Women Donors Network

Topic: Women’s Leadership

Meet Our Three New Board Members: Suhad Babaa, Ellie Friedman & Nadia Ismail

Suhad Babaa (she/her/hers) What led to your interest in joining the WDN Board? I was told once that no matter what you do, you should make sure you do it with good people. Those that I have come to know in WDN’s community – its leadership and staff, members and importantly, its partners – are all kind, thoughtful, and strategic.
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Real Talk With New Member Jennifer Risher

New member Jennifer Risher, author of We Need to Talk, tells us how she’s shaking up the conversation about wealth and philanthropy. You have an interesting story about how you became wealthy. Can you share it with us? I am lucky.
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A photo of WDN member Amanda Coslor, she has short brown hair, blue eyes, and is smiling slightly at the camera. She wears an orange sweater and is outside in front of a bush.

Caring At The Very Beginning: Transforming Our World Through Birth Justice

WDN member Amanda Coslor joined us for a Q&A on birth justice as an often overlooked way to transform society. You are heavily involved in the birth justice movement. You are the seed funder and a board member of the Birth Justice Fund at Groundswell Fund, one of the largest birth justice funders in the country, and the Thriving Women’s Initiative at Seven Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, which is bringing back traditional birth practices for Indigenous women.
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Photo of WDN member Sage Wheeler, a white women wearing glasses and a purple scarf. She has shoulder-length grey hair and smiles at the camera.

Tending to Self through Change with Member Sage Wheeler

You run your own business, Sage Coaching, to support women going through transitions. What key message do you communicate to women going through changes or challenges? First off, this past year has thrown all of our nervous systems into varying stages of fight, flight, or freeze.
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Photo of Representative Barbara Lee, a Black woman with short textured hair, standing on a podium and smiling and waving. She is wearing a yellow jacket and orange shirt

Barbara Jean Lee: The Lone Voice

By: Kathryn Snyder, WDN Director of Programs & Initiatives This month, WDN had the honor of hosting a screening of Abby Ginzberg’s documentary Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me, followed by a live panel with Representative Barbara Lee and Abby Ginzberg, moderated by Lateefah Simon, President of the Akonadi Foundation.
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Photo of Sharon Chen, an asian woman with short grey hair smiling at the camera. She is wearing a green shirt with a white collar. The background of the photo is orange.

WDN Board Treasurer Sharon Chen Is Stepping Into Power By Sharing It

Your background is in computer science engineering and you worked at Microsoft for 12 years. You’re also incredibly involved in philanthropy, political activism, and environmental justice. How has your career propelled your philanthropic and activist journey? As a young Asian female in tech in the 90’s who was one of three women in my class to graduate as a computer science major, and the only one with an engineering degree, and even though I valued many of the coworkers and experiences I had during those 12 years, I found many aspects of working in the corporate tech world frustrating.
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Meet Nadia Ismail: She’s leveling the playing field inside and outside of business

You’ve worked professionally in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for over seven years. Can you share more about why you’ve chosen DEI as your professional focus? What DEI lessons do you think the world of philanthropy needs to learn? I began my work in learning and development and discovered that that work on its own is ineffective if you’re not thinking through the variety of needs that learners have and the people who you’re trying to empower.
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Meet Aparna Rae: She’s Doing Big Things in DEI

Aparna Rae, entrepreneur and founder of Moving Beyond, a consulting firm that works to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion across all aspects of impact investing, tells us how she came to do this work, why she joined the Women Donors Network, and gives us the scoop on Moving Beyond’s 2021 Workplace survey series.
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WDN Moves $2 Million Start of Pandemic

We know that these are frightening times. We’ve all been worrying about the health and safety of those we love and the communities we hold dear. In the face of that fear, our network has stepped up to the moment. In the midst of this pandemic, we’re proud to share that the WDN community has moved $2 million to the field.
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We’ve Been Making Impact

What impact has WDN had so far this year? Continue reading to find out. Jean Hardisty Initiative In the face of rampant white supremacist violence and rhetoric, WDN is supporting Black-led movements that are channeling protest energy into building power. So far in 2019, we have invested nearly half a million dollars into Black-led movements.
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