Team: Starre Haas (Little Rock, Ark.), Christine McCall (Chicago, Ill.), Dylan Edgell (Pottsville, Ark.), Mariella Hernandez (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
Supervisor: Anna Beth Gorman
The Women’s Foundation of Arkansas is investing in the research, design, and implementation of a new initiative, focused on women’s economic empowerment in Arkansas. As a part of the initiative, it is looking to create a designation/accreditation to businesses and employers that are committed to providing equitable opportunities for women in their workforce. Students will research models and/or best practices from other cities and states to help WFA create this tool for businesses that support women in Arkansas working toward economic empowerment.
Mission Statement: The goal of Women Empowered (WE) is to strengthen the economic worth and well-being of women in Arkansas – ranging from insecure to very secure – through strategic means. More specifically, this means we would collaborate with, raise awareness of, and support agencies, policies, and programs that engage with women with the objective of understanding and creating pathways to greater economic security. By identifying and addressing these issues, WFA seeks to facilitate education choices and career paths and shift the policy framework surrounding women’s financial literacy, debt management, and economic wealth.
Women’s Foundation of Arkansas’ (WFA) mission is to facilitate programs and shape policies that expand and strengthen the roles of women and girls in Arkansas. We are the only statewide foundation that focuses solely on significantly improving their academic, economic, and social well-being. To fulfill this mission, WFA serves as a grant-maker, a convener, and a resource on the status of women and girls. It is our belief that improving their lives not only advances gender equity but also improves the health and wealth of families, communities, and the state as a whole.
“The Women’s Foundation of Arkansas is working to elevate the conversation of the critical role women play as a strategy to improve Arkansas’s overall economy. Through our Women Empowered Initiative we hope to bring together an intersection of public, private, and nonprofit support in an effort to advance women’s economic circumstance. We are proud to stand at that intersection and be the leading economic equity partner for women in this state. We are especially excited to have a team of Clinton School students helping us with this important initiative.” – Anna Beth Gorman, Executive Director