Washington

DCWA: Calling all city leaders!

Posted on by Jessica Goshow

The DC Women’s Agenda (DCWA) is a local advocacy and policy coalition that began in the spring of 2003 and works to promote the advancement, equality, and well-being of women and girls in D.C.–and it is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation. 

DCWA is a coalition of a diverse group of advocates, service providers, and individuals who work together to address issues of social and economic justice that women and girls face on a daily basis living in our community. The DCWA is co-chaired by the DC Employment Justice Center and Wider Opportunities for Women (also Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation!)

During monthly meetings of the DC Women’s Agenda about current events in the District affecting women and girls, the coalition determined that in 2007, as D.C. brought in a new Mayor and City Council, that it was an important time to build awareness of these issues among our new city leaders. 

Emerging from these discussions is a white paper, "Voices and Choices for D.C. Women and Girls: Recommendations to City Leaders 2007," which outlines for our city’s leaders and citizens the key issues and challenges facing D.C.’s women and girls. 

The paper gives concrete suggestions for what changes are needed and addresses topics such as economic security, housing, health and health education, criminal justice, safety, leadership and accountability and girls.

Each section provides information and statistics about the problem, and gives specific recommendations about what resources and programs need to be created and what must be improved upon that already exists in order for women and girls to thrive in the District of Columbia.

The paper puts all of the information at the fingertips of the politicians.

The white paper was distributed to the Mayor and all members of the D.C. City Council, as well as each member of the DC Commission on Women.  We also sent it to the two Congressmen who are in charge of the Congressional Committee that has oversight of the District (Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Tom Davis) and to DC’s Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, so that, if they want to, they can hold the Mayor and city leaders accountable on these issues.

The white paper was also distributed to a number of organizations that serve women in the District. It can also be accessed on TheWomensFoundation.org. 

Over the coming weeks on this blog, we’ll be going through each section of the white paper to discuss and highlight key elements and to illuminate what life would be like for women and girls in the District if the recommendations were to be acted upon. 

We hope to create awareness, as well as lively discussion and debate on the important facts outlined in the paper, and what action on the recommendations could mean for the women and girls of this city, as well as the city as a whole.  

Jessica Goshow is DC Employment Justice Center’s (DCEJC) legal and policy associate.  Being that EJC and Wider Opportunities for Women are the co-chairs of the DCWA, she was involved in the coordination, writing, and reviewing of the white paper.

The DC Women’s Agenda, DC Employment Justice Center and Wider Opportunities for Women are all Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation. 

Women hammering their way to social change, not just another job.

Posted on by Sherell

Last Friday, I attended Goodwill of Greater Washington’s Female Construction Employment Training Program‘s graduation ceremony, because Goodwill is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation. 

Since 2005, Goodwill has received funds from the Stepping Stones Jobs Fund that allow them to continue helping women in the Stepping Stones target population–women-headed families with annual incomes of $15,000 to $35,000, a working population still struggling to make ends meet because of the high cost of living in the region–strive towards success via attaining jobs that pay a living wage.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see the women graduate.  Their proud faces mirrored those of their families and the Goodwill employees and supporters who helped them through the program. There’s nothing as satisfying as seeing the tangible results coming from The Women’s Foundation’s grantmaking process.

The first few words that came to my mind during the ceremony: hope, pride, struggling, overcoming, nontraditional, and daring.

Many graduates gave brief stories when rising for their certificates, and reflected on how they came to the program with low confidence and doubt about how the program would work for them, but upon completion, were more confident, happy and armed with the hard and soft skills necessary for work (such as time management), and some even heartily exclaimed that they had landed jobs!

A big theme was confidence. 

Entering the construction program was more than just a way to land another job and paycheck for these women.  It started with a desire to be something.

One of the Goodwill employees gave a great rendition of Linda Rabbitt’s story.  Linda Rabbitt is the founder and CEO of Rand, the third largest female owned construction company in the world.  When Linda reentered the workforce as a secretary, her boss noticed her strong entrepreneurial spirit and urged her to start her own business.  And just look at Rand now. 

The women sitting in that room on Friday now have the potential to be a motivation like Rabbit.

I especially enjoyed one story by a Latina graduate, because it was also reflective of the gender stereotypes and sexism women challenge.  Her story set the light-hearted and down-to-earth vibe of the room with a comical (but serious) story about her adventure with Goodwill.  She had learned about the program when she spotted the word "free" while looking at advertisements in an unemployment office.  Upon calling, she was encouraged to come in.  With the the language barrier, she had a hard time finding Goodwill, but she made it there. 

But, when she found out it was for construction, she had some doubts. 

Even though over 1.1 million women in the U.S. work in construction at a steadily rising rate, it’s still more the exception than the rule to spot women toiling away in hardhats. 

Nevertheless, she joined the program despite her and her family’s skepticism. In her family (as in many others), the natural thought was that females belonged in the kitchen.  But, she persevered and showed her family that she did know a thing or two about construction, and is on her way to finding a construction job!

These women illustrated how women in construction isn’t just another job. 

It represents a challenge we are making to the status quo.  It is representative of our resilience, smarts and true abilities.

It’s also a marker of the economic improvement in women’s lives.

I wish these women the best of luck, and I think they will do great things even outside of construction. They are now armed with the powerful knowledge that they are capable of pursuing a lifestyle that will provide economic security and stability.

And just think that all of the smiling faces of the graduates are products of a wave of philanthropy, a cycle of people who just want to help other people.

I can see the great places those women are now capable of getting to.

To learn more about similar training programs for women, visit our blog to and read more stories about the impact of Goodwill of Greater Washington’s female construction and environmental services programs, and YWCA National Capital Area’s Washington Area Women in the Trades program.

Then, join us by getting involved in the growing wave of philanthropy that’s leading women throughout our region to break barriers and build bright futures.  Become a part of the power of giving together.

WAWIT: Welding a new world for women.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

A friend and I have a running list of people you need in your life, particularly as you edge towards "grown-up" living. 

Topping the list are a good mechanic and a good plumber, among a number of other skills we seem to be desperately lacking in. 

carpentry class.WAWITAt last week’s graduation ceremony of the first class of the YWCA National Capital Area’s Washington Area Women in the Trades (WAWIT) program, it struck me how our natural tendency to assume that these roles would be filled by men are long, long outdated.

Because the 10 women who graduated–with aspirations including careers in plumbing, carpentry, painting, landscaping and sheet metal work–not only intend to shatter stereotypes of the types of work women can do, and are doing, but to change the very structures in which they do it.

They intend not only to weld metal, but to weld the very world that produces it.

After only 12 weeks, which, like with previous classes graduating women ready to take on nontraditional careers, hardly seems like enough to contain it all–or to produce this level of confidence, strength and, even a twinge of well-placed rebellion–the ceremony was marked with graduate’s indications that their intentions went well beyond their own economic security, to that of changing the world of work for all women.

"We have come a long way from just wanting to get a job, to wanting to make a difference in the industry," said one of the graduates before stating proudly that they planned to establish a union among women in the trades throughout our region. 

One can only imagine that this sense of confidence and comaraderie only comes from the same holistic approach to support that was evident throughout the First Female Construction Employment Class of Goodwill of Greater Washington and what I can only imagine was present in their Environmental Services Training Course. 

As evidence of this, the women discussed taking each lesson bit by bit–and refusing to move on until everyone got it.  They talked about keeping each other motivated–sometimes with a phone call harrassment plan–when getting up at the crack of dawn (sometimes as early as 3:30 a.m. to bike in from Virginia) and being on job sites in the dead of winter was almost too much to bear.  They talked of struggling through–and then gaining strength from–the mandatory kick-boxing and weight training courses that would be necessary to ensure that they could manage the heavy lifting of their new professions.

Including the mental heavy lifting that would be required.

Because, as one of the commencement speakers, Sarah Reynolds–a bus mechanic with Metro for more than 20 years–noted–even in 2007, "There are too few of us."  With part of her current responsibilities being to recruit young women into careers at WMATA, she said, "I’m not leaving Metro until I have more women behind me."

This is crucial, she explains, to handle some of the difficulties of being one of a few women in a very male-dominated world.  And the key, she says, is the support of other women.  "The negative things I dealt with, you will not have to deal with by yourselves anymore.  You will have other women with you," she promised, as she outlined a mentoring plan underway for the graduates with experienced professional women in the trades,

Joan Kuriansky, executive director of Wider Opportunities for Women, a partner of WAWIT, explained that this is precisely the point.  Construction is a billion dollar industry in this region, she said, and there is no reason that women–and their families–shouldn’t benefit from it. 

"This program," she said, "represents a breakthrough for many women not here today, because it is changing perceptions of what is women’s work.  One by one, the stereotypes about women, and what we can do, will be debunked!" 

And as these programs continue to demonstrate, changing these perceptions is always the beginning–from changing the women’s perceptions of what they can do personally, to changing their children’s perceptions of what women can do through their example, to changing society’s perceptions of women’s work. 

The graduates confirmed that, while a professional journey, it can’t be approached without taking into account the personal obstacles.  "If I can do it," said one graduate, "all these women can do it.  And we come from all different walks of life.  Not a Paris Hilton life.  A hard-knock life."

From hard knocks to laying hard wood, a path that started with learning skills has turned into a unified desire to transform the scope and scale of women’s work.   

"That’s the kind of stepping stone you represent," Kuriansky told the graduates. 

Words that couldn’t have been better selected, since this program is a perfect realization of one of the goals of our Stepping Stones initative–an early partner to WAWIT–to increase the economic security of low-income women in our region by providing access to high-growth, well-paying, nontraditional careers. 

With training programs like this throughout our region–many of them supported by The Women’s Foundation–it’s difficult not to get the sense that this is far more than shop talk, but rapidly evolving system change, which is what The Women’s Foundation, and our partners, are all about. 

About investing in women as a means of building stronger communities. 

With bright futures–and job opportunities already waiting for many–it’s easy to imagine this transformation unfolding.  In fact, with the graduates sometimes spontaneously bursting into Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now, it’s harder to imagine that it won’t. 

From victories from the personal to the professional, from skills to scaffolds of an unlimited height.

As Kuriansky said, "The elevator, I don’t think it’s ever coming down."

If it does, it will only be on occasion, but only for these women to head back down to pick up those they’ll carry up to the top, just as they have been, and will be, supported by those women, like Reynolds, who came before. 

As one of the graduates said, "We are the blueprint and the foundation of it all.  It began with us, and we have the responsibility to keep this legacy going, even after today."

Echoed by another graduate, who said, "It started with us, and it won’t finish with us." 

Indeed it won’t.  The next class starts on Monday.  

For more information on The Women’s Foundation’s Stepping Stones, which supports programs like this throughout the Washington metropolitan region, click here. 

To learn more about WAWIT, and how to get involved, visit YWCANCA.org.  WAWIT is a collaboration among the YWCA National Capital Area, Wider Opportunities for Women (also a Stepping Stones Grantee Partner) and the Community Services Agency of the Metropolitan Council of the AFL-CIO.

To learn more about similar training programs for women breaking barriers, visit our blog to learn more about Goodwill of Greater Washington’s female construction and environmental services programs.

Then, join us in building a better Washington region by investing in and expanding strategies and programs like these.  Join in the power of giving together. 

Food Stamp Challenge: Lessons learned, from the personal to the global.

Posted on by Sherell

Well, I didn’t successfully complete the one-week D.C. Hunger Food Stamp Challenge, but, I did learn valuable lessons and new personal insights. 

But first, full disclosure.  Why didn’t I finish?  I pretty much gave up.  I tried, but it was pretty tough.

The first lesson I learned was, if grocery shopping on a limited budget, it’s best to buy everything before the week begins. That way, it’s harder or better yet impossible, since there’s no money, to be tempted to buy high priced foods here and there throughout the week that you really don’t need.

The second lesson I learned is how connected I am with food, emotionally, physically, and psychologically. The fourth night of the challenge was the hardest. I went to bed feeling almost depressed because I couldn’t eat what I really wanted. The smell and taste was so close, yet so far.  Up until the fourth day, physical hunger wasn’t a problem, but that night, my stomach was feeling empty.  Ironically while I write this, an ABC Nightline commercial just aired about gastric-bypass surgery and referred to food “as an addiction.”

On the morning of the third day, I was so irritable that I grabbed a cold cookie from a refrigerator and ate it within 20 seconds. I felt so restricted that I didn’t even warm it up like I usually do. I didn’t even like that particular chocolate flavor, but it was sweet, quick, satisfying, accessible, and free.

I pretty much knew that I was going to go back to the usual eating regime on the morning of the fifth day. I still can’t really imagine how people who are really suffering from chronic hunger, and people who don’t necessarily starve, but who can’t afford the foods of their choice, feel.

I think I took it so hard because it was such a fresh experience for me, but for someone who hasn’t had the foods of their choice for months, I wonder if there is a kind of desensitization to the whole thing of missing tastes.

All this wondering made me pull the late Elliot Liebow’s, Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women, off my bookshelf.  I like this book because the information comes from his participatory observation of single, homeless women in emergency shelters in DC.  One of the main problems of daily living was health and diet.

“Obesity, stomach disorders, diabetes, food allergies, cardiovascular irregularities, and other disorders for which diet is integral to treatment made up another class of common health problems that resisted treatment by the very nature of homelessness…typically in shelters, few choices were available. Low-fat, low-salt, low cholesterol…and other low-this-or-that dietary injunctions were almost impossible to observe,” Liebow writes.   

Nobody, especially in the U.S., should go hungry, and/or be subject to affordable but highly unhealthy food. We have enough food in our stores and restaurants for everyone to eat sufficiently and healthy. This made me want to do a little research.

According to the nonprofit organization CARE:
•  More than 840 million people in the world are malnourished — 799 million of them live in the developing world;
•  Over 153 million of the world’s malnourished people are children 5 years of age or younger; and,
•  A lack of essential minerals and vitamins contributes to increased child and adult mortality. Vitamin A deficiency impairs the immune system, increasing the annual death toll from measles and other diseases by an estimated 1.3 million-2.5 million children.

That’s hard to digest (no pun intended), not because it doesn’t seem valid (I wish that were the case), but because it’s mind blowing.

What’s going on in the most developed country?

Looking at hunger stats at home (the U.S.) according to FRAC (The Food and Research Action Center):
•  At least 10.8 million people live in homes considered to have “very low food security.”
•  In my home state, Maryland, 196,000 households were considered “food insecure” from data gathered between 2003-2005. 115,165 of people in these households were WIC recipients (Women Infants and Children). Minimum wage in Maryland was $6.15 as of 2006. That is not enough for a woman who has a young child or children, and is trying to pay for decent housing, to live on.
•  In DC, the number is lower, with 31,000 households considered to be “food insecure” from data gathered between 2003-2005. 15,193 of people in these households considered food insecure are WIC recipients. The minimum wage in DC was $7.00 as of 2006.

These types of facts outrage me, especially when I hear about the kids.  That’s also what made it frustrating to quit the challenge prematurely–guilt from knowing that I have the privilege to return to my “regular eating” when many don’t.

On a positive note, a good insight I had from all this was that I should continue volunteering at the Pathways shelter I go to monthly.  I am a “dinner volunteer” for the smaller subcomponent of Calvary Women’s Services in DC, and in the two weeks prior to the challenge, I’d just started searching for different volunteering opportunities that might provide more direct interaction between me and the clients.   

Pathways houses about 10 chronically homeless women, some with mental disorders, and at the site there isn’t much talk between me and the women when I go to deliver food and prepare plates.  While I understand why they wouldn’t want to chat it up with someone they see bring some dinner in every once in a while, I really would like an opportunity that allows me to interact more, so I was thinking of not going anymore, and instead looking into reading for children in local hospitals or something.

After this challenge, while I can look for other opportunities, I know I can’t stop bringing the food.  The women always say they like my dishes, and the least I can do is send some hot, tasty, nutritious dishes their way.

Nobody should have to go hungry, and for me it starts on working on issues that affect the women right here in the local community.

For information on other ways to get involved in our community, Volunteer and Connect! 

Food Stamp Challenge: Final reflections…

Posted on by nisha

I did it! I made it through all seven full days of the Food Stamp Challenge without breaking!

Day 4, Thursday, was okay.  Breakfast was the standard yogurt and Special K Bar.  Lunch was my $1 pizza, which felt like such a treat even if it wasn’t the best tasting thing I’ve ever eaten. I ate my dinner of a Boca burger with cheese on whole wheat before heading to my Bread for the City board meeting.  I resisted eating the usual pizza and salad provided at our Board meetings, and just had a glass of water. Several other board members and staff were participating in the challenge, so there were many of us who weren’t eating.  We spent some time at the meeting reflecting on our experiences, and the solidarity was helpful in reminding me why I agreed to take on this challenge in the first place and why an organization like Bread is so necessary.

Day 5, Friday, was the toughest of all for me throughout the challenge. Lately, I’ve been hitting the gym five days a week and I tried to stick with it during the challenge, which was tough. After my workout on Friday, the rest of the day was a struggle. After four and half days of eating so few calories, burning quite a lot (although not as much as usual, as I had zero energy left to do any weights), and then enduring the Code Orange air and 90 percent humidity, memories of heat exhaustion in Delhi came flooding back. But, alas, no access to Limca Cola to perk me up.

I could barely focus at the morning workshop I attended, and I was so cranky and hungry and numb as I slugged back to my office throughout the downtown heat, loathing the smell of the city in the summer. I ate my last remaining tuna and cheese sandwiches. I somehow managed to stay alert by constantly drinking water through my afternoon meetings and the graduation of WAWIT’s inaugural class (even my weariness from the Food Stamp Challenge could not keep me away!).

I was too exhausted afterwards to do anything but go home and go to bed.

Day 6, Saturday, was tolerable. Having purchased just enough yogurt and Special K Bars for my weekday breakfasts, I had been counting on eating toast for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, I had miscalculated how much bread I had, so I had to skip breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, I slept in and then hit the gym. I staved off my hunger with leftover pasta and beans throughout the day.  I got pretty creative with tossing pasta with a little olive oil and spices to try and fool the palate into thinking I was eating something different. I didn’t have a choice, as I was out of pretty much everything else.

Saturday evening, I met some friends for movie, which was good since eating wasn’t involved. Afterwards, we decided to enjoy the pleasant weather and catch up over drinks at a place with an outdoor patio, which meant tap water for me and beers and munchies for everyone else. It actually felt good to be able to exercise some will power, but then I was starving by the time I got home. As it was after midnight, I decided it was too late to eat and went straight to bed and tried to forget about being hungry.

Day 7, Sunday, could not pass fast enough. By the end of the day, I had eaten almost all of my remaining pasta. I have maybe a couple of ounces of dry pasta left, but other than that, I have eaten every scrap of food I purchased for the challenge.

I weighed myself before and after the challenge. I lost four pounds.  I think I ended up skipping a total of three meals during the seven days. Reflecting on the past seven days, I am reminded of my experience bungy jumping in New Zealand:

a)  I did it on a whim.
b)  It was horrifying.
c)  I’m glad I did it.
d)  I proved to myself that I could do it without chickening out.
e)  I don’t feel the need to ever do it again.
f)  Now, that it’s over, I have a feeling of sweet relief.

Making the nonprofit sector a win for women…

Posted on by Lisa Kays

As a co-chair of D.C.’s WIN‘s Nonprofit Network, I was responsible for sharing responsibility for planning a dinner party for the annual Women Opening Doors for Women event.  The dinner parties are designed to provide young women in our area the opportunity to meet in an informal setting to discuss professional issues with women who are more advanced in their careers. 

The theme for our discussion, "Women in Nonprofits: We are Not Worth Less," emerged largely from a number of discussions among women in our network around salary and professional concerns related to the nonprofit sector, as well as from research around the salary and leadership levels of women within the sector as a whole. 

Eleven women gathered for more than two hours–until after 10 p.m.–to hear Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy and Lisa Maatz, director of government relations and public policy with the American Association of University Women, discuss their perspectives and learning around careers in the nonprofit sector–and particularly the balances and choices that impact women in the sector.

Questions and discussion centered largely around the tension that surrounds a choice to prioritize doing good over making millions, and why it is often women who often decide to prioritize the former.  My sense is that the nature of this discussion–and the level of interest and energy around it (demonstrated through the number and depth of comments Elizabeth received to a blog she posted on the topic and trends and conversations within the sector [more on that later])–raises some important questions about the nonprofit sector and the (by and large) women who are employed within.

Particularly given the recent discussions and research emerging showing startling trends in the nonprofit sector, such as the recent YNPN survey report cited on On Philanthropy, which shows that out of 1,657 nonprofit professionals:

  • 82 percent are female
  • 15 percent are under 25; 41 percent are 25-29; 22 percent are 30-34, and 15 percent are over 35
  • 55 percent plan to stay in the nonprofit sector for their next job. The other 45 percent intend to leave, for sectors such as consulting and for-profit companies.
  • The top two factors they cited as drivers for leaving the sector were salary/wages and burnout both indicated by at least half the participants, with burnout the most popular answer.
  • 40 percent of respondents indicated that they were neutral or thought it unlikely that they would ever serve as executive directors. Survey respondents cited long hours, the demands of funders, and the demands of boards as the primary barriers to pursuing those positions.

On Philanthropy then asks, "If a significant proportion of these motivated young professionals, many of whom are already serving as second-tier leaders in their organizations, don’t expect to even pursue top leadership positions, who will fill the Baby Boomers’ large shoes? Are we indeed facing a leadership deficit that will cripple our ballooning sector? If so, how can we ensure that the next generation is willing and able to take on leadership roles?"   

Begging the question, what can the sector–and particularly those within committed to women’s leadership, economic security and workplace equity and justice, as well as the consistent strengthening of effectiveness, innovation and impact within the sector–do to stem the ever-leaving tide of young talent?

A number of thoughts and concerns expressed at the dinner, as well as within the blogosphere, may lend some answers, or, at least, food for thought: 

Debt Driving Decisions
A point made at the dinner was that by and large, the amount of student loan debt someone has will be a great influencing factor in what sector they choose to work in.  The proposed Student Debt Relief Act could help address this, however, by providing loan forgiveness for people who enter the public service–including the nonprofit sector.  One of the speakers pointed out that, due to the prevalence of women in the nonprofit sector, this would be a large win for women, as well as for the nonprofit sector, which would gain additional recognition and stature as an industry doing service in the public good and have more talent available to it as few were forced to self-select out to pay back loans. 

Should Social Change Work Be a Luxury?
Similarly discussed was that the sector, due to its comparatively low wage base, could often be closed off to those who can’t afford to do unpaid internships, get an advanced degree (without assistance from family, the government or scholarships to help pay for it) or are single women (either living alone or heading households–particularly in an economy like D.C.’s).  As a result, does the sector then become privy to leadership only from those in the financial position to be willing to work a second job or who are fortunate enough to receive support from a spouse or family? 

You Can’t Buy Me…Diversity?
This relates to the discussions that have been taking place between a number of philanthropic thinkers on the ability of those with means to influence the sector moreso than those who may have not.  Is the sector, at every level, being closed to those who may have the largest stake in social change?  (Note that the survey results cited before indicate that currently the nonprofit sector is primarily white (72 percent), followed by 6 percent African American, 6 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5 percent Latino/a)–perhaps as much an indicator that increasing diversity within the nonprofit sector will depend as much on economic and salary issues as on general cultural competency or diversity awareness.

Women’s Work…Is It Worth Less?
Then there is the piece about what this says about the status of the sector as a whole, and other sectors that are predominantly occupied by women.  I met with someone yesterday who made the excellent point that in nursing, a field long-dominated by women, demand always exceeds the number of available positions, and yet like with almost any other employment market, this never drives up salaries.  As a result, quality of care declines as the standards drop for the education and skills of those accepted into the field.  

This is interesting to consider when framed in terms of the nonprofit sector and the current trends referenced above.  Could there eventually be a significant drop in talent, leadership and ability as employment in the sector becomes based far more on financial security than on commitment, drive or professional predisposition?

Negotiations: Taking from, or contributing to the mission?
And finally, there is the personal issue of negotiation–and the difficulty many women express in negotiating for a higher salary in a context of social justice.  Or at all, as it well documented in Linda Babcock’s Women Don’t Ask.   

While we spent a fair amount of time last night discussing the nuts and bolts of negotiating, this conversation also brought out another issue–that of holding nonprofits to the same standards as their missions, and considering that if the sector is committed to economic security, a living wage and social justice that this must begin "at home" so to speak, with workplace policies, salaries and cultures that reinforce, support and contribute to the very mission they may be promoting throughout their region, country or internationally.

Generally, a lot to think about and an illustration, at least to me, of how a number of the conversations about the nonprofit sector in general–related to retention of talent, fostering young leaders and ensuring a diversity of voices across all aspects, including class and socio-economic background–deserve some serious consideration from the perspective of a gender lens.

And are an illustration, yet again, of how looking at and addressing an issue that may seem, at first, to be about women, is really about the welfare, advancement and effectiveness of everyone concerned. 

I haven’t even covered a fraction here of the wisdom of our speakers last night, or the other women who shared their experiences and ideas, and I’m sure there is a ton more here to think about.  Let us know your thoughts in comments. 

How do you think the nonprofit sector stacks up for women and in general?  What can we do to improve things?  Does any of this really matter?  If so, to what extent?  Is the sector–and other similar ones dominated by women–a statement about women’s status in society? 

How far has the sector come?  How much further do we have to go to make it a win, for women and in general?      

Saving, and moving from balancing to building.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

In follow on to Ruth’s post today about her thoughts on the Food Stamp Challenge experience, and about her new awareness about living that close to the margins of hunger, poverty and general economic insecurity, I couldn’t help but think today again about the DC Saves campaign, and about how saving is truly one of the best ways of preventing teetering on that line.

My thoughts drifted to the movie, Pursuit of Happyness, and how painful it was to watch a father’s struggle to move he and his son further and further back from that edge.

Then to my own bank account, a reminder of how, despite having joined DC Saves, I’m barely keeping up with my own commitment and savings goal.

About how saving is, for whatever reasons and a variety of circumstances, so difficult for so many, even when we know better.  And even when we’re better off, comparatively, than many others. 

That the ability to save, I’ve learned, has far less to do with one’s annual earnings or expenses, and far more to do with one’s beliefs, habits and awareness.  Which is good, at least, since these things often tend to be far more within the realm of our immediate control than our salary or the region’s cost of living or rental markets.

Still, I do often find my discipline wavering, when I know that I’d be so much better off in the long-run to stay on track. 

This even though I know, firsthand, as the daughter of a single mother, a woman going through a divorce, a professional who has faced a layoff and a resident living in a city with an extremely high cost of living, how crucially important saving is.

I was doubly reminded when Carolee sent around an email today from Colleen Daily of CAAB (a key leader in the DC Saves campaign), who had talleyed up the saving priorities of those enrolled to date in the DC Saves campaign.  They are:

23% saving for an emergency fund
19% saving for retirement
15% saving for debt repayment
10% saving for homeownership
8% saving for education,
6% saving for a vacation
5% saving for investment savings
5% did not specify a savings goal
3% saving for business
2% saving for home improvement
2% saving for a consumer product
2% saving for a special event

Yet another stark reminder of the need–felt by so many–to be prepared for those unforseen circumstances that everyone is vulnerable to that can make the difference between making it and falling off the margin.

It helps reinforce to such an extent the importance of the work we, and our Grantee Partners, do to build the financial literacy skills and wealth of low-income, single women in our region, who are perhaps living closer to the margin than anyone else.

It brings together for me the importance, first, of protecting our own economic security (For a start, consider joining DC Saves where the only commitment required is to your own financial future!) to the greatest extent possible, and then to think about ways to support that of others as a means of creating a better community for each of us–where women, girls and families are all living within the margins, able to focus on building a life, rather than just keeping their balance. 

Food Stamp Challenge: My math skills prevail!

Posted on by nisha

On Sunday, I went to the grocery store to prepare for my week of participation in the Food Stamp Challenge, where I’ll be eating this week on a budget of $21, the amount the average food stamp recipient receives in federal assistance. 

Having finished up at the grocery store, I felt proud of myself for having managed to purchase pretty much all the items on my original list and then some.

My original list:

  • Oatmeal
  • Milk
  • Whole grain bread
  • Cheese
  • Spinach
  • Pasta
  • Sauce
  • Canned beans
  • Onion

While at the grocery store, I decided it was too hot to eat oatmeal and replaced it with my usual weekday summer breakfast of yogurt and a Special K Bar.

What I actually bought:

5 8 oz. yogurts @ $.40 each = $2.00
Special K Bars (package of 6) = $2.50
Pint of 2% milk = $1.19
Store brand whole wheat bread = $1.50 (On sale–score!)
Sargento sliced cheese with chipotle peppers = $3.29 (My big splurge!)
Classico pasta sauce with spinach and romano and parmesan cheese already added = $1.64 (So, I crossed spinach off my list.)
Barilla Pasta Plus (multi-grain penne) = $2.29
Can of black beans = $.93
Onion = $.54
Boca Burgers (package of 4) = $3.00
Store brand canned tuna = $.66
Ellio’s frozen cheese pizza = $1.00 (There was also another brand on sale for the same price–10/$10–so I chose the brand without any trans fat.)

As the total was being rung up, I wondered if I got the math exactly right.  What if I had over spent?  Would I be embarrassed to tell the cashier I needed to put some items back because I didn’t have enough money?

The grand total came to $20.93. Phew!  I did it!

I won’t claim it’s the healthiest list of items ever assembled, but I think it’s not bad (And, to be honest, not that different from my normal weekly diet–except may be the frozen pizza).

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and the realities of our region…

Posted on by nisha

As Asian Pacific American Heritage Month draws to a close, I thought it was worth revisiting a few statistics from The Portrait Project about Asian women in the Washington region.  While these data are a few years old now, they still serve to remind us of the divide that exists in our region within all racial and ethnic groups—and of the need for an organization like The Women’s Foundation, which is attempting to be a bridge across the divide.

When The Portrait Project was released in 2003. . .

  • Asian women’s median annual earnings in each jurisdiction of the Washington metropolitan region exceeded the median annual earnings of $27,194 for women nationally. In the region, Asian women’s median annual earnings ranged from $29,804 to $38,370. In four out of six local jurisdictions, Asian women’s earnings outpaced the national figure for this group by at least $2,773 (Fairfax County), and upwards to $7,321 (District of Columbia).
  • Yet, Asian women had the second highest poverty rates of all women in the region at 8.9 percent.  And, elderly Asian women in Alexandria and Arlington had the highest poverty rates of all women in every jurisdiction at 42.1 percent and 37.4 percent respectively (compared to Montgomery, Prince George’s, Arlington, Fairfax and Alexandria).
  • One of the largest wage gaps existed between Asian women and men’s median annual earnings. Asian women’s earnings in the region ranged from being 68 percent of Asian men’s earnings in Fairfax County ($33,822 for women compared to $49,589 for men) to 88 percent of their earnings in the District of Columbia ($38,370 compared to $43,646 for men).
  • 56 percent of Asian women in the region had some sort of college degree. Yet, 17- 21 percent of Asian women in our region lacked a high school diploma.

Clearly, there is much work to be done in bridging the divide. It is through our existing partnerships with Grantee Partners such as ASHA, Boat People SOS and Chinatown Service Center–and through new partnerships–that we can begin to make progress.

Research Briefing Recap: How a research briefing was born…

Posted on by Peter Tatian

On May 11, The Urban Institute and Washington Area Women’s Foundation hosted the second annual Stepping Stones Research Briefing, an event bringing together researchers, supporters of The Women’s Foundation, Grantee Partners, and members of the community to discuss some of the latest research on issues facing women-headed families in the Washington region.

The idea of holding a research briefing grew out of a challenge from The Women’s Foundation to encourage and promote public policy research with a “gender lens.”

Since the very beginning, The Women’s Foundation has been committed to basing its strategies and grantmaking on solid information. Starting with The Portrait Project: A Portrait of Women and Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area, and continuing with its commitment to informed grantmaking and results-based evaluation, The Women’s Foundation has sought out and used high quality data and research to inform its actions.

And so, the Stepping Stones Research Briefing was born! 

The first two briefings have been a great opportunity to showcase some of the outstanding research being done on issues of importance to women in the region.  But, doing research with a gender perspective means more than just comparing women with men.  As The Urban Institute’s Margery Turner put it in her welcoming remarks, "We did not want to simple-mindedly run everything separately on the basis of gender, but rather to think about the ways in which taking a gender perspective might generate new insights coming out of research and new ideas on the implications of research for policy and practice."

Over the next few weeks, some of the researchers who participated in the research briefing will be writing their own blog entries, sharing with you additional insights from their work.

Their presentations touched on three policy areas:

  • Financial education and wealth creation – Megan Gallagher and Oramenta F. Newsome discussed the opportunities and challenges for increasing wealth in women-headed families through homeownership.
  • Child care and early education – Jesse Bailey, Elaine Weiss, and Gina Adams presented both local and national perspectives on strategies to increase access to quality child care, a vital support for single women with children in the workforce.
  • Microenterprise development – Nancy M. Pindus, Telaekah Brooks, and Roxana Moayedi described the barriers to women trying to start their own businesses, including perspectives from local women entrepreneurs, and some of the assistance that is available to help them succeed in the business world.

Like you, I will be looking forward to hearing more about the exciting research that was presented at the research briefing. 

But, for those of you who can’t wait, you can listen to the entire set of presentations through a series of audio files available on the Urban Institute Web site.

Peter Tatian is a senior research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities.  (The views expressed here are his own and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.)  Peter plays a crucial role in the development and success of the Stepping Stones Research Briefing. 

For an additional perspective on the Stepping Stones Research Briefing, check out Lisa Claudy Fleischman’s post, "Learning Through a Gender Lens."