Regional meetings are opportunities for progressive women donors to connect informally with other women donors in the region who share their values, and to discover opportunities for collaboration.

In addition to the connecting and networking time, this gathering will feature WDN President and CEO Donna Hall, who will share information about Women United For, a WDN effort focused on amplifying women’s voices and elevating women’s leadership on the important issues of the day, with the goal of achieving leadership equality across all sectors of our society.

We will also meet Women’s Funding Alliance Executive Director Liz Vivian, who will share about WFA’s transformational vision and new work to engage donor activists in Washington state.

Prospective members are welcome to attend.  Please RSVP by email to Kathleen Andreson.

The Details:

Wild Ginger
1401 Third Avenue
Seattle
12 pm – 2 pm

He believed that by supporting conflict resolution organizations and programs in Israel, he could become instrumental in supporting peaceful co-existence in the region.  Although still active in managing family business interests, Joanna, as President of the Middle East Peace Dialogue Network, carries her father’s vision into the future. Throughout the past 30 years, they have invested in more than 75 conflict resolution and reconciliation organizations and programs in Israel.  They have sponsored several Children’s Marches for Peace that have brought together hundreds of both Israeli Jewish and Palestinian elementary school students who had never before met someone from “the other side.”

MEPDN has evolved from a focus on the micro-solutions, working at the grass roots level, to macro-solutions.  They recently established the Israel Votes initiative, the first program in Israel focused on voter identification, pattern analysis and motivation.  The impact of this initiative has already been realized in the results of the 2013 election, and they expect the groundbreaking analysis and the resulting metrics to provide critical electoral information for generations to come.

“In response to our ambitious projects in Israel, some think the status quo will never change and that we are dreamers,” said Joanna.  However, she takes the long view.

“We are all bricks in a foundation.  How will future generations ever make progress if we don’t keep laying bricks?  It is not necessary to see the results of our efforts in our lifetime for our influence to endure.  The sturdy foundation we build now will support the even more ambitious efforts of future generations.”

Joanna is especially proud of their work with Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (‘Oasis of Peace’ in English).  Neve Shalom is an Israeli Jewish and Palestinian bi-lingual, bi-cultural community established more than 30 years ago as a model of cooperative coexistence. It has become a crucible in which the very issues that trouble Israel and Palestine are examined and experienced on a personal level.  Working with Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam since the 1980s, MEPDN has supported their primary school, which educates an equal number of Jewish and Palestinian children in a bi-lingual, bi-nation curriculum, as well as the School for Peace, which brings together Jewish and Palestinian teens, university students and professionals for conflict reconciliation and management programs designed to develop an empathetic understanding of the emotional, psychological, historical and theoretical aspects of the conflict.

At this time, Joanna is working toward the successful launch of the World Peace College located at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam.  This unique higher educational institution, developed in partnership with the University of Massachusetts, will have an international outreach and influence.

MEPDN supports the two-state solution as the only just and absolutely necessary outcome to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  Its motto is “Two Peoples.  Two States.  One Future.”  As a strong believer in the two-state solution, Joanna found J Street to be a natural fit for her beliefs.  She serves on J Street’s Advisory Council, and is taking a particular interest in the growth and development of J Street U on college campuses throughout the country.  Growing rapidly, J Street U offers college students a safe place to exercise critical thinking and expands the conversation about Israel and its future.

“J Street U is building the next generation of thoughtful, committed activists who care deeply about Israel and will influence its future,” said Joanna.

Joanna is also the president of the Goodwin Foundation, focused more broadly on medical research and women and girls at risk.  “We all have an obligation to bring forth our best efforts to repair, heal and transform the world.”

WDN member Lauren Embrey’s father founded The Embrey Family Foundation (EFF) in 2004. Lauren remarks, “His generation preceded the global movement; therefore, initially we just gave locally to our community. Moving forward, my sister, Gayle and I wanted to go larger in terms of scale, range of focus areas, and geographic area to reflect our more global world.” It took a lot of discussion, Lauren says, but the foundation board agreed to broaden their grantmaking, and now has six areas for funding: Human Rights Education and Awareness, Human Trafficking, Racial and Gender Equity, Women and Girls Leadership, Women in the Media, and Art for Social Change.

Recently, in partnership and strategic conversation with Stephanie Clohesy of Clohesy Consulting, the foundation engaged in an evaluative process to gauge its effectiveness and impact. One result of that process was to initiate a convening of their grantees. “The purpose was for grantees to meet each other, build skills together, and then, hopefully, to inspire both intentional and unexpected collaborations among and beyond them, increasing the impact of our grants,” says Lauren.

Because EFF believes that human rights cannot be achieved without both a gender and race analysis, and because grantees had previously identified strategic communications as a key area where they needed to build skills and capacity, EFF made several decisions about how they would spend their time in the two-day convening.

First, they would partner with Spitfire Communications to provide programming around strategic communications to boost the organizations’ impact, visibility, brand, and even sustainability, as they more effectively communicated with their funders.

Second, they would partner with Applied Research Center (ARC) to provide programming that would increase grantees’ understanding of and analysis around race and how race intersects with gender. Such analysis would serve to deepen grantees’ work and magnify effectiveness.

Third, they would encourage grantees to seek synergistic connections in their work. In its vision to catalyze real systemic change toward the realization of a society that truly honors human rights, EFF hoped that an exchange of ideas about shared obstacles, solutions, and potential projects might spark new channels for collaboration that could yield exponentially powerful results.

And finally, they would hold this convening just prior to ARC’s bi-annual “Facing Race” conference in hopes grantees would attend. Almost all of them took advantage of the conference as an opportunity to continue to develop their racial justice analysis and to continue to network with other activists and thought leaders.

So was the convening successful? Lauren says, “Yes! Grantees reported that it was powerful to gather, share knowledge, and explore possible collaborations.” In evaluations, they reported they better understood how they and other grantees “fit” into the Embrey Family Foundation’s vision (because of a session devoted to explaining EFF’s logic model for their philanthropy), and that they better understood the hopes and expectations of EFF.

Lauren cited several collaborations underway as a result of the day. A few examples are:

• Planned Parenthood has a texting program that provides information and health referrals to its users, mostly young people. Polaris needs a similar system, and the two organizations are now working together to create it
• The Women’s Foundation of Colorado is doing work on dropout rates which is very relevant for the work of the American Indian College Fund and the pipeline for native women in higher education
• Several filmmakers are exploring joint film projects and also consulting with each other about how best to brand and present their films and their work

As a funder, Lauren wanted EFF to role model “big and bold” giving. Why stop at the 5%  IRS required level of giving? “I didn’t want to see us concentrate on building the corpus of our foundation. So we’re giving between 16-17% of our assets annually.”

But the giving doesn’t stop there. While EFF paid for all travel, hotel, and meal expenses for participants of the convening, there was also an intention to share something more: community, teamwork, and a sense of possibility. “We have a ‘more than money’ value at EFF,” says Lauren, and grantees know that. “We interview grant partners annually, fund for multiple years, and observe protocols for confidentiality. Grantees are encouraged to speak forthrightly about their experience with us.” There’s a value around relationship, and Lauren believes part of the success of the day was grounded in the trust EFF has built with activists over time.

Some of the services they provide to the campaigns they work with include: training on how to use the web platform, provision of technology, access to professionals who lend their assistance and expertise, collection of campaign funds through their website, assistance with campaign conception and planning, and finally, convening activists and leaders virtually and sometimes in person, so that they can learn from each other.

The ability to learn from each other’s work is a critical function of NI for Lillie Branch Kennedy of Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged, a Virginia organization working to support families of the incarcerated and to improve re-entry opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

“The knowledge of what others are doing, what works and what doesn’t, is really helpful,” said Branch Kennedy.  “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

Nation Inside was involved in successful efforts in three Virginia cities to ‘ban the box,’ removing questions about felony convictions from job applications that hinder the efforts of the formerly incarcerated to secure employment.

A recent success of Nation Inside was garnering 90,000 public comments to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the exorbitant cost of phone calls to and from prisoners, making it difficult for families to stay in touch.  The lack of instruction from the FCC leads many states to award contracts for phone service according to arbitrary selection criteria, with contracts often selected according to what is most lucrative for the state.

This practice prevents many families from keeping in regular contact with their incarcerated loved ones.  Nation Inside was able to serve as a gathering place for the organizations that led the campaign to change this policy.  The organizations that NI works with generated tens of thousands of comments through their supporters, which are now being reviewed by the FCC.  NI and its member campaigns are hopeful for a win that will help millions of American families.

The campaign attracted media attention from outlets like the New York Times and also attracted support from civil rights organizations like the NAACP and NOW.

Looking toward the future, one thing Nation Inside is thinking about is how to respond rapidly to legislation that crops up that doesn’t reflect common sense principles and best practices in criminal justice.

Nation Inside’s success has been very gratifying for WDN’s members, due to their interest in building the long term infrastructure of the progressive organizations working on systemic change to the criminal justice system.  They are proud of the work NI and its campaigns are doing and are inspired by the success of their first year.

Her grandmother was involved in efforts to help many people escape Europe during the Holocaust.

“My grandmother taught me that philanthropy is about being generous,” said Mariel.  “Her house was always open, and that was my main lesson in philanthropy – be generous.”

In college, Mariel lent some money to a friend who needed money for an abortion — the money that Mariel was supposed to be living on.  She has never forgotten what her grandmother said when she had to go back to her to ask for more money for living expenses.

She told Mariel: “Don’t ever think that because one person doesn’t pay you back, you shouldn’t be generous again.”  Those words have influenced Mariel to this day.  “There are some things that are just the right things to do,” she recalled.

Mariel became a civil rights attorney, and spent the first years of her career litigating cases on behalf of African American and Latino clients victimized by the police, for police misconduct and violence, while living in Chicago.

Mariel moved to New Mexico out of an intuition that the setting would help her (then) young daughter with her epilepsy.  Her intuition was rewarded after three years in Taos, when the seizures stopped.  Mariel also loves being in nature, and wanted to enjoy it with her family.

Mariel got involved in climate change activism after attending a Bioneers conference.  At the conference, she was asked to be a climate leader.  She answered the call because she couldn’t imagine looking her children in their eyes and knowing she did nothing to address climate disruption.

She began working for New Energy Economy as their Policy Director.  She is now the Executive Director there.

What gives Mariel’s life meaning is her work in the social justice movement.  “I have activist DNA,” she said.  For Mariel, this means having the courage to stand up and resist what is wrong, and also promoting a vision of what is possible and creating solutions.

Mariel’s funding is in two main areas: confronting the coal industry in New Mexico and to support the EcoViva community in El Salvador.

“I want to secure a future without coal; without that, we won’t survive.  We are poisoning the air and water with coal.  If we don’t stop coal, we won’t be able to do any of the other things that are important.  I didn’t used to understand the urgency, but now I do,” said Mariel.

The EcoViva community was founded by refugees from El Salvador’s civil war.  After the peace accords, they returned with the goal of building a peaceful community together.  The community has grown rapidly and has been designated a Zone of Peace by the United Nations due to their focus on peaceful conflict resolution.

Mariel joined WDN to belong to a community of women who really want to give, and she liked seeing the WDN community come together to raise money to help women of color attend the Climate Rally in DC.

For fun, Mariel loves to ski, to hike and to travel.  An especially memorable trip was to South Africa, where she got to meet some of the she-roes of the anti-apartheid movement.  This was especially meaningful as Mariel was involved in anti-apartheid organizing in the US while in college.

Here is what WDN Board Member Trish Weber has to say about the event:

The WDN Women on the Hill lobbying trip is so important because it allows us an opportunity to effect positive social change based solely on the fact that we possess resources – we don’t have to spend any resources beyond showing up.  Integrating a policy activism aspect into our philanthropy serves to expand our influence on the issue of our choice via the unparalleled access to decision makers that our membership in WDN allows us.  Many of the non-profits that we fund employ paid lobbyists who can toil away in Washington DC for a decade or more – without ever being in the same room with a senator.  And then here we get to go meet with senators directly, as well as highly-placed administration officials and other decision makers.  There’s no way to put a price tag on the value of being able to communicate our message directly to decision-makers and their staff – they know we have resources and they want to hear what we have to say!  Plus?  It’s really fun!  And you get to be on a team with lots of other cool women, some of whom you may already know and some of whom you may never have met, but no matter what, you are guaranteed to be BFF’s by the end of your week together.  So: effectiveness, empowerment, and new friends.  What’s not to love?

Our week always begins with training, as members begin getting comfortable with one another and with the issue-area experts who work with each group. This year we kicked off the event with a daylong training by Katie Orenstein, founder of the OpEd Project, which focused members on how to consider themselves experts, and gave them a chance to practice making compelling arguments — even in the face of opposing views.

Katie Orenstein, author and journalist, works with members to strengthen their voices.

Members got time to spend role-playing and gaining practice in making their arguments, even in the face of hostile opposition.

Member Betsy McKinney practices her argument about gun violence prevention with Krista Brewer.

Members play “musical chairs” in a rapid-fire role play game where they took on different personas (friendly, indifferent, aggressive) to practice making compelling arguments.

The following day we spent the morning focused in our four issue areas, getting up to speed on the legislative landscape, reviewing the schedule of meetings, getting clear on the approach and argument for each meeting, and assigning specific roles for each member of the group to take on. That evening we enjoyed a reception with women leaders in Congress and allies at the Mott House.

Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz with WDN President & CEO Donna Hall and others at the Mott House reception.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas speaks at the Mott House reception.

The following day began with a series of meetings at the White House with key staff covering all of our issue areas.

WDN members meet with Tina Chen and other key White House staff for a briefing.

Says WDN member Maria Jobin Leeds, pictured below speaking passionately about a women’s economic agenda:

These folks on the hill need to hear from civic-minded women more often.  Their primary visitors are corporations who want tax breaks; they were surprised we were not advocating for our own self-interest.  I was working on Women’s Economic Security; we talked about low wage women, and women of color in particular.  Thanks to our lobby guide from the Partnership for Women and Families, we were very knowledgeable and persuasive, even to our moderate Republican targets.

WDN member Maria Jobin-Leeds leading the discussion on women’s economic security.

WDN members and staff in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The group focused on gun violence was invited to participate in a special briefing at the White House with a new advocacy group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, that has organized mothers all around the country in the months after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary. About 200 moms and their allies were taking to the Hill during the same week as the WDN visits, advocating for common-sense gun reforms that would save lives. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President, stopped in for a surprise appearance and spoke to the group.

Organizers from Moms Demand Action at a special White House briefing.

Valerie Jarrett made a surprise appearance at the gun violence briefing.

On Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday, members took to the Hill for our scheduled meetings, including several meetings where groups overlapped, or where all the groups met together.

Members of the climate change group walk to Congressional office buildings.

From WDN Member Pat West, pictured below, who was part of the group working on climate change:

The meetings for the Climate group were such works of art – cooperative, encouraging, supportive and challenging.  But most of all, the people we met with seemed to want the information we brought, and seemed to be genuinely wanting to have continued contact.

For the third year, THANK YOU TO THE STAFF AND PARTICIPANTS for one of the most rewarding and possibly productive experiences of my life.

You all were a joy – our challenge is to make this first steps and not LAST steps in opening the doors of Congress.  As someone said – the most powerful voice maybe the one that is heard just before the vote is made.

Pat West (right) speaks about climate change in a White House meeting.

Because many of our meetings were with Senators or Members of Congress who did not necessarily agree with our positions on the issues, the two days of meetings were rigorous and challenging. On the final day, however, each group got to meet with an elected official who is a champion on the issues, making for a gratifying end to the trip.

Here is what WDN Member Betsy McKinney had to say about the event:

I came away from our trip to DC for the 3^rd annual Lobby Days with renewed appreciation for all that you do to make WDN a vital and powerful organization. Without such a strong and capable staff putting it all together, planning with the experts, providing support all the way, we could not be nearly as effective as individual member donors. It is your hard work on the road and in the office that you do all year long that supports this organization of women donors. Together, we all make a powerful force for change!

It was really satisfying to walk the halls of Congress together, well trained and passionate.  It was impressive to feel the significant response from congressional members due to the strong relationships WDN has built on the Hill these past three years and more. We were there as women speaking on behalf of people who can’t be there themselves and for issues that matter to so many Americans. I’m so proud of our organization and so grateful for the professional contribution that you each make with your own special talents.

Thank you!  The work that you do for and with WDN has very measurable impact and is so very appreciated. We can’t do it without you!

The gun violence and immigration groups with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

For a look at all the photos from our event, click here!

In just one year, UV has added 410,000 members, who have engaged in over 2.4 million online and in-person actions to combat sexism.  Some key lessons UV learned in this first year are:

1.    Their biggest growth happens when they mobilize to respond to threats (such as protecting access to birth control).
2.    Some campaigns may cause them to lose members, but there are campaigns that are so important that they must be done despite the loss of members that may result, because there are issues that women need to know about, such as pay equity.
3.    UV’s ability to respond rapidly (the same day) to events is critical in their ability to take advantage of the 24-hour news cycle.  Staying nimble is a core part of their theory of change.

Some key accomplishments from the past year include:

·      Their infographic on rape culture has been seen by over 2 million people, as a result of widespread distribution via social media.  This is important because information received from friends is highly trusted information.
·      Their infographic on birth control was shared over 75,000 times via social media.
·      They generated over 12,000 calls on a single day on the importance of contraceptives in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
·      140+ advertisers have dropped Rush Limbaugh’s show after his sexist and offensive comments toward Sandra Fluke.
·      Questions on fair pay and reproductive health were included in the presidential debates, and there was a female moderator for the first time in 20 years.
·      Women and our issues had a much stronger voice in the 2012 election as a result of UV’s work.

As UV moves forward, they are focusing on campaigns that help to build key movement infrastructure, that will aid in membership growth, educate the base and will lead to policy shifts and/or culture change.

Their priority issue areas are economic security (fair pay, paid family and sick leave and child care), health security (access to reproductive health services and implementation of the ACA) and safety from violence (gun violence prevention and the Violence Against Women Act).

They will be looking at opportunities to combat sexism in states, especially in places where proposed legislation could have a national impact.

Going forward, they will also be working more with organizations working on economic security for women, such as Moms Rising, the Restaurant Opportunities Center and the Domestic Workers Alliance.

WDN members believe that UV is important to the goal of continuing to build the infrastructure of the women’s movement, even in off-election years.  “Most progressives just go away when the election is over, said WDN member Wendy Wolf.  “UV is a way for us to keep people mobilized and building momentum.”

“She was a single mother of three boys, yet her work made it possible for me to work.  I just realized that domestic workers should be able to raise their families as well as anyone else with children,” said Diana, a WDN member and developmental psychologist. “No one family has more value than another.”

This disconnect in our society is what’s motivating Diana to co-host an event on March 27 that she hopes will educate and activate other women like her to support the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She hopes the gathering will raise awareness about the effort to provide basic labor protections to domestic workforce in California, which is mostly female.

Diana is concerned about domestic workers because she cares about how vulnerable these women are in the labor market, and also because of her own struggle to make her treatment of her domestic workers consistent with her values.

Despite her commitment to bringing integrity to the work of her nanny, it was still difficult at times to know what the right thing to do was, because there is not much openness among the women Diana knows about employing domestic workers.

“It’s an issue of class that is not comfortable for most people,” she said.  “And there’s a myth that women should be able to do it all.”

One of the reasons Diana is supporting the campaign is to create more space for discussion about the issue among her peers.

“Domestic employees are so integral to our own ability to work, but we don’t acknowledge that enough,” Diana said. “If we collaborated and communicated more, we could help to make their situations more equitable.”

Diana learned more about the issues facing domestic workers through Hand in Hand, which works with employers to improve employment practices and to collaborate with workers to change public policy to bring dignity and respect to domestic workers.

Hand in Hand also helped her to navigate the question of how to handle the retirement of her children’s care provider after her children left for college.

“Relationships with domestic workers are both business relationships and intimate relationships,” Diana said. “I wanted to know how to handle both aspects in a way that honored and celebrated the connection she has with our family.”

Hand in Hand is one of the organizations that will be represented at the event Diana is hosting on March 27, along with members of the California Domestic Workers Coalition, who will share their stories and provide an update on the 2013 campaign plan.

If you’d like to attend, click here for details.

About 30 WDN members gathered Monday in Washington, DC, to kick off our annual “WDN on the Hill” training and lobby days. Katie Orenstein, founder of the Op Ed Project, led a daylong training about thought leadership that included establishing credibility, understanding the components of influence, and making effective arguments in the face of opposition. In a content-packed and lively interactive session, members got comfortable in their roles as experts with credibility, and practiced making arguments that can change people’s minds.

Today, the group will break up into the four issues we are focusing on in this year’s visit and drill down on the issue’s legislative priorities and talking points: Immigration, Gun Violence Prevention, Climate Change and Women’s Economic Security and Opportunity.

Follow the news from this trip on Twitter at #wdndc

“I just finished reading the program overview (front to back). First, it is a beautiful, articulate, compelling document. More importantly, the work WDN is undertaking is incredible. I only wish all of this had been available much earlier when I was at a different place with my philanthropy… Even I, who is taking part in so little, believe I should continue to belong to ensure that this continue to be a trainer and player in the philanthropic world.”

The overview is available online, which you can view and download by clicking the image below:

Some highlights that you won’t want to miss:

• As part of our ongoing work to deepen our skills and knowledge in using an intersectional approach, WDN will focus on using an LGBTQ justice lens in many of our program offerings for 2013. We will be working closely with the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce (NGLTF) to deepen our analysis using an LGBTQ justice lens, broaden our understanding of issues facing LGBTQ communities, and learn some valuable lessons about coalition-building, legal, advocacy and organizing strategies the LGBTQ justice community has used so successfully to win major policy and culture-shifting gains.
• Our annual in-person gathering, WDN Connect, will be in San Antonio, Texas, from Nov. 7-10, 2013. Our pre-conference seminar will focus this year on Climate Change and Sustainability Solutions.
• The Body Reconsidered: Critical Perspectives on Culture, Politics and the Body, is being scheduled for May in Colorado. This 1.5-day workshop will focus on the systemic, policy, and private spheres that define women’s bodies.
• A WDN Shareholder Training one-day seminar is being scheduled for New York City this June, and will enable members to learn from experts in the field about how to hold corporations accountable using our power and voice as investors.
• In June, WDN will take an exclusive trip to the Alberta Tar Sands, led by First Nations women at the forefront of trying to end tar sands production. See first hand how one of the most destructive oil extraction processes in the world has transformed the pristine boreal forest of Alberta into a toxic open pit mine that can be seen from space.
• In December, WDN will offer an educational trip to Liberia, in partnership with the Meridian Institute, to understand how women have played a critical role in bringing about peace, rebuilding and restoring the social cohesion of the society, and working for needed social reforms.