From Baseline to Action
In 2022, the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County launched the State of Women and Girls in Howard County to establish a baseline understanding of the issues affecting women and girls in our community through a gender lens.
Four years later, the report continues to inform how we learn, give, engage, and lead.
Since its launch, we have used the State of Women and Girls to:
Continuing to Learn
The State of Women and Girls was designed as a baseline, not a final answer.
Since 2022, new data have become available, new issues have emerged, and organizations throughout Howard County have developed new research, programs, partnerships, and sources of community knowledge. WGC has also continued to learn through our grantmaking, nonprofit partners, donors, young women, collaborations, and the lived experiences of women in our community.
Together, these sources help us continue asking an important question:
What do we know about the state of women and girls in Howard County today, and what do we still need to understand?
Community Engagement
Since launching the report, WGC has shared and discussed the State of Women and Girls through local, statewide, national, and global conversations, including WGC Annual Celebrations, The Big Give, Young Women’s Giving Circle programs, Black Philanthropy Month events, community gatherings, podcasts, and conferences.
These conversations have helped us share what we know, learn from others, elevate issues affecting women and girls, and continue building on the 2022 baseline.
Four years later, the report continues to inform how we learn, give, engage, and lead.
Since its launch, we have used the State of Women and Girls to:
- Inform our grantmaking using the six researched gender-lens categories identified in the report and better understand where our funding can make a difference.
- Guide our priorities and planning, helping WGC continue to align our work with our mission and the evolving needs of women and girls.
- Deepen our learning, identifying areas where additional data, lived experience, and community voices can help us better understand specific issues.
- Engage donors in learning and giving through initiatives such as The Big Give, connecting information about women and girls with nonprofit voices and participatory grantmaking.
- Elevate the voices of young women through the Young Women’s Giving Circle, including deeper learning, grantmaking, education, and advocacy around menstrual health and equity.
- Explore issues more deeply, including our partnership with the Horizon Foundation on Elevating to Evolve: Stories of Wisdom, Excellence and a Call for Change from Black Women Nonprofit Leaders in Howard County.
- Continue responding to immediate needs through our longstanding Emergency Response Network and learn from the needs our nonprofit partners are seeing in real time.
- Learn collaboratively with community partners, including through HoCoRespond and our ongoing relationships with nonprofit organizations, funders, and community leaders.
- Inform our community about disparities, opportunities, and emerging issues affecting women and girls in Howard County.
Continuing to Learn
The State of Women and Girls was designed as a baseline, not a final answer.
Since 2022, new data have become available, new issues have emerged, and organizations throughout Howard County have developed new research, programs, partnerships, and sources of community knowledge. WGC has also continued to learn through our grantmaking, nonprofit partners, donors, young women, collaborations, and the lived experiences of women in our community.
Together, these sources help us continue asking an important question:
What do we know about the state of women and girls in Howard County today, and what do we still need to understand?
Community Engagement
Since launching the report, WGC has shared and discussed the State of Women and Girls through local, statewide, national, and global conversations, including WGC Annual Celebrations, The Big Give, Young Women’s Giving Circle programs, Black Philanthropy Month events, community gatherings, podcasts, and conferences.
These conversations have helped us share what we know, learn from others, elevate issues affecting women and girls, and continue building on the 2022 baseline.
Data-Driven Grantmaking
Since launching the State of Women and Girls in Howard County in 2022, WGC has continued to use its six researched gender-lens categories to help inform, organize, and understand our grantmaking:
Over the last four years, our grantmaking has also become another source of learning.
Through our broader grantmaking, The Big Give, Young Women’s Giving Circle, and Emergency Response Network, we continue to see many of the issues identified in the original report surface in the needs and opportunities brought to us by our nonprofit partners.
Our funding has supported efforts addressing housing and economic stability, domestic and sexual violence, maternal and reproductive health, menstrual equity, mental health and wellbeing, education and opportunity, leadership, food and basic needs, transportation, support for immigrant and refugee families, and more.
We are also seeing how often these issues intersect. A transportation challenge can affect employment and access to healthcare. Domestic violence can create immediate housing and economic needs. Childcare can affect a woman's ability to work and a family's financial stability. Health and wellbeing can influence nearly every aspect of a woman's life.
Grantmaking as a Learning Tool
WGC's grantmaking does more than provide financial support. It brings us into ongoing relationships with nonprofit organizations working directly with women and girls and helps us better understand what they are seeing and experiencing in our community.
Together, these different approaches to grantmaking help us connect data with lived experience, community knowledge, donor learning, and action.
As we prepare to revisit the State of Women and Girls in 2027, we will look across five years of WGC grantmaking to ask: Where have we invested? What needs have surfaced repeatedly? What has changed? And what can our grantmaking and nonprofit partners help us understand about the state of women and girls Five Years Later?
Since launching the State of Women and Girls in Howard County in 2022, WGC has continued to use its six researched gender-lens categories to help inform, organize, and understand our grantmaking:
- Demographics and Diversity
- Work and the Economy
- Education and Educators
- Health and Wellbeing
- Safety and Justice
- Leadership and Political Participation
Over the last four years, our grantmaking has also become another source of learning.
Through our broader grantmaking, The Big Give, Young Women’s Giving Circle, and Emergency Response Network, we continue to see many of the issues identified in the original report surface in the needs and opportunities brought to us by our nonprofit partners.
Our funding has supported efforts addressing housing and economic stability, domestic and sexual violence, maternal and reproductive health, menstrual equity, mental health and wellbeing, education and opportunity, leadership, food and basic needs, transportation, support for immigrant and refugee families, and more.
We are also seeing how often these issues intersect. A transportation challenge can affect employment and access to healthcare. Domestic violence can create immediate housing and economic needs. Childcare can affect a woman's ability to work and a family's financial stability. Health and wellbeing can influence nearly every aspect of a woman's life.
Grantmaking as a Learning Tool
WGC's grantmaking does more than provide financial support. It brings us into ongoing relationships with nonprofit organizations working directly with women and girls and helps us better understand what they are seeing and experiencing in our community.
- The Big Give has added another dimension by bringing donors closer to the issues, nonprofit partners, and grantmaking decisions. Since its launch in 2022, participants have learned about community needs, heard directly from nonprofit organizations, and collectively determined where funding can make a difference.
- Our Young Women’s Giving Circle provides an important youth perspective, giving young women opportunities to identify issues that matter to them, learn more, and direct funding. Their work around menstrual health and equity has grown from learning and grantmaking to education and advocacy.
- And through our longstanding Emergency Response Network, nonprofit partners continue to bring urgent needs facing women and families directly to WGC donors, providing a real-time window into challenges involving housing, transportation, food, safety, health, economic stability, and other basic needs.
Together, these different approaches to grantmaking help us connect data with lived experience, community knowledge, donor learning, and action.
As we prepare to revisit the State of Women and Girls in 2027, we will look across five years of WGC grantmaking to ask: Where have we invested? What needs have surfaced repeatedly? What has changed? And what can our grantmaking and nonprofit partners help us understand about the state of women and girls Five Years Later?