Celebrating Our First Year
Co-Founder and CEO Kristine Zeigler looks back at the last year and shares our first-ever annual report.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home of the endangered mountain gorilla. Planet Women is helping resource local women leaders to protect these precious animals. Get the full story in the Annual Report!
Dear Friends,
What a time to be creating a bold organization that challenges the status quo! Establishing a new nonprofit during a global pandemic seemed crazy. Yet nothing could have been more energizing in a year when many crises converged: catastrophic climate events like wildfires and hurricanes, political divisions, racism and the corresponding swell of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Covid-19 pandemic that has now killed more than 5 million people globally.
Clearly, the old way of doing things is not working. In the conservation space, our teams are not diverse enough. According to Green 2.0, about 70% of staff at environmental organizations are white. While women represent more than 60% of staff at green groups, they hold less than 30% of the executive director or CEO roles. To be fair, organizations have taken measures to increase racial and gender diversity in the last few years and the report cards reflect that. But there is more progress to be made.
Planet Women was founded on this simple principle: diverse leadership and gender equity are essential to innovation and success at all levels of the environmental movement, from the field to the boardroom. We believe that more diversity leads to greater resilience, more creativity and more effective solutions. Right now, half the world’s population are left out of making decisions around environmental issues. That needs to change.
Planet Women worked with a local Colombian organization, Women For Conservation, to train women to be naturalists. Seen here at the El Dorado Reserve in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
We have evidence that more women leading is better for climate change, soil health, and air and water quality. Studies show that including women in conservation results in stricter extraction rules and better compliance, greater transparency and accountability and better conflict resolution. Countries that have a greater representation of women in government pass stricter environmental laws and ultimately have lower carbon emissions.
But more women leading isn’t just better for the environment, it’s also better for our workplaces and our societies. Data from the Pew Research Center bears out that women are 34% better at working out compromises, 34% more likely to be honest and ethical, 25% more likely to stand up for their beliefs, and 30% more likely to provide fair pay and benefits.
Our first team retreat!
It’s time to transform the way we work and live so that we can heal ourselves, heal each other and heal the earth. But let me be clear, I don’t think that all women are better at leading or better at healing. I think that nothing effective or enduring happens when women are left out. I think that when the best leadership attributes of people of all gender identities, all races, all backgrounds, all generations are brought to bear, humanity is capable of anything.
Our vision is for a world where the vibrant diversity of earth’s people collaborate on equal footing to care for the planet. And our path to get there is with women leading the way.
Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Your generosity, energy and ideas are changing the lives of women and their communities around the world.