Across New Haven and the Greater New Haven region, organizations – long established community-based groups and programs just getting started, all led by women of color – work on behalf of girls and young women. They provide mentoring programs that focus on college readiness or esteem building, or on career or business development.
In 2021, the Community Fund for Women & Girls hosted a series of spring focus groups with leaders of mentoring organizations that serve girls of color. Nine mentoring organizations formed a collective, finding new ways to bolster their work and each other to form the Girls of Color Mentoring Network.
The Network builds on the Community Fund for Women & Girls’ gender specific work and is designed with a racial equity lens, directing resources to community-based and grassroots organizations led by women of color with the goal of supporting young women of color. Organizations in the Network received individual grants of $3,500 in the initial pilot program.
The Community Fund for Women & Girls
Girls of Color Mentoring Network
- CMWP Foundation
- D.E.S.T.I.N.E.D. to Succeed, Inc.
- National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.
- New Haven Alumnae Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc
- Phenomenal I Am, Inc.
- Spanish Community of Wallingford
- Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
- Urban Community Alliance
“Being part of the Girls of Color Mentoring Network has been nothing short of amazing! The Network has afforded our individual organizations the opportunity to serve girls in a capacity that meets them where they are. Many of our girls present with different challenges and barriers that prevent them from being their very best. As a network, we have a responsibility to be `the Village’ that has been missing from our society. Our organizations have gained much more than an opportunity to mentor girls. We have developed a powerful network of women who will stop at nothing to assure girls that THEY ARE ENOUGH!”
—Yvonne E. Jones, Dounder & Chief Empowerment Officer, D.E.S.T.I.N.E.D. to Succeed, Inc.
Gifts to Network members matched during The Great Give
In May 2022, KeyBank Foundation provided $7,500 in matching funds and incentives to inspire giving to The Fund's Girls of Color Mentoring Network. All qualifying donations made during The Great Give 2022 at www.thegreatgive.org received a prorated portion of the match pool determined by the number of donors in addition to the prorated share of The Foundations’ matching pools. To learn more about each organization, visit their profile on The Great Give website (links below):
CMWP Foundation
D.E.S.T.I.N.E.D. to Succeed Inc.
Delta Foundation of Greater New Haven
Iota Chi Sigma Foundation
National Coalition of 100 Black Women Inc.
New Haven Pearls of Excellence Foundation
Phenomenal I Am Inc.
Spanish Community of Wallingford (SCOW)
Urban Community Alliance
