OUR PROCESS FOR CHANGE:

1. WOMEN DELIVER IS EXAMINING, ACKNOWLEDGING, AND ADDRESSING PAST WRONGS 

• First and foremost, we acknowledge and validate the testimonies of pain expressed by former and current staff. The third-party investigation into Women Deliver examined the range of issues that were raised, past and present, and the Board took action based on the investigation’s findings and recommendations. Additionally, Women Deliver continues to acknowledge that, in the past, we have failed to uphold our own values which has led to a deficit of trust among partners and staff. We are working to rebuild that trust internally and externally.

2. WOMEN DELIVER IS REFORMING INTERNAL STRUCTURES, POLICIES, AND CULTURE 

• Recognizing that change must start with ourselves, we are examining and reforming our own structures and policies to create a more equitable and inclusive organization with increased diversity at all levels. And knowing that policies on paper won’t add up to change without a supportive, enabling environment, we are taking steps to build back trust, inclusion, and equity within our culture so that these changes are ingrained in our organization’s ethos. We are refining our policies to ensure that they lay the groundwork for a culture that enables us to live our values.

3. WOMEN DELIVER IS TRANSFORMING ITS ADVOCACY, PRACTICES, AND PROGRAMS

• Transforming our work so that we are not reinforcing systems of white supremacy, colonialism, and racism, but actively dismantling them, is equally as important as changing internally. Intersectionality is the cornerstone of our revised Five-Year Strategic Framework and our programming. We are designing and implementing our strategy and programming in partnership with the people most impacted by our work, with a focus on strengthening and deepening our partnerships with women’s rights movements, youth-led and LGBTQIA+ organizations, and advocates representing the intersectional identities of girls, women, and underrepresented populations in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).   

4. WOMEN DELIVER IS EMBRACING ACCOUNTABILITY, LEARNING, AND SHARING

• We are embracing continuous learning, and encouraging feedback from staff, partners, and others. We are committed to ensuring that all aspects of our transformation are transparent, and to sharing learnings to encourage others to transform. We are approaching this work with humility, while recognizing that there is no final destination in the work to become anti-racist and intersectional. This is a continuous process and will require continuous work; we are committed to regularly updating this transformation webpage to chart progress and hold ourselves accountable to the process of becoming anti-racist in everything we do.  

5. WOMEN DELIVER IS CHANGING HOW IT PARTNERS TO DRIVE INCLUSIVE, SUSTAINABLE CHANGE WITHIN ITSELF, OUR SECTOR, AND THE WORLD   

• It is only in partnerships — and as a result of the contributions of many — that gender equality will be realized. We view partnership as a pathway to change in and of itself, and have incorporated partnership principles throughout our Five-Year Strategic Framework. As we do this work, we have to reconsider our partnership approach, how leadership partners with staff, how we partner with external organizations, and how we partner with the people who will be most impacted by our advocacy to create a more gender-equal world. Changes to our partnership approach start by being consultative in how we transform, and continue as a core organizational principle to create a better Women Deliver, a stronger movement for gender equality, and more sustainable change. Across all partnerships, we are committed to acting as a bridge builder between diverse actors – with a particular focus on bringing country-level advocates’ perspectives to bare on a global stage and forming bidirectional connections – to help increase the accountability of decision-makers and foster more effective, holistic advocacy and programming at every level.  

TRANSFORMATION ACTIONS TO DATE

• We recently launched our 2021-2025 Strategic Framework with support from SRI Executive and KORE Global. Over the past several months, we’ve worked to ensure that gender equality, defined as the equal access to power, dignity, justice, rights, health, and opportunities for all persons, particularly girls and women in all their diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) identities, and intersectionality – taking into account how race, class, and gender identities create overlapping, intersecting, and interdependent systems of discrimination and oppression – are the guiding forces behind all aspects of our revised Strategy and our work over the next five years.
• We are also strengthening and deepening our partnerships with a wider community of women’s rights organizations and movements, youth-led and LGBTQIA+ organizations, and advocates representing the intersectional identities of girls, women, and underrepresented populations in low-and middle-income countries. Our Five-Year Strategic Framework highlights and prioritizes the importance of co-creation and collaboration with partners, especially at the country level, throughout all of our programs.
• We are continually acting on the over 140+ recommendations provided by our staff, Young Leaders, and intersectionality and DEI experts, which we refer to as "Our Transformation Roadmap.” The recommendations in the Roadmap were determined through our Transformation Task Forces, which covered DEI, intersectionality, fundraising, strategy implementation, communications, and partner engagement. On a quarterly basis, we identify and act upon top priorities identified collectively by staff.
• Women Deliver’s Board of Directors and staff charged leading global executive search firm, Perrett Laver, to assist us in finding our next Board Chair and CEO. Perrett Laver finds outstanding leaders who bring diversity and vision to mission-driven sectors in over 70 countries globally. They have a diverse network from which to attract talent, and a track record of placing women of color in executive positions. With their help, we hope to find the new leaders of Women Deliver — leaders who inspire us, are driven by our shared goal of a gender-equal world, challenge the status quo, share our strong commitment to diversity and anti-racism, and understand where we’d like to go next as an organization.
  • On the week of 10 May, 2021, Women Deliver Board of Directors will launch a global open call for a new Board Chair and a Board replenishment. In addition to finding our next Board Chair, Perrett Laver will help us broaden the Women Deliver Board, so that our Board continues to be as diverse as the populations we serve. 
  • In June 2021, Women Deliver’s Board of Directors will launch a global search for the next CEO and President of the organization.  
  • It is critical to us that we embark on a recruitment process that is inclusive, highly participatory, and applies a feminist and intersectional lens. Already, staff have been engaged in the recruitment process with Perrett Laver, through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. The Board has formed a search committee that includes representatives from our staff, the Women Deliver Young Leaders Program, partner advocacy organizations, and our funding partners to ensure that the entire process allows for input from many different perspectives and reinforces the foundation we have laid for the future. For all positions, nominations from staff, partners, and advocates are encouraged. 
• Building forward a Women Deliver that is global, diverse, and inclusive will not be possible without the full and informed involvement of all staff, at every level. Over the past several months, our organizational has evolved significantly. In July 2020, we expanded our Coordination Team (our former leadership team) to include representatives from junior- to mid-level staff. In November 2020, in response to a call for a change in leadership and greater diversity within our senior team, all those in former leadership positions stepped down or are currently completing transition work for a defined term. In December 2020, as part of our commitment to becoming a more global, diverse, and inclusive organization, we dissolved our previous top-down organizational structure. Today, we are a flatter organization, in which the majority of our staff serve as leads for one or more streams of work. Together, these leadership roles, which are occupied by more people with diverse backgrounds and experiences than ever before, work together and transparently on key decisions for the organization. Some examples include: 
  • Divya Mathew, Director, Policy and Advocacy: Divya leads on Women Deliver's policy and advocacy priorities, engages in key policy advisory and working groups, and leads our research portfolio.  
  • Lippi Doshi, Director, Communications: Lippi leads the development and implementation of the Women Deliver’s communications strategy, oversees the design and execution of our high-impact advocacy communications campaigns, and leads media relations. 
  • Anita Chandy, Senior Manager, Employee Experience & Human Resources: Anita will lead our internal strengthening work, help to ensure the values of the transformation are embedded in the organization, aid staff in the incorporation of the transformation in their programs and professional development, and support the changing culture of Women Deliver.  
  • Mariam Khan, Senior Manager, Conference and Convenings: Mariam leads on conferences and convenings, including the Women Deliver Conference. She also supports convening communications. 
  • Masha DeVoe, Senior Manager, External Relations: Masha leads Women Deliver’s strategic resource mobilization efforts, including the management of government, private sector, and foundation partnerships, prospecting, and reporting. 
  • Scarlet Macas, Senior Manager, Finance and Administration: Scarlet leads on managing Women Deliver’s financial statements, grant expenses, and accounting. She also ensures the organization’s compliance with all local and federal rules and regulations.  
  • Nicholas Maistros, Manager, Finance and Administration: Nicholas manages the full lifecycle of Women Deliver’s grant agreements, from the development of proposal budgets to financial reporting and closeout, and guides the internal reporting process. 
• Consistent with our desire for our governance and operational structures to reflect a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization, in May 2021, we, the Women Deliver Board and staff, jointly developed a staff representative role and appointed a staff representative to the Board of Directors. The staff representative will attend all regular meetings of the Board of Directors on behalf of all staff.  
• In August 2020, the Transformation and Engagement Working Group (TEWG), led by Women Deliver Young Leaders, developed and administered a survey, in partnership with KORE Global, in order to better understand how Women Deliver should update its programmatic approaches, activities, and leadership opportunities to better center, support, and elevate young people, while challenging systems of patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, and other problematic structures.  
• In February 2021, the TEWG published an outcome document outlining findings and recommendations from the survey and related focus groups around tokenism, inclusivity and equity, trust, accountability, and more. Women Deliver is actioning the recommendations from this document now through summer 2021.  
• In addition, a new Alumni Committee consisting of former Women Deliver Young Leaders from around the world was formed. The Alumni Committee will be charged with holding the organization accountable to the TEWG recommendations, building on existing recommendations, and charting the path forward for the Young Leaders Program in lockstep with Women Deliver’s overall transformation.  
• We are achieving clarity around our shared understanding of the actions needed to become an anti-racist organization in practice, and exploring decolonizing, with a similar approach to our recent work on principles of intersectionality. In September 2020, in partnership with Kelli McLoud-Schingen, we held a workshop with all staff to begin to unpack what it means for Women Deliver to be anti-racist and decolonizing. We recognize that justice is an ever-changing aspiration and are committed to working each day to move closer toward it through our programs and as an organization. In April 2021, we collaboratively added a number of ethical communications standards to our internal and external communications to reflect our transformation learnings and to begin to decolonize the language we use. As we continue to learn, we will add to these standards.
• We have developed an updated Compensation Philosophy strategy along with FAQs for staff and managers related to salary bands and have conducted trainings on these practices. Additionally, we have added salary ranges to all job postings on our Careers Page and a full overview of our benefits package, which includes 100% employer paid coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance, on our Benefits Page. 
• We have refreshed many of our internal policies — including our paid parental leave and bereavement leave policies. We have also adjusted year-end performance reviews to omit compliance with “values” as a metric of evaluation, and documented both our hiring process and feedback/grievance process. We also improved key HR processes for hiring and promoting staff, developing talent, and increasing transparency to mitigate bias and promote opportunities among all staff. 
• We have held regular town hall-style meetings with Women Deliver Young Leaders and Alumni to maintain an open two-way dialogue and answer questions in March 2021, June 2020, and August 2020. Following the release of investigation results, our Board of Directors and Women Deliver staff also held town hall-style meetings with donors, partners, and stakeholders. Additionally, program teams met with partners and sub-grantees to discuss concerns and elicit recommendations.  
• Women Deliver worked closely with ReadySet, experts in DEI, from December 2019 through the end of 2020 on our transformation priorities, Ally Skills Training, the review of existing HR policies, an overall DEI assessment, and the creation of optional discussion spaces for continued sharing, with emphasis on supporting Black colleagues and colleagues of color.  
• We worked with The Paradox of Leadership, experts in leadership development and coaching, since 2018 — and extended their work with us to include all-staff trainings in July, August, and September 2020 on Navigating Change, Self-Care, Energy Management, and Motivation & Stress Management. 
• We have expanded our mental health offerings to include additional mental health days and service offerings from Headspace. 
• We are committed to remaining transparent in all of our communication with our partners, funders, and community on our transformation, including one-on-one calls, town halls, and via our website, social media, and Women Deliver newsletter.