About WomenStrong
WomenStrong International finds, funds, strengthens, and shares women-driven solutions that will transform lives in urban communities. Our partners start by listening to women, who know best what they need, in order to thrive. We then bring these partner organizations together in a Learning Lab, to develop, test, sharpen, and disseminate their solutions. Through our collective learning and sharing, WomenStrong is building a global community of organizations better equipped to advance the rights and wellbeing of women and girls.
Today, WomenStrong’s partners include 18 organizations from 15 countries, working in the areas of girls’ education, women’s health, and preventing violence against women and girls. Our partners receive support to implement community projects they design and to come together in our Learning Lab, where they can learn and grow together as they share what’s working, and what’s not, in their efforts to improve the lives of women and girls and advance gender equality.
Since our founding, WomenStrong has invested nearly $10 million in direct grants to women’s organizations and another $3 million in supporting these organizations with technical support and training, opportunities to present their work, and other organizational strengthening and learning activities.
Mission and Vision
Our Mission
Empowering women and girls to lead the way toward a poverty-free world.
Our Vision
We envision a world in which all women and girls are free to prosper and to live their lives in dignity and peace.
Our History
WomenStrong International grew out of the Millennium Cities Initiative, a project of Columbia University’s Earth Institute designed to help 11 sub-Saharan cities achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
Over a dozen years, we saw women in these communities rely on their own creativity, perseverance, and grit to provide for their families; these women became our go-to source of knowledge of what works, to earn a decent living and build a just and more prosperous world.
WomenStrong expanded the geographic and sociocultural focus of this urban development agenda to include our founding partner organizations in India, Kenya, Ghana, Haiti, and the United States.
Today, WomenStrong’s community of partners has grown to include 18 organizations across 15 countries. These women-driven organizations come together in the WomenStrong Learning Lab to develop, test, sharpen, and amplify their solutions in four areas: girls’ education, women’s health, violence prevention, and economic security and opportunity.