Women United For is an initiative of the Women Donors Network that seeks to elevate and strengthen women’s leadership as a key strategy for social change. Women United For creates platforms for strategic collaboration and collective action among women activists and leaders from all walks of life. Women United For’s ultimate goal is to elevate the voices, activism and leadership of women to work in equal partnership with men to create a fair, just and sustainable world.
WDN convened 120 diverse women leaders under the banner of Women United For in February 2013, to collaborate around raising women’s voices in the gun violence prevention debate.
Through careful yet creative investments in research, polling and messaging, and by convening diverse women to engage in critical dialogue on the issues that matter to women and their families, Women United For will contribute to innovative solutions and long-term movement-building.
As an entry point, we have launched a first campaign, Women United For…Gun Violence Prevention, in the wake of the tragic Newtown school shootings. Our goal is to increase the visibility and to raise the voices of women in the gun violence debate, because when women share in leadership, the conversations and the solutions will be different. We began the initiative with the first bi-partisan poll focused on women and their views of violence, which you can see a summary of here.
American political commentator and social justice organizer Jehmu Greene (center) chats with WDN members at the Feb. 5 convening.
In addition, we convened 120 diverse women leaders together with gun violence prevention leaders in Washington, D.C. in early February, to begin connecting and collaborating on elevating women’s voices and activism in the national gun violence prevention debate. Work through our Gun Violence Prevention campaign will seek to create culture change via multiple strategies — convening, collaborating and catalyzing — that build partnerships with existing organizations.
Background
The Women United For initiative grew out of two years of work and study by WDN members, staff, and outside experts, looking at what it would take to galvanize a broad movement of women to speak up and be active on the issues that matter to them and their families, over the long term. See the link below for more information on the results of that work.
