WoCImpact1000

Brenda Gaddi:

It started from my heart, and it’s been two years in the making. My organisation Women of Colour Australia (WoCA) has existed for five years and because we’re a grassroots nonprofit organisation, we’ve always relied on grants. We’re fortunate to have a good relationship with the Victorian Government and Office for Women who funded our flagship executive leadership program, and the impact of this programme has been phenomenal. But government grants are not forever, so we wanted to ensure a guaranteed path for WoCA’s long term sustainability future that’s not dependent on the whim of election cycles or short-term grants. As a community, I want us to dream bigger and imagine a model of giving where Women of Colour are resourcing ourselves.

Brenda Gaddi:
It's a collective circle of Women of Colour who contribute $1000 to the organisation with the aim of raising $1,000,000 a year. So it's about resourcing our leadership for the long haul, but on our own terms. That's the heart of this movement - we want to be funding and resourcing ourselves.

Shazya Khan (Founding donor):  
Brenda refers to me as the OG volunteer because I have been with Women of Colour Australia since the beginning, and I've seen the iterations of the mentorship and then leadership programs. To Brenda's point, government funding has been great, and we’ve achieved amazing things, but when we’re constantly going out to market to convince others to care about our cause, it limits how big our scope can be. WoCImpact1000 is about reclaiming that power and bringing women together to resource ourselves.

Brenda Gaddi:
Currently we have nine founding members who have contributed a total of $9000 and most of them said yes before I finished asking the question! Every week we strategise about who else we can meet with, and we're using the circle approach to network to other Women of Colour who will want to be part of the movement. The other side of this movement will be about engaging wealth advisory firms and structural organisations. We can't solve the problem ourselves; we need everyone to be part of the solution. We’re not going to get to one million dollars overnight; this is a decade long project. For this financial year we're only targeting 30 donors and we’re already almost halfway there, which is amazing.

Shazya Khan:  
There are a lot of women who are looking for a collective movement like this to get involved in and donate to. There is this cohort of women who have moved through their careers and are in a position where they really want to help others, but they are also juggling additional responsibilities. If you’re a Women of Colour, chances are you have grandparents, siblings, parents, children to care for. So, this is a way for them to contribute and then trust us to do the work to make that change happen.

Brenda Gaddi:
I grew up in the Philippines, so the philosophy of Kapwa, which translates to “collective or shared self” is what drives this movement. It's grounded in a collective care and recognising that you and I are not separate from each other; your pain, your struggles, your grief and your triumphs are also mine to carry. Of course there’s a financial impact that comes from collective giving, but equally important is the cultural impact of building that solidarity of sisterhood. It's about reimagining philanthropy to move away from charity to justice.

Shazya Khan:
I see it as each dollar given is a seed planted in the future of leadership. I work as a diversity consultant in corporate spaces, and one thing I’ve noticed is how far we've come as a collective of People of Colour - we hold more positions of power now than at any other point in history. However, often we work tirelessly in our own professions and verticals and silos. The power of this collective is that it’s an opportunity to come together, look across the room and say, wow, everyone here is incredibly successful, how can we use our positions to create a flood of change?

Brenda Gaddi:
Our vision is to unite 1000 Women of Colour to collectively raise $1,000,000. From this we hope to achieve two things: the first is that we want to see more Women of Colour in positions of power across boardrooms and public and community organisations. It's all about building that critical mass, because if there's not enough presence at the top of the chain, it's going to be much harder to climb. Secondly, I want to see a transformation in the philanthropic landscape in this country where trust-based collective giving models are the norm, rather than the fringe. I have two daughters, and I want them to grow up in a world where their worth is not questioned and their leadership is not seen as exceptional. We don't want to be the unicorns; we want to be part of the whole ecosystem.

Shazya Khan:
For me it's about transformational social impact and creating programs that correlate with more Women of Colour in positions of power that are highly paid and have real influence over decisions. At this moment there's always a roadblock, because it gets to a point where there is a ceiling. We can mentor endlessly, and we can have endless supporters, but at the end of the day we need real structural change. That's what this movement is hoping to achieve.

Brenda Gaddi:  
We're focusing on building up the leadership capability of Women of Colour in our community. We really want to see these women ascend the leadership ladder, and we're going to help them get there. For us, the first year of change will include a lot of our advocacy work. Through WoCA, we produced two groundbreaking Women of Colour in the Workplace surveys that were the first to provide the first national data set of its kind. It’s mind-blowing to think that before this there was no data about us - because if we’re not counted, we don’t count. To quote the black feminist, Alice Walker, “we are the ones we're waiting for.” This is my call to arms. We’re ready for it, and we are building with intention and care.