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MWF | Top 5 Moments of 2020

December 29, 2020

Michigan Business Network

As 2020 comes to a close, we ask you to pause and reflect with us for a moment. Although year brought real loss, grief, and hardship, it also introduced us to a part of ourselves we hadn’t met before. 2020 showed us how resilient and compassionate we all can be.

In the spirit of celebrating our resilience, we picked our top five moments of 2020 to highlight some of the beautiful things that happened in the midst of adversity.

On behalf of our entire team at Michigan Women Forward, Happy New Year! Cheers to new beginnings.

Why this moment was incredible:
We added six new women to the official Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, where each woman’s legacy and story will be told and remembered forever. A pandemic couldn’t stop us from celebrating these women, so we put together a virtual induction ceremony and a “meet and greet” (over zoom!) with each living Hall-of-Famer. Read about each Hall-of-Famer here!

Why this moment was worth remembering:
While it’s still hard to believe that it has only been 100 years since women won the right to vote, it’s important to mention that it took many more years after 1920 for women of color and indigenous women to be granted access to the polls. Even today, many women are still disenfranchised. During an important election year, it was pivotal for us to call attention to this anniversary and reflect on why women voting really matters (here’s a clue- when women vote, women win). We even created a video series featuring some local women political leaders. Watch here.

Why this addition is crucial to MWF’s future:
We were so proud to welcome Alexis to our team as Chief Lending Officer this year. Alexis brings extensive experience and knowledge to this role, which she will use to help MWF become a CDFI. In the few short months that Alexis has been with MWF, she has doubled the size of the Women’s Entrepreneurial Initiative (WEI) team and strengthened ties with the community. She leads with authenticity and passion for helping those who are overlooked by other financial institutions. Read the article about Alexis’s new role here.

Why we celebrate this program:
When it became clear that our usual in-person camps would no longer be possible, we developed two new virtual camps: Virtual Visionaries and Virtual S.T.E.A.M.! In partnership with many volunteers and The Lab Drawer, we introduced middle and high school girls to “boss women”, we had meaningful conversations about goal setting and financial literacy, and we even sent science experiments in a box for girls to do at home! Even in a pandemic, the future is still female.

Why this is our number one accomplishment of 2020:
It’s no secret that the pandemic and related shutdown orders have had a devastating impact on small businesses across the state. Back in March, we started asking our entrepreneurs what they needed from us. Across the board, small business owners expressed a need for funding to meet safety standards (like purchasing PPE, creating barriers in their stores, shifting their services to an online model, etc.).

In partnership with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), New Economy Initiative (NEI), the Small Business Administration (SBA), Consumers Energy, General Motors, Huntington Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Comerica Bank, and DTE Energy, we raised 1.5 million dollars to develop the Michigan Entrepreneur Resilience Fund, which provided grants up to $5,000 and microloans up to $10,000 for small businesses to reopen safely. We’re proud to have helped mostly women and minority business owners with pivoting their business during this crisis. View the full list of Resilience Fund recipients here.

With your support, we pledge to continue ensuring these small businesses stay open and have access to the funding and business assistance they need.

We hope you feel inspired by what we have been able to accomplish together this year! We need your help to continue this important work with women and girls in 2021. There are still a few days left to donate to our year-end campaign. Please consider making a gift (of any size!) today!

Make a year-end donation

Thank you for believing in Michigan women and girls this year.
Happy New Year! See you (hopefully in person!?) in 2021.

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