New Mexico Community Capital’s conference table, where it shared dreams and plans for a summit for Indigenous women. The relationship has deepened over the years. “As Native Women Lead has grown, both of our organizations have continued to share the learnings, resources, opportunities and power of Indigenous-led efforts.”
The partners have big plans for deploying ECW support over the next five years. In all, they expect to “reach, support, and empower” 3,000 Native women business owners.
Native Women Lead will “continue to grow and cultivate our network through our annual events, a retreat space to host women, and implementing our capital strategies to grow more Indigenous women into fund and finance management and leadership.” It will also develop and deploy “character-based loans” to businesses that have been overlooked.
For its part, NMCC will continue to bring its “Indigenous-designed technical assistance” to the work and network, and provide support and resources that are designed for and by Indigenous people.
Lending will follow a relationship-based model through a Matriarch Response Loan Fund, with their partners at Nusenda Credit Union, and a Matriarch Restorative Fund pilot with Community Credit Labs and Common Future.
Gamboa, Gloshay and Roanhorse said their work is grounded in the premise that Indigenous women’s power is inherent and unwavering. “Our matriarchal societies honored and recognized that as the backbones of our communities and Nations, our influence is necessary to balance all elements of being and living.”
The partners are excited to get started. “As we move forward together, we are looking forward to sharing our story through our Indigenous storytelling lens and platforms, as well as employing an evaluation process that will include traditional western world views with Indigenous world views. This is critical as we seek to redefine success on our terms as well as redefine risk to support more investing into Indigenous peoples.
“This is an amazing time for Indigenous leadership, and as new economy builders, we are ready to lead.”
Concentric circles
Of course, the real benefits of the awards lie in the concentric circles of expanded opportunity, a ripple effect of beneficiaries supporting others.
Of its community, Ada CEO Lauren Sato said, “While Ada alums would have every right to pocket that money, we know that they don’t. They put it right back to work for their families and communities—they pay off debt, send siblings to school, pay for parents’ medical care, buy their first home, and volunteer and give back to causes they care about.”
Learn more about the competition, and browse nearly 50 of the top proposals at Lever for Change’s Equality Can’t Wait webpage.