Woman in Impact: Building a Professional Community for Women in Social Impact
Some ideas begin with a business plan. Woman in Impact began with conversations.
Conversations with women working across the social impact ecosystem – in nonprofits, foundations, philanthropy, social enterprises, CSR and purpose-led organisations.
Different roles. Different career stages. But some remarkably similar questions.
Where do I learn from someone who has done this before? Who are the women whose careers I can learn from? Where do I find peers who understand this work? And where are the spaces to talk about building a career in social impact, not only delivering impact?
Those conversations became the starting point for Woman in Impact.
What is Woman in Impact?
Woman in Impact is a professional community platform for women working across the social impact ecosystem. It is being built around three fundamental needs: opportunities to learn, be mentored and belong.
Because doing meaningful work and building a meaningful career aren’t quite the same thing.
Women working in social impact also need the ecosystem around their work: peer networks, professional learning and development, mentorship, visible role models and opportunities to strengthen their craft.
Woman in Impact exists to help build that ecosystem.
Why start with Women in Impact Communications?
Every larger idea needs somewhere to begin.
For Woman in Impact, that starting point is Women in Impact Communications (WIIC) – a professional community for women working in communications across social impact.
Communications plays a critical role in how social impact is understood. It shapes whose stories are heard, how trust is built, how complex issues are explained and how organisations move people from awareness to action.
Yet social impact communications is still an evolving professional practice.
Career pathways aren’t always visible. Opportunities to learn from experienced practitioners can be limited. And there isn’t always a shared understanding of what strong communications practice can encompass across nonprofits, philanthropy, CSR, advocacy and social enterprises.
At the same time, there are remarkable women already doing this work – strategists, storytellers, campaigners, writers, filmmakers, brand builders, behaviour-change practitioners, fundraisers, advocacy professionals and communications leaders.
The opportunity is to make that expertise more visible, connect it and create ways for others to learn from it.
That’s what Women in Impact Communications is setting out to do.
Building a stronger ecosystem for social impact communications
WIIC is being built around three ideas:
SEE THE PATH – Make career journeys, role models and possibilities within impact communications more visible.
BUILD THE PRACTICE – Create learning and development opportunities that strengthen the craft of social impact communications.
LEARN TOGETHER – Create opportunities for mentorship, peer learning and meaningful professional connection.
Over time, the ambition is to build a home for the craft of impact communications – online and offline.
A place where practitioners can share their work and ideas, learn from one another and contribute to a growing body of tools, frameworks, resources and knowledge for the field.
A community for the people. A home for the practice.
From community to BraveSpace
As the conversations behind WIIC grew, another idea emerged.
Professional learning doesn’t always need another conference, webinar or panel. Sometimes, what we need is a smaller room where people can talk about the decisions, tensions, mistakes and questions behind the work.
That became BraveSpace, the flagship in-person gathering from Women in Impact Communications.
Every BraveSpace begins with one woman taking the First Seat and opening a Brave Conversation. She brings her experience into the room – but once the conversation begins, the room belongs to everyone.
Someone goes first. Someone else finds it a little easier to go next.
Because creativity asks for bravery – and women have always known something about both.
Where Woman in Impact goes next
Communications is where Woman in Impact begins, but the ambition is larger.
Over time, Woman in Impact aims to build professional communities for women across different areas of the social impact ecosystem – creating greater access to learning, mentorship, peer networks, visible career pathways and opportunities to strengthen professional practice.
For now, we are starting where we know there is a need.
One community. One practice. One conversation at a time.
Because women doing meaningful work should also have the ecosystem they need to build meaningful careers.
That’s what Woman in Impact is here to build.