How it’s done.

Issue | In 2020, COVID-19 disproportionately impacted Black and Latino populations – in particular, Black women. Black women’s unemployment rate was 1.8 times their white counterparts, was the highest among women and men by race and ethnicity [5.8%], and was a full percentage point above its pre-pandemic level. Black women’s employment has recovered the least among major race and ethnicity groups, with 2.6% fewer adult Black women employed.

Opportunity | Build an initiative to serve 100K Black women to help them gain key digital skills.

How | Built an end-to-end strategy to engage 60+ organizations across the US to deliver digital skills training leveraging third party agencies for program support and all creative.

Why | Save time and money. Created a scaled initiative

Outcome | Black Women Lead set out to train 100k Black women in digital skills by 2022 [18 month initiative]. In partnership with Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Sigma Gamma Rho, Zeta Phi Beta, The Links, and Dress for Success provided digital skills training and resources for Black women, specifically jobseekers reaching more than 200K women.

GwG survey results found that 88% of job seekers feel more prepared for the future, 81% of job seekers believe their digital skills have improved, and 87% of women intend to come back for more lessons or workshops. More specifically, 100% of Black Women Lead survey respondents indicated that they are likely or extremely likely to apply the knowledge, skills and products they learned about in the workshop to their business, career or other daily life tasks.

The Magic | Building this layered initiative required key skills including - relationship building, research and evaluation, partner management, and creativity.