The Equity Opportunity

LEAP’s model is rooted in collaboration, and we celebrate these remarkable achievements with deep gratitude for your invaluable contributions that make them possible. Your guidance, insights, expertise, feedback, and personal commitment are integral to the collective impact we make together!

Champion Update December 2024

In a world that remains inequitable, we are proud to have worked alongside each social venture in the cohort to reach more women and gender-diverse individuals in their journeys to economic resilience. Despite many challenges facing the social impact sector in 2024, our cohort leaders have doubled down on their ingenuity, resourcefulness, and unparalleled grit to maintain focus on their bold ambitions to scale.

Simultaneously, we have continued to supercharge the 1:1 engagements with our focused efforts to develop and nurture the cohort. Through this, we create an environment in which collaboration and knowledge-sharing can lead to new programs that will effectively address the intersectional needs of the women and gender-diverse individuals they support in their journeys to economic resilience.

Impact Highlights

Cohort Update & Highlights

In 2024, we continued our individual work with the social ventures in the cohort to build organizational capacity and strengthen their program offerings through strategic advice, coaching, leveraging pro bono resources and implementing 40+ capacity-building and scaling projects – all of which provide the scaffolding needed to implement their ambitious scaling strategies. This level of intensive support has been especially critical throughout 2024, as the social ventures operate in response to, and in anticipation of, the macroeconomic forces impacting funding, organizational sustainability, staff retention and program expansion.

The cohort is evolving as we reach the midpoint of the initiative. After five years of intense collaboration (three in a 1:1 engagement and two in The Equity Opportunity), Up with Women has shifted out of the cohort and into Leap’s broader portfolio.

In October, we were delighted to welcome the Quebec-based Lise Watier Foundation into the cohort. We are excited to help them reach more women in their journeys toward financial independence through entrepreneurship, a return to school, or more fulfilling jobs.

Kirsten Koppang Telford CEO

Marie-Lise Andrade
President

Bertha Cormier
Executive Director

Sara Asalya
Executive Director

Julia Blackburn
CEO

Anne Babcock
CEO

Alongside our 1:1 engagements with social ventures, we engaged them collectively to enhance their organizational and leadership development.

Four virtual workshops, one intensive two-day in-person workshop series, and two other in-person events provided substantial learning and networking opportunities. The engagements covered topics key to their scaling ambitions, including leadership resilience and adaptation, government relations, corporate partnerships, a charity law BootCamp, foundation relations, and workplace health and well-being.

Collaboration, peer-to-peer and cross-sector learning, and networking fostered knowledge-sharing, generated new insights, revealed value-add pathways for organizational development and participant journeys, and empowered leaders to make new connections and build relationships.

Emerging from this highly-valued collaboration time were two products that illuminate the ways that the cohort can further scale their impact:

  • A participant referral framework illuminates the pathways between social venture programs and has the potential to accelerate participants’ journeys toward greater financial inclusion.

  • A directory of expertise areas amongst the cohort can accelerate direct learning and collaboration opportunities between social venture leaders and teams.