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Nonprofit Spotlight: Oakland’s Girls Leadership Breaking Down Unrealistic Standards and Empowering Girls to Make their Voices Heard
“GL is a place where a girl can gain the knowledge and the confidence to become the girl they truly want to be.”
Mission
We equip girls with the skills to exercise the power of their voice.
Values
We structure our work around four central values: Authentic Communication, Courageous Growth, Equity, and Play.
What Makes Us Unique?
1) Girls Leadership works not only with girls, but also with their primary influencers – parents, teachers, and caregivers – to create sustainable impact. Studies show parents and teachers to be the most powerful teachers for girls all the way through high school.
2) We put social and emotional learning (SEL) at the foundation of all our leadership development.
3) We see girls’ real-life, every-day relationships with friends and family as the primary opportunity we have to teach girls the leadership skills that will serve them over a life-time: self-advocacy, negotiation, compromise, personal responsibility and conflict as an opportunity for change.
Strategy
There are 25 million K-12th grade girls in the United States. If you combine the efforts of all national girl-serving organizations, we are only reaching about three million, or about 12% of girls. That means 22 million girls in the US aren’t being reached. Girls Leadership’s bold goal is to close that gap. Girls Leadership is collaborating with other organizations to elevate the girl-serving field, deepen our knowledge, and broaden our reach so that every single one of those 25 million girls has the awareness, skills and confidence to live as everyday leaders.
Definitions
GIRL
At Girls Leadership we recognize that gender is a reflection of identity, biology, and expression. We welcome anyone who self-identifies as girl or young woman. We aren’t in the business of determining anyone’s gender. That decision is the right of every individual.
LEADERSHIP
At Girls Leadership we define leadership as knowing who you are, what you believe, and being able to express your beliefs effectively to influence others. We see girls’ everyday relationships with friends, family, and peers as leadership opportunities. Leadership isn’t reserved for those few individuals who land in formal roles, such as team captain, or class president, but is a way of life that every girl can live every day. Our goal is to equip every girl with the courage, skills, and community to exercise the power of her voice.
Locations
Our headquarters office is located in Oakland, California and we run in-person programs across the country. Our renowned residential summer program is held at Mills College in Oakland, California, and our workshops and parent education talks take place across California, Colorado, New Jersey and New York. With our growing library of online resources, we hope to expand our work across geographic, class, and racial boundaries to impact as many girls as possible.
Press
Brooklyn Based
Empowering girls before they lose their voice. Without great role models to instruct them, girls can have a hard time speaking up and advocating for themselves.
Boston Globe
Is ‘Girl Power’ really the right message for our daughters?
We mean well with this slogan, but let’s think about what it’s actually telling girls and boys.
TIME
We Tell Our Kids That Hard Work Always Pays Off. What Happens When They Fail Anyway? By Rachel Simmons, Girls Leadership Co-founder.
Podcast: The Thought Leadership School
How to Make Your Message More Powerful. Michelle Barry Franco talks about thought leaders who are doing this really well, why taking a stand is such a critical part of having a strong message, and the three essential elements you should consider when getting on any stage.
New York Times
How Not to Be a Snowplow Parent
The college bribery scandal raises the concern that overprotected young children are ill-equipped to face challenges. Here’s advice for raising a self-sufficient child.
Fox News 2 St. Louis
The Virtues of Girl-Boy Friendships. Even as more grown-ups come around to the idea that gender is a spectrum, children continue to draw a bold line between “boy” and “girl” and police these categories with a great fervor. “Boys can’t be friends with girls, and boys can’t jump rope!” my son’s friend recently explained to him during recess.
Salon
Is “girl power” creating a mental health crisis?
Will girls ever feel like they are enough as they are? Like many American girls raised after the Women’s Movement, Rachel grew up believing that not only could she accomplish anything she put her mind to, but she was also expected to excel at everything.
KQED Forum
Supergirl is a Myth: How to Help Girls Thrive in a World of Growing Expectations. In “Enough As She Is,” Rachel Simmons explores how effortless perfection became the expectation for girls and how parents and society can “dispense with the myth of the so-called amazing girl.”
KQED Mind Shift
How Empowering Girls to Confront Conflict and Buck Perfection Helps Their Well-Being. CEO & Co-founder Simone Marean says it’s crucial that adults start helping young girls to engage in productive conflict, acknowledge and grow from mistakes, develop emotional intelligence and take responsibility for the role they each play in social situations.
Chicago Tribune
Teaching girls they can be anything — but they don’t have to be everything. Rachel Simmons says we must help girls know themselves well enough to pursue what makes them tick, not what they assume will please or impress others.
The New York Times
The Promise of Self-Compassion for Stressed-Out Teens Rachel Simmons shares a powerful tool for “owning up to a tough moment without paying for it with your self-worth.”
Chicago Tribune
With the fall of Rob Porter, are we ready to stop giving a pass to abusers? Rachel Simmons urges parents to talk to their daughters about what sort of values they want to embody — and then help them understand that those values carry over into every part of their lives.
Washington Post
Perfectionism among teens is rampant (and we’re not helping). Rachel Simmons offers alternatives to simply saying, “just chill” to our kids.
The New York Times
How to Help Your Child Not Bea #MeToo. Rachel Simmons says, “It’s up to us to say, ‘I believe your feelings and you should too,’ because self advocacy can only happen when you authorize your own feelings.”
Megyn TODAY
Rachel Simmons talked about how she learned from mistakes to achieve success, and why parents must share their own mistakes and apologize in front of kids too.
Good Morning America
Rachel Simmons weighs in on a Dutch woman who faces down her catcallers by posting selfies with them, using social media as a tool to take back her own power.
Good Morning America
Are the Boy Scouts trying to recruit girls away from the Girl Scouts? Rachel Simmons on why girls and boys need single sex spaces to be themselves, with each other.
New York Times
6 Things Parents Should Know About Sending Kids Back to School. If your child is sad about leaving camp friends or worried about the academic pressures of the next grade level, hear her out — and show empathy. Then, avoid the knee-jerk reaction to fix everything. Instead, ask your child to brainstorm ways to make the situation better.
Wharton Business Radio Highlights
Managing Self-Expectations and the Potential to Fail. Rachel Simmons joins host Laura Zarrow to discuss how women can learn to “fail well” and become more assertive and self-aware.
The Atlantic
Everyday Sexism in a ‘Post-Feminist’ World. Pop culture tells girls they can do anything, but the messages they experience in the classroom tell a different story. Organizations like Girls Leadership are providing solutions.
New York Times
On Campus, Failure Is on the Syllabus. A Smith College initiative with Rachel Simmons called “Failing Well” is one of a crop of university
programs that aim to help high achievers cope with basic setbacks.
Good Morning America
How to help children learn resilience through failure. GMA interviewed Rachel Simmons about concepts in her upcoming book, Enough as She Is.
Parents Magazine
6 Ways to Be a Strong Role Model for Your Daughter “There is so much pressure to put other people’s feelings and needs ahead of our own—and we need to change the messaging for the next generation of women,” says Simone Marean
CNN Parents
Body image: Are girls’ clothes sending wrong message to kids? (Opinion) “Self-consciousness goes up with the more skin you are baring and the more shape you are showing.. Your body becomes an object that others can have access to, and we know that self-objectification begins really early,” said Rachel Simmons.
Outside Magazine
The Girl Scouts Is Raising Our Next Generation of Rippers “If we can build bravery skills, then they’ll have the internal capacity to recover from failure and go back out there and try again,” Marean says. Pain and rejection will happen; being in nature can help girls find solace, strength, and inspiration.
Fortune
Gloria Steinem: There Is No Such Thing As ‘White Feminism’ At an intimate fundraising dinner held Thursday evening in New York City to benefit non-profit Girls Leadership, Steinem spoke at length about the perception that silos that exist between black and white feminists.
On Parenting
Want to raise empowered women? Start in middle school. Practical tips for empowering middle schoolers, featuring Co-Founder Rachel Simmons & more.
The Huffington Post
Want to Raise a Rocket Scientist? 20 Holiday Gifts to Give Girls a Head Start. Featuring Girls Leadership Parent & Daughter Book Club.
Forbes
How DonorsChoose, She’s The First And Girls Leadership Built Their Brands. “Over the years we’ve learned to trust our audience,” says Simone Marean. “Now we do our best to give away content every day.”
Washinton Post On Parenting
The art of saying no: How to raise kids to be polite, not pushovers. Common courtesy shouldn’t outweigh common sense. Help your kids learn how to say no. Interview with Cofounder Simone Marean.
The Enthusiasm Enthusiast
Katie Ward interviewed our co-founder Simone Marean on why it’s time to retire the term “mean girls,” and why the princess phase doesn’t mean the end of feminism as we know it.
Parents Magazine
Is Your Kid Ready for a Best Friend? Whether your child has a BFF, wants one, or isn’t yet clued in to the concept, these tips will help you teach her what true friendship entails.
New Canaan Advertiser
About 100 parents gathered at the New Canaan Library on March 8 to hear Simone Marean talk about Raising Resilient Girls in the Digital Age, hosted by LiveGirl
Adventure Nannies
One of our Adventure Nannies, Aryn, works as an educator with Girl’s Leadership, so we sat down with her to learn more about this life-changing organization.
KQED’s Forum
Encouraging Girls to Face Fear, Take Risks and Seek Adventure. Host Mina Kim interviewed Simone Marean and “The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure” author Caroline Paul.
The Cavalier
Parents help girls change the world. Girls Leadership encourages interaction between girls and parents to help girls cope with the challenges they may face, as well as increase social and emotional intelligence.
The Record
More than 300 parents came to Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, NJ to hear how they can be better role models in influencing the emotional and intellectual lives of their daughters.
San Jose Mercury News
There are some unsettling trends in girl dynamics today, Simone Marean told hundreds of parents and students attending Tuesday night’s Piedmont Education Speaker Series called “Raising Resilient Girls.”
Mashable
7 Skills to Teach Your Daughter by Age 13. Rachel Simmons on how parents can help girls through the pressure of tween life.
Experts Gather for Girls Leadership Training
The Simmons Institute for Leadership and Change hosted Girl Meets World Professional Development Training to support girls and girl-serving organizations.
Glamour Magazine
How Embracing Failure Can Be a Stepping Stone to Success. Teach young women there is value in failure—even more so than in success—if you fail chasing a dream, taking a risk, or trying something new.
Fortune Magazine
Why This Nonprofit Wants to Help Girls Fail. Want more female leaders? Lose the pressure for perfection. Fortune’s article of Simone Marean’s interview with Lauren Schiller.
Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller
We all want our sons and daughters to grow up strong and independent, but how do we ensure that ‘having it all’ doesn’t mean ‘doing it all’? Lauren Schiller interviewed Simone Marean.
Good Morning America
Sesame Street’s 1st Muppet With Autism Aims to End Stigma, Promote Understanding. Rachel Simmons says Julia, the newest Muppet, can teach all kids empathy.
Good Morning America
Rachel Simmons on Good Morning America talking about why girls tend to take failure harder than boys, and what parents can do to help them manage failure.
Parents Magazine
The Secret to Raising a Happy, Confident Girl. While girls’ levels of academic achievement have risen, their rates of stress, anxiety, and depression have risen as well.
Good Morning America
Rachel Simmons was interviewed about Target’s new policy of gender-neutral clothing and toys.
Parents: How to Talk to Your Daughter About What She’s Wearing
This one goes out to all the moms of tweens…
SheKnows
Pixar’s Inside Out offers the chance for parents and their children to have meaningful and impactful conversations surrounding emotional health.
Good Morning America
ABC News interviewed Rachel Simmons about how Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ is Helping Kids, Parents Communicate Effectively
One Thing New
Why you should embarrass your kids, and how conflict as an opportunity for change is a radical concept for girls.
SJ Mercury: Mean Girls Starting in Preschool.
Name-calling, teasing and social exclusion is happening to their daughters in early elementary school, kindergarten or even preschool.
NJ.com: ‘Raising Resilient Girls’ presentation a plus for parents
“After the presentation and the question and answer session that followed, it was clear that parents would be leaving with language to use at home to resolve conflicts effectively,”
HuffPo: Every Mom and Dad a STEM Mentor
For confidence building, I am a big fan of Girls Leadership Institute and their Summer camps. –Julie Kantor
Ronnie’s Awesome List
Ronnie and Simone talked about the pressures on middle school girls, what’s available for boys’ social emotional learning, and our goals to reach 25 million girls.
Parents Magazine: Raising Resilient Girls
Simone Marean and her award-winning presentation “Raising Resilient Girls” was featured in Parents Magazine.
A Survivor’s Guide to Being Mr. Mom: “Girl Power” and Double Sorry
When the inevitable “fight” occurs between your daughter and another girl, I’m reminded every day how little I understand girls.
Girls Leadership Institute Launched Programs in New Jersey
Read about Girls Leadership expanding into New Jersey and our first event with host study partner, the Livingston Board of Education.
Maplewood Patch: Bestselling “Odd Girl Out” Author Presented Workshop
Read an article in the Maplewood Patch about Rachel Simmons’ talk in Maplewood, NJ.
Girls Leadership Institute: The Summer That Changed Me
Heidi L of the feminist blog the FBomb found her way to amazing, interesting, inspiring, fierce, fabulous females, and the adventures and spirit lives on.
KQED: Girls and the Ambition Gap
Hear Co-Founder and Executive Director Simone Marean talk about girls and the ambition gap, with best-selling author Peggy Orenstien and About Face’s Jennifer Berger.
Libération: Tu seras une boss, ma fille
Read an article in (French) Libération about GL’s Real Parents, Real Daughters workshop in New York.
El Cerrito Patch: Institute Helps Girls Overcome Pressures, Have Healthy Relationships
Hearing Girls Leadership Institute Executive Director Simone Marean talk about “Raising Resilient Girls” seemed like a good way to better understand the complex undercurrents of the interactions of girls on the school yard.
Daily Camera: Leadership workshops help girls navigate friendships
Girls face relationship challenges that can be very sophisticated at a very young age. Parents of the youngest girls often feel helpless to deal with the mean girl behavior that their daughters experience.
San Jose Mercury News: Mean girls, good girls — how about strong girls?
The message of Simone Marean’s Real Parents, Real Daughters workshop was the classic stuff of female assertiveness training: Be strong. Respect yourself. Look people in the eye. Calmly tell them what you need and how you feel. But this was no ordinary assertiveness class.
Today Show: Rachel Simmons Interview
Watch Meredith interview Rachel Simmons and talk all about GL on the Today Show.
New York Times: Girls, Uninterrupted
“Everyone where I live really judges me,” one girl says. “My mom sent me here because she said no one would judge me.”
