Together We are Stronger | 2014

Research overview: 

In 2014, Alliance for Girls and the Eva Gunther Foundation identified the need to conduct an in-depth research project solely focused on the girl-serving sector that quantified the strengths, challenges, and practices of Bay Area girl-serving organizations. This study drew from secondary data about the challenges nonprofits face in achieving their goals, gender responsive practices, and demographic data on Bay Area girl-serving organizations, along with a web-based survey across San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, San Mateo, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties in California. A total of 100 organizations participated in this landscape study.

Key findings: 

• What sets girl-serving organizations apart from traditional youth development programming is that they meet the social, emotional, and developmental needs that are unique to girls and young women.

• The top three youth development practices that respondents highlighted in their organizations included empowerment, leadership, and safe, nurturing, and inspiring environment.

• The key challenges facing girl-serving organizations include:

  • Fundraising: lacking having adequate fund development staff or board involvement in fundraising;

  • Human resources:struggling to maintain fair salary levels for employees and hiring and retaining qualified staff; and

  • Programming: collecting strong evaluation data on program activities, client demographics, and program outcomes.

Recommendations: 

The following recommendations are to outline how best to strengthen and support the girl-serving sector, according to study participants:

• Focus on providing low cost technical assistance on fundraising, board development, and program evaluation.

• Create networking and cross training opportunities that allow organizations providing similar services to come together.

• Focus on providing professional development training for organization leaders, staff members, volunteers, girls, and young women.

• Continue to fund and support research on the girl-serving sector.