The Fund for Women and Girls has awarded $20,500 in grants to three nonprofit organizations serving the needs of women and girls throughout Chester County. Recipients include Black Women of Chester County in Action (BWCCA), Orion Communities and The Alliance for Health Equity.

For the fourth year in a row, the fund awarded "Moving Her Forward" Impact Grants; this grantmaking program was established to focus on swift responses to pressing needs in the community. Impact Grants are intended to support systems-level changes and leverage impact through collaborative funding with other foundations/donors. The needs identified in the fund's 2022 "Blueprint Report: Lighting a Path," its fourth comprehensive research report on the state of women and girls in Chester County, are the focus of Impact Grant awards.

BWCCA received $3,000 to conduct its "Baker's Dozen Listening Tour: Dessert for the Body and Soul," a series of wellness programs for women of color (WOC) in Chester County. The series, led by a trained Black therapist and professional baker, will bring WOC together for baking sessions and discussions of mental and physical wellness, gathering data on the needs of WOC in Chester County for future strategic program planning.

The fund awarded $10,000 to Orion Communities, supporting the cost of one 16-week "Gettin' Ahead in a Just Gettin' By World" program. The series provides life skills and resiliency training primarily to underserved women, preparing them with language to advocate for themselves in the larger world and improve their economic and health outcomes. The fund joined with other partners to provide Orion with a total of $22,500 to complete a match challenge to fully fund the program this year.

The Alliance for Health Equity was awarded $7,500 to support the second cohort of its Nonprofit Justice and Equity Institute. Founded in 2021, the institute provides a cohort-based series of seven workshops targeted at the nonprofit sector to self-assess and become socially responsible for unintentional inequitable practices, programs and processes within their organization's culture. The Alliance for Health Equity will use Cohort 2, comprised of Chester County nonprofit service providers, as a model for developing curricula for implementation beyond Chester County.

Since 2020, the fund has awarded $116,000 in Impact Grants for 21 projects throughout Chester County. More Impact Grants will be awarded throughout the new year as time-sensitive priorities arise. Last year's recipients included: Community Warehouse Project, Chester County Food Bank, Domestic Violence Center of Chester County and ChesPenn Health Services. Last fiscal year, the fund awarded $239,680 in grants to 30 nonprofit organizations. See a full list of last year's grantees at http://www.thefundcc.org.

To date, the fund has directed more than $4 million to 86 nonprofit organizations to strategically address persisting needs, including homelessness, domestic violence and women's health.