Never send a man to do a woman’s job. Especially when that job is international development funding for projects that assists women and girls.
That's what CEO Kate Roberts decided when she put together the Maverick Collective, a new philanthropic initiative to provide aid to women in the developing world. According to NPR, Roberts launched her project this week at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen, along with Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, who is also the co-founder, and Melinda Gates.
The Maverick Collective website tells us that the majority of people in extreme poverty (living on less than a $1.90 a day) throughout the world are women and girls. Despite this, the United Nations found that less than 2 cents of every aid dollar is spent on an adolescent girls.
Blood boiling? Yeah. Mine too. And that’s where the Maverick Collective is coming in.
The project has collected 14 women who have each put in $1 million or more in seed money for a specific project targeting women’s health issues in the developing world, such as cervical cancer, domestic violence, and maternal health. The goal is for the donors to work closely with project managers to implement the best strategies and achieve strong outcomes for their goals.
Girl power. Girl MONEY power. Boom.
So far, the founders have teamed with individual donors and aid organizations to raise over $60 million for their projects. They’re looking for other philanthropists who want to be involved. According to Roberts, “We'll be recruiting new champions. Diversity is really, really important — cross-generational and cross-geographical. We've got off to a good start. Our members are from 26 to 72. We might even be selecting a male.”
