|
Chambers Family Fund partnered with the Wyoming Community Foundation to create Wyoming’s only women’s fund in 2000. The Wyoming Women’s Foundation supports economic self-sufficiency and access to opportunities for women and girls in Wyoming by raising funds, making grants to organizations serving women and girls, and providing leadership.
Led by a board of women who reside across the state, the Wyoming Women’s Foundation has built an endowment of more than $1 million and distributed over $500,000 in grants. Results from a 2001 needs assessment focus the organization’s grantmaking on wage inequity, job skills training, access to higher education and child care.
Addressing the gender wage gap through policy change and public education is a priority for the Wyoming Women’s Foundation. On a national level, women are paid 78 cents for every dollar a man is paid. In Wyoming, women make only 63 cents for every dollar a man is paid, the largest gender wage disparity in the United States. The women’s foundation adapted the WAGE Project model to Wyoming and provides wage negotiation workshops across Wyoming. Also, the women’s foundation created an email alert entitled Legislative Watch 2010 to provide updates on bills during the 2010 legislative session that impacted women of Wyoming.
Almost 60 percent of Wyoming families in poverty are headed by single mothers.
|
