Women’s Way boosting advocacy efforts with 6 new ‘action partners’

A leading advocacy organization for women in the greater Philadelphia area is tapping six “action partners” to boost its message.

Women’s Way is providing a total of $145,000 to the fellow nonprofits, all of which focus on issues affecting women and girls across the region.

The operational funding grants are designed to help the groups keep doing what they’re doing.

“We want to just invest in their infrastructure and say, ‘You’re doing good work, keep doing the good work, expand the good work, and we’ll give you unrestricted grants for up to three years,’ ” said Women’s Way Executive Director Amanda Aronoff at Tuesday’s announcement.

In addition to the funding, a key aspect of the new initiative is monthly meet-ups for sharing information and getting extra expertise.

Janet Filante is the director of Childspace Cooperative Development Inc., which helps women working in the childcare industry.

Filante is happy about the $18,000 her nonprofit will be receiving. But she says the collaborative aspect is the main draw — even though the groups will be working on a wide range of issues.

“They all affect women,” Filante said. “We don’t often get enough opportunities to look at our work from a larger perspective. So I think some exciting things will come out of this.”

Other nonprofits participating in the initiative focus on leadership training, sexual violence prevention and economic self-sufficiency programs.

Aronoff, the Women’s Way executive director, says her organization is all about being a powerful voice for women. She says a key objective of the collaborative program is to make that voice even more powerful.

“Especially right now when women are so under attack, we need to amplify our voice,” Aronoff said. “Our overarching goal is that we will be heard … and that we will be able to make some real meaningful steps in helping women in a wide range of issues.”

Women’s Way was founded in 1977 to fight for women’s equality, self-sufficiency and reproductive freedom.