Women Speakers in Design and Tech

tl;dr
We have some exciting news to share! Because of the generous support from all of you, we've incorporated Women Talk Design and brought on a CEO to build WTD into a sustainable, effective social enterprise. See below for the full update, and check out our new Go Fund Me campaign https://www.gofundme.com/women-talk-design

FULL ANNOUNCEMENT 

Women Talk Design has some BIG updates
Earlier this summer, I started a GoFundMe campaign to fund an internship for my female design students to work on a website I started, called Women Talk Design — a resource to negate all excuses that keep women from the speaking opportunities that they deserve. it raised 4x what I had hoped for, and I was able to hire two interns to work on it. A few months later, after a lot of hours of work and amazing support from the community, I was excited to share this announcement with donors on the future of Women Talk Design.

Hello wonderful donors!

I have two very exciting pieces of news to share:

1. We have an updated website!

Fueled by your generous donations, Jennifer and Melissa put in 600+ hours this summer to conduct user research, develop the content strategy, overhaul the IA, and redesign Women Talk Design. With the help of their brilliant and benevolent mentors Indi Young (research), Abby Covert (IA), Margot Bloomstein (content strategy), Madonnalisa Chan (IA & governance), Hugh Dubberly (systems), and Erin Malone (graphic design & brand) they thoughtfully applied the principles of experience design to help Women Talk Design better meet the needs of our audiences and goals for our industry. Check out (and follow!) @womentalkdesign for some of those learnings, as well as “7 Reasons Why Women Say No to Speaking & What Conference Organizers Can Do About It”, parts 1 and 2.

No effort succeeds without clarity of purpose. Through this process, we created a message architecture to define Women Talk Design as a platform to “elevate the best talks about design from women, and empower event organizers with tools, approaches, and information to engage more women speakers.“ We use great talks to call attention to great speakers — in that order — and redesigned the site to reflect that. Now, anyone can discover excellent talks on design, UX, content strategy, and related topics through the site, and then learn about (and hire) the women behind the mics.

Have a look and get inspired: womentalkdesign.com

Your generous donations power these changes. Thank you for funding Jennifer and Melissa’s internship. They wrapped up their work with WTD and will be finishing up their final year at CCA. Stay in touch — they gained insight, experience, and exposure, and they’ll be on the job market soon!

2. We have an updated team!

We have too much momentum and too much important work to keep doing to stop now. I’m excited to announce that Danielle Barnes has joined us as the full-time CEO of Women Talk Design, LLC. She has a great vision of where to take our nascent organization so it can foster greater and greater impact. As a founder of both the San Francisco and Austin General Assembly offices, as well as Austin Design Week, she brings wisdom, savvy, and optimism to our work. I know WTD is in good hands.

Your donations enabled us to create Women Talk Design as a true resource, not just a directory. This fall we’ll be offering multiple speaker training events, and Danielle will lead the way in their organization as she works to build Women Talk Design into a sustainable, effective social enterprise.

I’ve been so grateful for the outpouring of support through donations and offers of mentorship and assistance for Women Talk Design. I started Women Talk Design in 2013 because I was tired of hearing conference organizers say, “There aren’t any female speakers who are able to talk about this topic… or available… or any good… or….” when we know those excuses wilt in the heat of volume and visibility. I wanted to make a site that would take away excuses and shine a spotlight on both speakers and the best ways to engage them. With Women Talk Design, organizers can find some of the best speakers on relevant topics, check out their speaking abilities, and contact them. Moreover, they’ll be able to find guidance to create more inclusive events, suggestions for speaker outreach, and tips to prioritize diversity to strengthen their events, not just to check a box. I’m beyond excited to know this effort will continue and have impact. This fall I’ll be teaching at CCA, working on a new book and as always, being a full-time mom, but will remain an active advisor and advocate of Women Talk Design.

Your donation has been so meaningful already. To continue to support this effort as it expands and gathers participants, content, and resources, here are some ways to do so:

Continue to spread the word about Women Talk Design among speakers and organizers
Follow us on twitter @womentalkdesign
Share our published research on Medium
Nominate or encourage awesome women to apply to be listed
Financially support WTD by donating to our updated GoFundMe campaign
Connect with Danielle on how you can continue to financially support, engage, and stay involved
Thanks everyone!

Christina



Orginal!


STRETCH GOAL: If we can pass the minimum, I can give the student more hours (which helps in a pricey city like San Francisco.) If we double it, I can give a second student a job and expand the mission to other speakers who need help. Tell your friends!  ACCOMPLISHED!

Even Stretchier! If we make it to $11,250 they can make $25/hr which is competitive in SF, and anything beyond that allows us to run adwords promotions, cover hosting (I pay out of pocket) and maybe even set up a nonprofit org to keep this alive...  ACCOMPLISHED!

Another goal! Get women what they need to succeed! At 15k, I'll hold a speaker training in SF with the outcome of providing new speakers video examples and promtional one-sheets to send organizers. At 20k we'll bring it to the midwest, at 25 we'll bring it to the east coast. 

FINAL STRETCH: if we make it to 30k, I'll jump through all the hoops to make this a permanent nonprofit (as opposed to a side-gig as it is now.)

I started Women Talk Design in 2013 because I was tired of conference organizers saying, "There aren't any female speakers who are (able to talk about this topic/available/any good/insert excuse here.) 

I wanted to make a site that would take away excuses, and make it easy for organizers to find women speakers, check out their speaking abilities and contact them. I've been adding a woman here and there and I now have 78. It's been slow (since I have a job and am a mom) but the site is beginning to be useful. 

I teach at California College of the Arts. This year some of my students  weren't able to find internships, which they need to graduate.

I'd like to raise enough money for an internship for a young female student to: 

·        Update the site with many more women, especially women of color and across in multiple industries.

·        Rework the site to make it even easier to find female speakers that meet a conference’s needs, and make it easier to update with new women speakers.

·        Reach out to conferences to make them aware of the website.

·        Add a section about Codes of Conduct and other women-friendly steps conferences can take.

This money will allow me to pay a female student at $20/hr for the 225 hours of internship work she needs to graduate. If I raise more, she'll get more work (always plenty to do!) 
All the money will go directly to pay her (do the math!) I'm donating my mentorship time.

If we beat the goal, I'll use some of the money to pay for hosting, better/new URLs and promotion like Google ads -- as well as giving the intern more hours of work.

If I don't make the goal, I can still pay a female student to update the site, but she won't be able to use it for internship credits.  It's my hope we can change one life by providing this opportunity, and many lives by getting more women on stage where they can inspire the next generation. 

Please help in any way you can.