Thank You! We’re Celebrating What You Made Possible

Issue 185 — November 22, 2021

Before holiday season gatherings (in person or virtual — please stay safe), I’m taking a moment to say how grateful I am for all we have accomplished together despite pandemic-induced setbacks. Seriously, it has been amazing to look back at 2021 and realize that thanks entirely to your support, Take The Lead has provided over 10,000 women with resources and actionable tools to navigate career challenges and changes. You helped us help women rethink, refresh, retool, or revise their career intentions. And those are just the ones we can count.

Thank you for helping Take The Lead turn a time of unprecedented change and disruption into a time of hope and rebirth for so many women and their families.

Because of you, we’ve been there to support women with courses, coaching, webinars, and original content that informs and inspires. We gave them hope mixed with actions they can take.

Because of you, Take The Lead literally took the lead. We’re a one stop, comprehensive program for women+ in every aspect of their careers and lives: as caregivers, pivoters, entrepreneurs, leaders in a wide range of industries. We #putwomenatthecenter of the recovery and led others to do the same. We help companies and nonprofit organizations with all of these issues as well.

Because of you, we plunged in, with power and positivity in the face of loss and disruption. Not that it’s been all rainbows and unicorns. Far from it. There have been days when I thought we might not make it. Because of you, I know we will not only make it, we will make 2022 the year we scale at last to achieve our bold mission. More on that to come.

We’re working on a cool infographic to illustrate what we did in 2021. Meanwhile, here are highlights as they relate to our mission to prepare, develop, inspire, and propel all women of all diversities and intersectionalities to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025.

If you don’t have time to read all of this, please watch this 90 second video that gets at the heart of what we do, why, and how we do it. The rest as they say, is commentary.

So here’s a quick (OK, not so quick, but well organized) rundown of 2021 thus far. And we still have six weeks to go!

We Prepared:

• We launched the Academy for Advanced Leadership and delivered six masterclasses plus Felicia Davis’s powerful Brand Your Brilliance challenge. These were free to 50 Women in Nonprofits cohort members thanks to support from the American Express Foundation and SRP. Others pay a monthly subscription fee. We will conclude in December and resume with a programming TBD in 2022.

• The second annual 2021 Power Up Conference went virtual and presented the latest on Diversity and Inclusion, including original research on the impact of the pandemic on women in the workplace by Brielle Valle, an exclusive interview with CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice president John Yang, a conversation on racial healing between board chair Dr. Nancy O’Reilly and leadership ambassador Felicia Davis, and much more, thanks to support from the Tara Health Foundation.

• We commissioned a review of our curriculum with a racial justice lens. 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism member Charreah Jackson did the review and we are implementing many of her recommendations already (you might notice the explicit reference to intersectionality in our mission statement for example), and the rest guide our current and future programming.
• We turned our core curriculum 9 Leadership Power Tools course into an online self-directed course, enabling busy women to get the benefit of it on their own time. Thanks to your donations, we were able to offer scholarships to women whose careers have been disrupted by COVID. We now have a turnkey product that can be licensed to companies that want to supercharge their women’s initiative at high value, low cost per person. That will enable us to reach even more women.

• We provided the Can + Will refresh and reboot series for our 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism cohorts, thanks to the Democracy Fund. This included special programming with speakers such as the NY 1 journalists who have dealt with age discrimination and Mira Lowe, 2019 cohort member, president of JAWS (Journalism and Women Symposium), and whose most recent accomplishment is being named Dean, Florida A&M University School of Journalism. Another program and big win for the 50 Women program was a presentation by 2019 participant Angilee Shah who shared the 2019 cohort’s action plan, Women Do News. Women Do News’ purpose is to equalize female journalists’ representation on Wikipedia. It has been so successful that is has now spun off as its own nonprofit organization. Gratitude to the Ford Foundation for being the primary funder of the 2019 journalism cohort.
• We partnered with the Center for Women in Law to deliver the “Powerful in 2021: Confidence, Competence, and Intention for Women in Law” webinar series, led by Leadership Ambassador Susan Blount, that included our most popular workshops: “The Three Powers of Leadership Intention” and “Your Power Journey,” along with brilliant interviews with four attorneys who are practicing their profession in different ways — firm partner, corporate attorney, nonprofit leader, and elected judge. The law firm of Shearman and Sterling was the presenting sponsor of this series.

• We provided training or keynotes for companies such as Universal Music, Insight, Neuberger, Cerner, and Epredia, and a diverse array of organizations such as Delaware Bio, The University of Arizona, The Rabbinical Assembly Professional Learning Community, and the Better Business Bureau, and are grateful for all these partnerships.

We Developed:

• We offered coaching as part of our 50 Women Can Change the World In Journalism cohort Can + Will series to those needing support rethinking their career plans.
• We initiated community management processes in our cohorts’ digital platforms to further engage and connect them with each other to get the best advantage of the power of the cohort. This was funded in part by The Women’s Collective. Cohort building peer mentorship/sponsorship is the secret sauce of our programs.

We Inspired:

• We started the year off with a webinar that featured special guest Minda Harts, author of The Memo and Right Within.

In our first webinar of 2021, Take The Lead leadership ambassador Felicia Davis interviewed Minda Harts, author of The Memo and Right Within.

• Our editorial director Michele Weldon created an ongoing role model feature on our blog, called “Power to Change Stories” where we invite women to share their own inspiring stories of activism, overcoming challenges, and more. That led to producing the first volume of 30 Power to Change Stories. We’re attaching that here as a special gift to you. We’ve published 51 powerful stories of change so far, from Black, Latina, Indigenous, Muslim, white, LGBTQ+, physically challenged women from 18 years old to 70+ in the U.S. and abroad.
• Our award winning blog covered many diverse topics and leaders. These are then sent to subscribers to our weekly newsletter and shared on social media.
• Talk about inspiration! Composer and pianist Marina Arsenijevic donated her amazing talent for the Concert For Women’s Equality Day. It drew over 100 participants and raised $100,000 for Take The Lead. Sponsors include Door Dash, The WMarketplace, and Arts Rock. We also thank actor and activist Rhodessa Jones for her impassioned video about one of our favorite topics, women and power.

• We created a video, audio, and print resource library for our 50 Women cohorts’ reference that we will continue to add to and use for years to come.
• I curated panels on the power of intention as part of my book launch with the International Women’s Forum NY and AZ chapters, Luminary, and Changing Hands Bookstore, plus hosted two virtual launch parties that featured many of the Intentional Women in my new book Intentioning.

My book launch at Luminary. From L to R: Drew Dixon, me, Cate Luzio, Nathalie Molina Nino.

Book launch at Changing Hands. L to R: Catherine Scrivano, Felicia Davis, me, Alicia Ontiveros, Vada Manager.

We Propelled:

• This is Take The Lead’s thought leadership part of our mission that aims to change the narrative about women’s leadership from a problem to solution focus. In our blogs and other content as well as curated resources, we highlight the most salient, powerful, impactful stories of the day across groups, communities, identities.
• The Movement Blog alone provided 77 blogs in 2021 plus 50 weekly newsletter issues sent to our mailing list of 16,000 and then is shared across our combined social media following of 100,000. Each blog post contains 10–15 links to resources for more information and specific solutions. That is 800+ resources made available to readers on these topics: Flexibility, Recovery, Remote Work, Inclusion, Equity, Entrepreneurship, Mental Health, Risk Taking, LGBTQ+ Concerns in Workplace, Disabilities & Inclusion, Risk Taking, Early Career strategies, Ageism, Concerns for Moms in the Workplace, Black Women Leaders, Wage Gap, Latina Leaders, Planning for Success. Audiences: Early career, career change at 30+, moms, parents, mid-career, late career, executives, and pivots at 50+.
• My new book Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take the Lead for (Everyone’s) Good launched September 28 and is available at Amazon and other booksellers and on Audible. In it, I created 9 new Leadership Intentioning Tools that will form the basis for a new Take The Lead course in 2022, to complement the 9 Leadership Power Tools course.

Ranjani Venkatakrishnan started as an intern for the 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism 2020 cohort then became community manager for the 2021 programs to support both the journalism and nonprofit cohorts during the pandemic.

• In addition, Intentioning addresses why racial and gender equality are intertwined and must advance together, how to make DEI programs effective, why leading like a woman is the leadership model of the future, and how men can partner in the movement for gender equality in leadership.
• Our earned media coverage was wide, reaching approximately 113 million people so far this year, including op eds in Newsweek and Leader to Leader, interviews with Bloomberg radio, NPR, Good Day LA, Cheddar TV, Forbes, and so many podcasts I can’t even count them. Social media following (mine + Take The Lead’s) is now approaching 100,000 and we haven’t even started TikToking yet!

Partnerships are Key to Growth:

• Because we believe in the power of the infinite pie (that’s Leadership Intentioning Tool #3 by the way) we so appreciate our growing number of partnerships that enable all of our organizations to reach more people. Thank you to WMarketplace, Troublemakers, Luminary, Gender Fair, Million Dollar Women, Center for Women in Law, Women Connect 4 Good, Journalism and Women Symposium, Corporate Learning Network, and Michael Stars — forgive me and correct me if I have left anyone off.
• Thanks to Michael Stars, which donated $25,000 to support Take The Lead’s programs and create the WOM=N t-shirt cobranded with Take The Lead. 30 Influencers participated in “wearing the shirt” (that’s Leadership Power Tool #6 by the way), spreading the word on social media far and wide. You can still buy the shirt on our website or Michael Stars — it’s my favorite for the gym these days. It’s so soft and comfy!

• We launched our signature 9 Leadership Power Tools jewelry in partnership with jeweler Joan Hornig, who generously gives all profits to charity. So if you are looking for a unique gift for family or friends, hop on over to www.taketheleadwomen.com/shop.

• Thanks to the Embrey Family Foundation, we partnered with the Wright Collective to analyze our fundraising systems and strategy development. We’re now focusing on capacity building in preparation for scaling big time in 2022.

There is much exhaustion — goodness knows I’m feeling it too as you almost certainly are, from almost two years of isolation, loss, and uncertainty. Yet, I learned so much this past year from listening to and helping women from our training programs to grapple with disrupted careers and lives.

For those of us who are fortunate to have homes and jobs and above all health, this is a time for deep gratitude, and for thinking about how we can help others. Supporters of Take The Lead made it possible for thousands of women to have access to information, courses, and programs that help them rethink, retool, and refresh their careers.

Because of you, when people ask me whether despite the setbacks women have faced during the pandemic, I still believe we can reach gender parity in leadership by 2025, I say absolutely yes. Not that it will be easy or automatic. It will require more hard work and dedication than ever. But disruption is also an opportunity for rebirth, and an impetus for innovation and systems changes that would never occur otherwise. (Leadership Power Tool #5 is Carpe the Chaos — almost everyone’s favorite recently.)

Thank you for supporting Take The Lead on this part of the journey. The best is yet to come.

Gratefully and with High Intentioning,

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she teaches “Women, Power, and Leadership” at Arizona State University and is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.