30,000 Women Across 85 Countries Funded, Trained and Mentored: Celebrating a decade of advancing women leaders

This year marks the 10th anniversary of a partnership between Vital Voices and Bank of America to support women entrepreneurs around the world. With women bearing much of the economic brunt of the global pandemic, the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in particular, have multiplied over recent months: everything from business closures and reduced access to capital, to increased childcare responsibilities, which are more likely to fall to women than men. According to a recent McKinsey study, while women made up 46% of U.S. employment pre-coronavirus, they account for 54% of overall job losses year to date – with women of color the hardest hit. The work we do has never felt more important.

Together, through our Global Ambassadors Program, over the past decade we have paired women leaders from across the world with established female senior executives from a range of industries and organizations, including Bank of America, to advance their skills through the power of mentoring. To date we’ve provided 8,000 hours of training and mentoring to women from 85 countries, with more than 400 women participating as mentees or by sharing their expertise.

While we developed the Global Ambassadors Program as a one-on-one mentoring opportunity, one of the most powerful developments through the program has been a broader network of women – both mentors and mentees – sharing their perspectives and expertise with each another long after the formal program concludes. 

What began with the Global Ambassadors Program 10 years ago has also taken us on a journey, from training and mentoring hundreds of women, to investing in tens of thousands of women and improving access to capital for women entrepreneurs around the world through new partnerships and additional programs with other great organizations.

For instance, we work with the Tory Burch Foundation Capital Program, an initiative that aims to increase women-owned businesses in the U.S. by connecting them to affordable loans through Community Development Financial Institutions – last year, we doubled our commitment to $100 million.

We also offer online mentoring programs – ever more important in light of the coronavirus – with the Cherie Blair Foundation, and to date, we have helped connect more than 2,700 women entrepreneurs to mentoring and skills-building to help them develop business acumen. And in 2018, we established the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell – another online program – through which we have trained thousands of women entrepreneurs through the only online Ivy League certificate program for women business owners. Currently almost 20,000 women are enrolled – nearly 80% of whom identify as Black/African American – representing over 65 countries – and we have plans underway to expand significantly given overwhelming student interest, something the virtual learning format allows us to do.

Thus far, alongside all of our partners, Bank of America has funded, trained and mentored more than 30,000 women, and we are committed to growing our programs to support women entrepreneurs who not only seek financial success, but who uniquely, bring that success to bear for their families and communities around the world. 

Across all of these efforts and programs, our ongoing work to invest in women means putting into action our belief that women entrepreneurs are fundamental to advancing strong, healthy economies. By continuing to lean into our responsible growth framework and expanding our impact with powerful partnerships, together we can accelerate the impact of women everywhere – creating jobs, developing infrastructure and addressing societal challenges.

- Jointly written with Rena De Sisto, global executive for arts & culture and women’s programs at Bank of America