The purpose of Women Moving Millions is clear: to encourage members to set new standards for bold philanthropic leadership and to support their partners in raising greater resources for organizations committed to the lives of women and girls.

This nonprofit brings together women leaders and partner organizations to learn, share and connect with each other and external experts in “gender-lens” philanthropy. Since its founding in 2007, Women Moving Millions has inspired over 230 members to pledge over $600 million to organizations and initiatives that share our commitment to advancing women and girls around the world. More at womenmovingmillions.org

Alphachimp was invited to document the keynote presentations ranging from gender equality, protection of refugees, access to education, healthcare, curbing traditional practices such as genital mutilation and child-marriage.

Event Summary

During their three-day annual summit, WMM brings together over 130 members, prospective members, and partners to catalyze unprecedented resources for the advancement of women and girls.

This year, Women Moving Millions was honored to welcome Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen(Founder of the Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation) to The Annual Summit as our keynote speaker. In her remarks, Laura set out a call to action to embrace innovation and challenge in philanthropy, “to see every day as an inflection point for doing our philanthropic work better tomorrow” and to “not take no for an answer when the well-being of others are at stake”. For Laura, that means democratizing philanthropy, making it inclusive and to educate philanthropists freely and globally. What does it mean for you?

We were also thrilled to invite Pam Scott (Member of Women Moving Millions) to our stage to highlight the power of human-centered design as a framework and tool for elevating our work in social impact. Her advice to demystifying HCD? Understand, Define, Create & Ideate, Implement and of course, LEARN.

Our Friday Summit also featured a panel on Innovation + Entrepreneurship with Zubaida Bai (Founder of ayzh), Cheryl Dorsey (President of Echoing Green), Leila Janah (CEO of Sama) as our speakers and Elizabeth Gore (Entrepreneur-in-Resident at Dell) as our moderator. Together, they shared what it takes to innovate (experiment with models, seek hybrids, explore supply chains, etc.) and what it takes to succeed (align investor expectations, connect through stories, move from “bootstrapping” to equity or impact investing, and more).

We then invited Barrie Landry (Member of Women Moving Millions), Caryl Stern (President & CEO of U.S. Fund for UNICEF),Kuoth Wiel (Actor, Activist, Co-Founder of the NyaEden Foundation & Former Refugee) and Jessica Houssian (Chief Philanthropy Officer of Women Moving Millions) to share their personal stories and experiences working to address the global refugee crisis (over 65 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes) and the role that innovation can play to empower women and girls in times of conflict. We were also lucky to have Shared Studios bring us live to Erbil, Iraq to meet Tafra, a school teacher, Myrna and Rind, two ten year old girls, to hear their stories of life in Harsham Refugee Camp. At the close of the session, Kuoth shared an inspiring message of encouragement to Tafra, Myrna & Rind: “There is hope. I want you to see that I am proof that there is hope.”

Our next speaker, Geena Rocero (Model, Producer & Trans Rights Advocate), then took the stage to share her story as a transgender woman of color and highlight her work to develop an intersectional and inclusive dialogue about the trans experience. That means, “when we talk about women’s equality… we need to talk across the spectrum of identity, policy, history, media, and culture.”

Geena’s session was followed by our panel on Innovation + Story featuring Jess Tomlin (Executive Director of The MATCH International Women’s Fund), Sherrie Westin (Executive Vice President of Global Impact & Philanthropy at the Sesame Workshop), Kamal Sinclair (Director of the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Labs Program) and Cara Mertes (Director of the JustFilms Initiative at the Ford Foundation) who moderated the conversation. In this session, our panelists shared their work in activating storytelling in the form of codes, algorithms and puppets to transfer knowledge, shape attitudes and create a new future for women and girls around the world.

Finally, our last session introduced Sonita Alizadeh, 19 year old Afghan Rapper & Activist to the Women Moving Millions community in a breathtaking performance about her life and struggle to defy tradition and eradicate child-marriage. In an interview with Mona Sinha (Vice President of the Board of Women Moving Millions), Sonita also shared a few inspirational parting words about changing her destiny: “I had a vision for my life, and my dreams helped me to be loud and to be brave.” We heard Sonita loud and clear.

Facilitated by superstar Lisa Witter co-founder of Apolitical and former COO of Fenton, the largest public interest communications firm in the US. She has been a commentator and moderator for outlets including NPR, MSNBC, CBS and the Clinton Global Initiative. She has worked in government for the Seattle City Council. She is a WEF Young Global Leader and sits on the Global Agenda Council on Behaviour.