MISSION
Her Agenda is an award-winning digital media platform working to bridge the gap between ambition and achievement for millennial women.
Launched in 2008, the company is one of the first digital journalism brands to focus on women who lead. The platform shines a spotlight on powerful accomplished women and leverages the power of content, and community to inspire women to succeed. The platform acts as a hub, powered by a custom machine learning algorithm that serves the right opportunities and content to the reader based on their interests.
The site was founded by Emmy award-winning journalist Rhonesha Byng, and is led by a team of 4 and a contributor network of 100 women. The motto of the site is No one Ever Slows Her Agenda.
The motto means, whatever your goal is go for it and don't let anyone or anything stop you.
PROBLEM
Her Agenda created a solution for the 24 million millennial women who are working or looking for work. Currently, 51% of millennial women report an opportunity gap. And quite frankly due to systemic barriers and biases there is definitely an opportunity gap that exists for women.
So what can we do? We work to surface and offer more visibility to the resources and opportunities that do actually exist. There are thousands of groups and organizations working to support, and empower the next generation of women leaders. One of the issues is these resources often exist in silos only discoverable via first-hand knowledge or word of mouth. We solve for this through our directory on our platform.
The other side of the market has a problem too. Companies and corporations claim to have a hard time attracting and retaining qualified diverse applicants into their talent pipeline. We’re working with them to help them reach a diverse audience of women who are ready for their opportunities.
This is the age of female empowerment. In Western nations, women have the same rights afforded to men, and in nations where they have not yet achieved that status there exist movements to change that. Yet, women have still yet to realize those rights that they have been granted on paper, because of inherent the invisible barriers of a patriarchal society. Despite efforts to achieve equality, women still earn less money than men; they are overlooked for promotions and are not likely to carry the title of CEO or President at major corporations.
The presence of women in these positions continues to shock and awe, further solidifying women as the “other” when it comes to positions of power. There’s a cycle of normalcy and complacency that exists around these sensitive topics. However, these attitudes are starting to shift with the growth of the next generation of women.
Among Fortune 500 companies, only 36 have CEO's who are women, and before 1996 all the CEOs were men. There are currently no Black women in the role of CEO at any Fortune 500 company. Delving deeper into the matter, the higher the position on the corporate ladder, the larger the disparity is in terms of salary:
A 2008 survey of CEO pay at 3,242 North American companies by the Corporate Library found that female CEOs earned more in base pay, but when cash bonuses, perks and stock compensation were included, women made a median $1.7 million, or 85% of what male CEOs made (Jones USA Today).
The decision-making positions are a key area in which women fail to be represented.
THE SOLUTION
Her Agenda provides inspiration through the stories of real women who are succeeding in their industry while also highlighting the information and resources needed to achieve that success.
Resources include the latest in events, scholarships, conferences, internships and job opportunities for women to have a better chance at reaching their full potential.
The goal is to empower women to never allow anything to stop them from reaching their goals while providing them with the resources to overcome their challenges. The professionals featured on Her Agenda have the power to break the mold and illustrate to women across America that if they believe it, they can achieve it. Each of our featured women are the embodiment of the No one Ever Slows Her Agenda motto within their own industries.
The resources available to the readers on the site can potentially put them in a position to better strategize and visualize life and career options.
Site Sections & Features
This section serves as the homepage. It's full of news and information regarding women, career, life and navigating it all. It is also where we showcase our key events, features and interviews.
This section features the stories of inspirational women executives, entrepreneurs and industry leaders. These women are leaders in their fields and will allow users to get a peek into their agendas showcasing a day in the life of these women and highlighting their inspiration and their motivations.
A directory featuring women empowerment organizations across the country. Each listing features a short blurb about the organization along with vital information including the address and website. This section allows users to connect with a local organization or club for more face to face interaction, an increase in mentorship and empowerment.
EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES (EVENTS, PANELS, JOB OPPORTUNITIES, INTERNSHIPS & MORE)
What would be an agenda site without dates and things to do? HerAgenda.com keeps users updated with productive things to fill their agendas. These sections serve to promote positive activity in the lives of women. The calendar features events, workshops, panels, internships, scholarships and more to help our users move their agendas along.
We launched a private network to better assist our audience on a deeper level. This community provides access to peer mentors, direct access to the Her Agenda team, and access to exclusive opportunities that we are not able to publish on the public website.
Within the group there are women helping with job referrals and having sensitive conversations around the topics of work, wellness and what it means to get things done. There's also access to exclusive content and webinars on a variety of topics like mental health, creating a business, growing an audience etc.
INSIDERS enjoy custom programming. Twice per month we host #PowerHour Chats in our slack on topics from finance, to salary negotiation to building your network. In these chats our audience has access to experts that you can ask anything for an hour.
YOU CAN'T BE WHAT YOU CAN'T SEE.
Here's why we are a media platform.
According to Stuart Hall’s cultural studies theory, “the mass media provide the guiding myths that shape our perception of the world and serve as important instruments of control." With that said, his theory finds that who creates that information is important and “power and power structures in society play a major role in how information is disseminated and interpreted especially when disseminated amongst different groups in society."
Cultural studies directly incorporate concepts of hegemony, democratic pluralism and an analysis on power structures and their effect on information. The media and popular culture create these dominant ideologies that we operate from to create meanings that are assumed to be universal. This assumption is dangerous because there are marginalized groups that these assumed universal concepts do not resonate with. The existence of these assumptions allows the myths of democratic pluralism to hold strong. The hegemony that exists in American society exists in the dominance of men over women in society, and thus because of the complex structures this involves, media reinforces this dominance.
This is why now more than ever, there is a need for a media platform that is led by a woman, and features stories and voices of women. We need to normalize ambitious and powerful women.
FUNDING
The funding for this campaign will be used to pay women who are journalists and writers.
We need more voices of women reporting the news - currently, the industry of news reporting is dominated by men, which skews perception and perspective in media. The images and reporting shown in the media determines what is deemed as important and ultimately prioritized within society.
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THANK YOU, AND NEVER LET ANYONE SLOW YOUR AGENDA.
