The Women’s Fund announces 2021-22 Grantees

For its 2021-2022 grant cycle, the Women’s Fund designated all its grant funding to support organizational transformation to benefit gender and racial equity in our region and within the organizations that work on key issues areas within the self-sufficiency space. The Women’s Fund is proud to support seven organizations in their efforts to improve their operations, build their capacity or invest in initiatives that could change the landscape for issues of women’s self-sufficiency in our region. 

The Women’s Fund grant decisions are made its Women’s Fund Advisory Council, a group of 14 women who are directly experiencing barriers to economic mobility. Their thoughtful discussion about the 46 applications received and had the difficult decision of selecting seven organizations’ projects for funding. Our economic self-sufficiency ecosystem is truly doing great work for women in our region, and the Women’s Fund is excited to fund the following seven projects:   

• Children’s Law Center will use funds to strengthen the organization’s internal DEI systems, culture, and individual understanding. CLC provides free, high-quality legal services for girls and young women–to increase their access to education, employment, housing, and pathways to healthy, self-sufficient adulthoods. Working with community partners, CLC will address systemic barriers for girls, especially girls of color, in the Greater Cincinnati community. 
• City Council Bootcamp is a free, nonpartisan, six-month program for engaged residents who are interested in running for City Council in Ohio and/or want a deeper understanding of the city’s government systems and practices to successfully champion impactful policy changes that benefit all residents. Participants engage with speakers representing government administration leadership and subject matter experts, political decision-makers, elected officials and their staff, journalists, council clerks, advocates, community leaders, and others who play critical roles in shaping local policy processes and outcomes.
• CityLink Center has partnered with Making a Change Cincy, an African-American, women-led organization that trains individuals for entry level positions in health care. There is tremendous economic opportunity for trained phlebotomists and medical assistants that require an intentional and supportive career track and we’re grateful that this funding allows Making a Change Cincy to recruit and train additional instructors, build out technology supports for scaling, and recruit additional clients for its training.
• Groundwork Ohio, a statewide nonpartisan early childhood research, public policy, and advocacy organization, is building a powerful statewide Family Action Network comprised of women caregivers and parents with young children across Ohio. Through the Family Action Network, Groundwork Ohio will engage a diverse cohort of low-income moms and female caregivers in leadership development and storytelling to empower Ohio families with young children to elevate their stories and lived experiences to policymakers.
• The Samaritan Car Care Clinic addresses transportation barriers to self-sufficiency.  The Clinic will use the grant to help with car repairs for single mothers referred to the Clinic by Brighton Center.
• Vision Works will develop an online Learning Management System and the curriculum for an Asynchronous Apprenticeship and an Internship Program Platform, to support the work of the early childhood education sectors efforts to provide a shared portal to provide training and credentialing to early education providers. The structured program will help support early career ECE professionals complete the CDA credentials and an Associate Degree.
• Women Helping Women’s Survivor Equity Fund (SEF) is designated to alleviate the financial devastation of domestic violence (DV) and sexual assault (SA). In addition to meeting survivors’ emergency financial needs (i.e., housing, utilities, transportation), the SEF enables us to mitigate the long-term, harmful consequences of DV/SA by supporting survivors’ self-determined needs and goals.

Congratulations to the seven grantees of the 2021-2022 Women’s Fund grant cycle.