The importance of bringing women together cannot be underestimated. There is undisputable evidence that ties the well-being and advancement of women to the well-being and advancement of the communities in which women live. As goes women’s health, education, prosperity and social support, so goes the fortunes of the community, region, nation and, indeed, the world. Never has this been so important.
TIAW’s motto is “Connecting to Make All the Difference in the World”. We not only bring together individual women from every part of the world, but also the organizations to which they belong. We are not just working to get women to know one another, their cultures, circumstances and aspirations, but we are also working directly to influence the success of women’s empowerment through programs like Microenterprise, Women on Boards and the newly-developed Entrepreneurs initiative. As I write this, we are about to embark on a strategic planning process to help guide our organization through its next steps. We now include in TIAW more than 40 women’s networks representing more than 60,000 women around the world.
The life of each organization has recognizable stages, just like the people who belong to it. In our infancy, we were a small band of dedicated women in one region seeking to empower women within their sphere of influence. In our childhood, we grew and flourished and expanded our world, little by little. As a teenager, we struck out for places unknown, tested ourselves and asked ourselves constant questions about our identity, who we were and why we were here.
TIAW is now approaching the most powerful and important phase of its life as it reaches organizational maturity. We have grown organically over the past 27 years and now we are ready to consolidate the progress we’ve made and the lessons we’ve learned into a mature and highly strategic organization with an updated governance structure and plan of action to leverage all we’ve learned in more than a quarter of a century.
But as we strive to reach this next level, we are determined to remain accessible, to keep TIAW as an organization that welcomes the participation of its individual members, member organization and sponsors. There are so many opportunities to become involved and as part of TIAW we truly are able to connect to make all the difference in the world.
