Dear Heroines,
Congrats, this January, we have turned 8! Time surely flies when you find good people along the way. We want to update you about our way forward from here.
2023 was a busy year for us in Open Heroines (OH) HQ. We ran workshops, did experiments in the labs, our Slack channel was busy, and we launched a new website. We could not have done this without our wonderful paid staff, Marisa and Wakini (and Tracy who was with us until March).
On a personal note, 2023 has been extremely full of love for me as I welcomed my son in March. It was also very busy and sad at times. I lost my father-in-law to cancer, found out my son has a hearing loss (and if you want to speak about hearing loss, my virtual door is always open), and, to top it all, the war between Israel and Gaza, and in particular, the events of October 7th took a significant mental toll on me.
2023 was also the last year of our grant from the Hewlett Foundation. Hewlett has been funding us through Development Gateway since 2017, and they have enabled us throughout the years to send women to conferences, arrange workshops, and hire our staff. We are extremely grateful for the trust and support they have been giving us for all those years.
In October of last year, we made a tough decision not to pursue more funding for OH. While our coordinators have been invaluable to us, and while we have achieved a lot with the grant’s money, managing a grant is something we don’t have resources for or a structure in place.
What does it mean for you as Heroines? You might have noticed that our Slack is not paid for any more or that Wakini and Marisa are doing less work. However, we think we can survive this and become even better by putting some volunteer structure in place. We had volunteers before; we can have some now for this wonderful community. We have decided that if we have a project that we want to dedicate more resources to, we will fundraise for it. Until then, we are open to hearing from you about volunteering, our decision not to take funding at the moment or any other feedback you have.
If you want to help us grow the community and volunteer, see the information HERE.
If you want to see our report for Hewlett and what we did with the money, see the information HERE.
If you have any questions, please post them on our general channel or drop an email to mor@openheroines.org
Our next work is towards Open Data Day and International Women’s Day. Stay tuned.
