Girls For A Change History:Girls For A Change (GFC) is a national organization that empowers girls to create social change. In 1999 GFC's founders surveyed nearly 4000 diverse young women in the Silicon Valley area. Only 15% felt they were seen to have value in their communities, and only 24% felt they were given useful roles. 75% had a vision for their future, but did not have the skills or support to effectively plan for and actualize that vision. These statistics were even more prevalent with girls from low income neighborhoods. Girls For A Change was created in 2001 to address these findings.

Over the last six years, GFC has empowered 6,500 girl social change agents and has trained nearly 1,000 professional women to serve as volunteer coaches and positive role models. GFC continues to serve girls throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and, in 2005, launched our first expansion site in metropolitan Phoenix. GFC has twice been recognized by Fast Company Magazine as a "Social Capitalist Rising Star." In 2008, Sephora, the leading beauty retailer, chose Girls For A Change as its partner in a 3 year, national, cause marketing campaign - Sephora’s first. The Problem:“Girls as well as boys must be adequately educated and trained today to prepare them for later economic and civic life—and young women must be given adequate opportunities to contribute to and participate in public life… healthy societies depend on an active and engaged citizenry.”                                                                        - Girls Count, a Global Investment & Action Agenda, January 2008

Girls today want to change the world,[1] but they are not actively engaged in doing so. Girls report feeling seen as “weak and uninformed” by their communities.[2] Their ideas are not valued, they do not have effective mentors[3] and they are not prepared with the problem-solving or leadership experience they need to become effective and engaged citizens.[4] When surveyed, 75% of girls felt they had a vision for their future but did not have the skills or support to effectively plan for and actualize that vision.  Girls never learning to use their voice to participate in civic life results in feelings of uselessness and disengagement.[5] When girls feel silenced, they lose their motivation to speak up, share ideas and take on leadership roles.[6]  Research has shown that limiting adolescent girls’ voices creates greater emotional needs for nurturance, affirmation, validation and security.[7] Girls often carry these feelings of inadequacy and disengagement into womanhood. Girls in low-income communities face particularly difficult barriers to becoming civically engaged. They are invited to participate in civic life at only half the rate of youth in better circumstances.[8] They also have limited personal contact with positive role models outside of the immediate family and believe that their opportunities for success are restricted.[9] Without a sense of civic engagement, these girls are more likely to abuse substances, engage in violence, suffer academically, participate in risky sexual behavior and report low levels of emotional well-being.[10]  Lastly, girls don’t see a role for themselves in the current structures for civic engagement- especially girls in low income communities and girls of color. They express a strong desire for political voice and argue that those in government do not listen to them.[11]  They feel that power needs to be shared across the population and see social change as their opportunity to add to participatory democracy.[12]  The Solution:"Girls For A Change offers a different future for America, one in which urban girls are an integral force in solving our most pressing local social problems."                   -Vanessa Kirsch, President & Founder, New Profit Inc.  Inviting girls to engage, teaching them how, and connecting them to powerful mentors: Girls For A Change is the only national organization exclusively focused on giving girls from low income neighborhoods a voice by engaging them in social change. GFC provides girls with skills, support and resources to increase their self confidence and self-efficacy by inviting them to identify, design and lead social change projects that address some of the most challenging issues facing their communities.  GFC empowers girls to speak up, to become decision makers, to solve problems and to create visionary change. By connecting them with professional women trained to serve as volunteer coaches, girls develop trusted relationships with powerful role models for civic engagement and women become strong advocates for girls and their neighborhoods.  HOW WE DO IT - THE GIRLS FOR A CHANGE MODEL:●        Change Your World National Bus Tour: 5,000 girls and 1,000 women are inspired and trained to engage in social change across the country.●        Girl Action Teams: 1,500 girls on 100 teams identify, design and implement solutions to pressing issues in their own communities.●        Volunteer Coaches: 200 professional women trained to support and guide Girl Action Teams●        New Girls Network: 1,000 pro-bono consultants lend their expertise to girl projects●        Change Your World Action Kit: Thousands of girls use this online “how to” guide for creating change.●        Global Girls Network: Thousands of girl members connect and share their world changing ideas and projects.●        Corporate Partnerships: One million girls are informed about social change. WHO WE SERVE:  Girls For A Change serves girls aged 11 – 21. 86.7% of GFC girls attend target middle and high schools in low income, ethnically diverse neighborhoods. 85.5% are girls of color. Our programs are free for girls and for our partner schools and community organizations. 67% of our volunteers are women of color and 66% are between the ages 25 – 40.

[1] The Girl Scout Research Institute, The Ten Emerging Truths: New Directions for Girls 11-17 (2002) and Jessica K. Taft, “I’m Not a Politics Person: Teenage Girls, Oppositional Consciousness, and the Meaning of Politics,” Cambridge University Press, 2006

[2] Taft 2006

[3] Girl Scouts Research Review, 2007 and Urban Girls Revisited 2007 - Introduction

[4] Taft 2006 and The Cornerstone Project’s 2005 Developmental Assets Survey

[5] The Cornerstone Project, 2005

[6] Psychologist Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychology and Women’s Development. Cambridge, Ma. 1982.

[7] Banister and Jakubec, 2004. “Beyond Talking Groups: Strategies for Improving Adolescent Health Education”

[8] The Annie E. Casey Foundation: “Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for Civic Participation, 2006[9] Urban Girls Revisited 2007 - Introduction[10] 2002 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and Jonathan Zaff, PhD, October 2002.[11] Ibid.[12] Ibid.