WSW 2025 Community Fund - Fundraising for small biz owners

OUR ASK

Help us directly invest dollars, time and energy into our local small business owners. We're collecting funds to distribute to, benefit and center women of color small business founders in Oregon and SW Washington. Money raised goes towards providing grants and hiring women to support our grant winners on a project that advances their business and invites the WSW Community of business owners to participate.

BACKGROUND

Referred to as the WSW (Women Supporting Women) ecosystem, we are in the 4th round of fundraising to keep this essential program going. This unique community was founded by Filipina-identifying and ALIST LLC owner Amanda Mailey to connect thousands of small business owners to find the help they need in each other. Her work has been recognized by The Oregonian, Portland Monthly Magazine, Portland Business Journal, Portland Mercury and The Portland Observer.

Your donation is combined with sponsorship dollars, reduced priced event ticket sales and product sales to create a WSW Community Fund that is distributed across women business owners coming together to support other women entrepreneurs in true WSW (women supporting women) action. As an investor, you will receive updates throughout the year on where the money was distributed and to whom.

ALIST is a marketing and business consultancy specializing in serving women of color entrepreneurs. We are not a non-profit organization, but we are deeply invested in equity work and community building to [1] provide cash grants to registered women founders, [2] hire women freelancers to form all women led teams, [3] create spaces that center women of color, and [4] connect entrepreneurs to inspire collaboration throughout the community. WSW is both a mission and a business model.

IMPACT

In 2020, women of color started 70% of all businesses in the U.S. despite receiving less than 1% of VC funding. ALIST started building the WSW ecosystem in October 2020 as a response to the lack of support. Through the help of hundreds of donors and sponsors, ALIST has collected and distributed over 100K throughout the shared economy of 500+ women, but the impact isn't only monetary. These relationships are key in keeping the doors open another year.

To advance female entrepreneurship, we need new structures today that invest in and connect the community across backgrounds, industries, and stages of business that are run by women of color. Each community project models the power of small businesses scaling up by collaborating with others to learn and grow. With your help, we can do even more in 2025.

DONATE TODAY

Please help us continue this important work in 2025 to make a much needed difference in our small but mighty women founder community in the PNW.

Credits: Cover photo by HB Photos and Video by Fli Social.

WATCH THE STORY OF HOW WSW BEGAN