Indiegogo launched a yearlong campaign to encourage women to crowdfund on the platform. The initiative offers exclusive coaching, events, and tools to help women succeed. (via Indiegogo)
In recognition of International Women’s Day, Indiegogo launched a yearlong campaign to encourage female entrepreneurs to crowdfund on the platform. The initiative is one of many intended to encourage more women to get involved in fields run almost entirely by men.
Gender diversity is a real issue in this country. In a recent survey, it was revealed that only 30 percent of all American business owners are women. Companies that attempt to crowdfund are almost always tech startups founded by engineers. The gender diversity in engineering is even more one-sided, at 10.2%. The new Indiegogo campaign will attempt to combat the statistics by both encouraging female entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas and by offering mentoring to women who register on the platform between now and March 2017.
Indiegogo has a home page dedicated specifically to women and even has a page that highlights successful female crowdfunders. Roughly 47% of all successful Indiegogo campaigns are run by women, demonstrating that even if men are more likely to pursue business development, that does not necessarily mean men are more likely to succeed. Danae Ringlemann should know; she is the co-founder and CDO of Indiegogo, after all.
Whether or not the women’s initiative hits Ringlemann personally or not remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is the yearlong campaign will offer female registrants one-on-one consultations, exclusive resources, and even access to events that will encourage and equip women to dive into the business world and succeed.
Indiegogo isn’t the only company fighting for gender equality in the workforce. Naomi Climer, president of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, encouraged universities to highlight accomplished women engineers and innovators more often. This, she argues, would encourage younger women to study Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) more often.
The United Nations said International Women’s Day is drawing global attention to the issue of gender inequality. But don’t worry – there’s an International Men’s Day, too. When we make time to give coffee an international holiday, we can make room to celebrate everyone.
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