Women Donors Network Action Announces Growing Leadership to Drive Gender Justice
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 12, 2024
Hillary Holley, WDN & WDN Action
Managing Director of Politics & Advocacy
“The work at WDN and WDN Action is needed now more than ever. We know from the recent election results that women–especially Black and brown women–and those organizations representing and supporting marginalized communities will be facing increasing challenges, threats, and attacks. We must mobilize, organize, and strategize now to protect our rights and mitigate harm. I can truly say that there could not be a better time to join WDN and WDN Action, as I have worked alongside organizers in the deep South and across the nation who are facing these same threats. I look forward to working with Leena, our Board members, the dedicated team, and its vast network to protect and advance gender, racial, economic, and climate justice.”
SAN FRANCISCO — Women Donors Network (WDN)—a national network of women donors and gender-expansive individuals committed to protecting and advancing gender, racial, economic, and climate justice—and Women Donors Network Action (WDN Action), its c4 affiliate, are proud to announce Hillary Holley as the new Managing Director of Politics & Advocacy for WDN and WDN Action.
“We’re fueling an ambitious strategic plan that has a multifaceted funding approach to grow long-term power building and Hillary’s vast experience as a seasoned organizer, advocate, innovative leader, and political strategist, as well as her passion are exactly what we need at the helm of WDN and WDN Action,” says Leena Barakat, President and CEO of WDN and WDN Action. “I look forward to working alongside her as we grow our network as a home for women and gender-expansive donor organizers to deepen our advocacy efforts in this critical moment for our democracy.”
The network has a bold approach to collective giving, by investing in emerging initiatives while also sustaining long-term power building. WDN Action serves as the 501(c)(4) sister organization to WDN, working with its network of feminist donor organizers to bring a unique gender and racial justice lens to funding advocacy efforts and political possibilities. By the end of this year, WDN and WDN Action will grant more than $23 million to over 200 organizations. WDN and WDN Action’s grantmaking demonstrates a deep commitment to resourcing grassroots organizing, movement building, and meeting needs that are overlooked or underfunded in philanthropy. As a philanthropic home, WDN Action empowers its members to do more through learning, volunteering, and influencing their respective networks.
Reporting directly to the President and CEO and serving as an integral member of the leadership team, Holley will work with the leadership to shape the organization’s strategy, drive impactful political education and advocacy initiatives, deepen the network’s donor organizing and mobilization in partnership with movements, and elevating WDN Action’s voice and partnerships in the field.
Holley’s appointment comes at a pivotal time as WDN and WDN Action are undergoing a period of growth and transformation and are expanding their team of people who are passionate about social justice and motivated to amplify the organizations’ collective impact.
Holley is a familiar face at the organization as a long-time grantee partner of WDN Action and a collaborator on WDN Action’s lobbying program in Washington, DC. Currently, she serves as the Vice President of Civic Engagement for the National Domestic Workers Alliance—an organization of over 400,000 domestic workers and care workers who are following in the steps of the infamous Southern labor leader Dorothy Bolden. She is also the Executive Director of Care in Action, the political home for the country’s domestic workers, care workers, and women of color and immigrant women who rely on care. Her movement roots began in Atlanta, Georgia, where she and Georgia organizations solidified the state’s progressive infrastructure during Trump’s first administration. During that time, Holley helped launch and worked on the historic 2018 Stacey Abrams campaign and was one of the founding staff of Fair Fight Action, a key Georgia organization responsible for flipping Georgia in 2020 and installing a Democratic federal trifecta.
Holley also serves on the board of Emerge Georgia, an organization dedicated to wrap-around support to women from every corner of the state who are interested in running for office. She is a proud, lifelong Georgia native, great granddaughter of Ms. Hazel who worked as house maid and nanny in North Carolina during Jim Crow and a descendant of potato farmers in Northern Maine.
Holley will begin her role in January 2025.
For more information about WDN and WDN Action, please visit womendonors.org and wdnaction.org.
About WDN and WDN Action
Women Donors Network (WDN) is a national network of women donors and gender-expansive individuals committed to protecting and advancing gender, racial, economic, and climate justice. As a growing multiracial and multigenerational community of donor organizers, we connect, grow, fund, and mobilize together in solidarity with movements to transform people, culture, and systems rooted in justice.
Through Women Donors Network Action (WDN Action), WDN’s c4 affiliate organization, we work to transform policies, political infrastructure, and political possibilities by investing in advocacy and electoral strategies that center the leadership of historically excluded communities.
Together, we envision a just and sustainable world where everyone can safely and freely determine their own futures.
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Media Contacts:
Pati Navalta, Navalta Media
415.726.1299
pati@navaltamedia.com
Chanida Phaengdara Potter, WDN Action
415.814.1363
chanida@wdnaction.org |
