International Women’s Day is Saturday and March is Women’s History Month. Mark your support through crowdfunding.
By Zanoon Nissar (Sr. Product Expert & Philanthropy Lead, Google)
I’ve been a regular at Women 2.0 conferences, but when I arrived this year, something different was brewing in the air. The usual topics like getting to a million users, or raising Series A funding…yes, they were present and so was social impact, in a big way. Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator proudly shared that their current portfolio included seven non-profits. The reason? Pure benevolence. Shivani Garg Patel of Samahope delved into the topic of meaningful work. Groups of women brainstormed on how tech can help be a force for good amidst the gentrification issues facing the city.
As someone who runs various giving initiatives at Google, this shift was incredibly exciting to see. Meaning and purpose matters in our work as much as the work itself. So I don’t doubt that with March being Women’s History Month, our community wants to find ways give back: here are three crowdfunding campaigns that you can support women’s entrepreneurship, health and education through.
Give To Entrepreneurs
Indiegogo’s International Women’s Day campaign amplify opportunities for women’s technology, writing, and film projects. Support projects like Madame President, a female author writing a book featuring a woman president so that girls have women leader role models, B Peace supporting women mentorship in conflict areas, or Lesbians Who Tech.
Give Health
Samahope is a crowdfunding platform that directly funds heroic doctors who provide life-changing medical treatments for women and children in poor communities. Once you sign up to support a doctor, Samahope delivers regular updates from the doctor on the patients treated and impact they are able to have with your support. For example, $50 funds a safe birth in rural Nepal by Dr Thapa.
Give Globally
Jolkona is a non-profit that makes the giving journey easy, meaningful, and transparent. Jolkona just launched its 4th annual Give to Girls campaign to promote and support innovative projects empowering women and girls in nine countries. Can’t choose a project to donate to? You can also give just $10 to their Give Together program where your donations will be pooled with others to give a grant to one of these organizations working to empower women and girls.
#40Forward
At Google we’re also giving back to women. In an effort to find new ways to advance female entrepreneurs, we’re committing $1 million in aggregate to 40 startup-focused organizations, challenging them to increase the representation of women in their respective tech communities. From simply changing the times of events to accommodate busy moms to teaching young girls to see themselves as entrepreneurs, 40 of our partner communities will soon launch new programs and outreach initiatives to encourage women founders.
How you will give back during Women’s History month?
About the Blogger: Zanoon Nissar is a Sr. Product Expert & Philanthropy Lead at Google. She is also a member of Full Circle Fund, an active network of professionals who leverage their time, talent & connections to help nonprofits make a greater impact and accelerate positive change.
Image credit: Samahope.
