The Girls Leadership Institute (GLI) is a national educational non-profit changing the face of leadership through cutting edge programs, original research, and national outreach.

GLI Mission:  Teach girls the skills to know who they are, what they believe and how to express it, empowering them to make change in their world. We work with girls, parents and caregivers and educators to ensure lasting impact.

GLI Vision: To create a society in which girls and women engage authentically and assertively at every level of decision making in all areas of their lives.

Girls Leadership Institute (GLI) Programs

GLI holds programs in four regions across the country, San Francisco Bay Area, Colorado, Northern New Jersey, and New York City. GLI programs reach not only girls, but also their main influencers, parents and educators.  Of our 6000 participants last year, over 4000 were the adults that influence girls’ identity formation as well as communication and leadership skills.  By working with the adult role models, GLI programs create sustainable change in a girl’s life.

These programs include:

1. 1.    Overnight camp for girls in grades 6 – 12, 10 days – 3 weeks
2. 2.    Parent/daughter workshops or girls in grades K – 8, 6 – 12 hours
3. 3.    Professional development training, two and a half days
4. 4.    Day camp, one week
5. 5.    Parent education presentations, two hours

All GLI programs teach the practices of emotional intelligence, assertive self-expression, and how to build healthy relationships. These skills help girls build the “internal resume” needed to live as leaders.

Program evaluations show that participants leave our programs:

• Better able to identify, express, and respect a full range of emotions
• With new experience practicing assertive communication in their everyday relationships
• More comfortable facing challenges and taking healthy risks
• Willing to own mistakes gracefully
• Able to accept constructive criticism
• Able to identify and manage healthy and unhealthy relationships

Ten years ago, GLI was co-founded by bestselling author and girl-expert Rachel Simmons,(“Odd Girl Out” and “Curse of the Good Girl”) and social entrepreneur Simone Marean.

This year GLI will:

• Grow the number of programs by 56% across the country
• Conduct our first piece of cutting edge research for public dissemination
• Determine a plan to disseminate GLI research, program support and resources as broadly as possible to families, schools and organizations across the country

Project Description:

GLI would like to seek assistance from a Community Partners team to help develop a business plan for a new strategy to disseminate our content and research online.  The team could help us better explore our options, understand our strengths, assess potential partners for an online workshop or community.  This would include some market assessment and recommending a strategy for GLI.

Right now GLI reaches 6000 people per year. In order for us to have the larger social impact that we know is possible, we need to go beyond programs to figure out to disseminate this information freely and broadly. We realize this means letting go of the hold that we’ve had on the quality of our programs, and we believe in the pay-off.  This is critical if we will ever get close to our vision.