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Girls For A Change (GFC) empowers girls and women to be social change agents, leaders, and innovators. GFC empowers girls to design, lead, fund, and implement social change projects that tackle problems they face in their own neighborhoods.

Description:
Girls For a Change kicks off each fall with a Girl Summit attended by more than 1,000 girls and 300 women. Following the Girl Summit, groups of 10 girls and two women form Girl Action Teams to identify a problem in their community and implement a solution over the course of a year.

GFC provides the tools, resources, partnerships, and support girls need to move from feeling like spectators to being leaders. Each year 1,000 teenage girls learn how to identify an issue in their community and pull together the resources needed to create change.

History:
GFC is committed to giving all girls the opportunity to invent and experience the spark that comes with seeing their own ideas take form and make a difference. Here is how that happened for GFC.

In 1999, The Santa Clara County Office of Women's Advocacy (OWA), under the leadership of Patricia Lee began a year-long forum for data collection and strategic planning in coordination with The California Women's Agenda (CAWA). The initiative, called Women and Girls 2000 and Beyond, was to take a specific regional look at some the primary issues, which bubbled forth from the Platform For Action from the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China in 1996. OWA produced a report, which included platforms for information and action. These platforms are Violence, Poverty, Older Women, Media, Employment/Economics, Health, Education, Environment, Policy, and Girls.

An opportunity arose to submit a grant to The Joint Powers Authority of The City of San Jose and The County of Santa Clara. The grant was for $100,000 to address a pressing need facing youth in the Silicon Valley. Lee, the Director of OWA at the time, enlisted Whitney Smith, the Chair of the Silicon Valley Girls Coalition to create an initiative, which responded to the grant. The initiative was successfully funded and then the real excitement began.

With no infrastructure to support GFC, Whitney enlisted members of The Silicon Valley Girls Coalition (SVGC) to become part of the initial Steering Committee, which became the original GFC Board of Directors. GFC first hired a consultant to help with the initial Girl Summit in October 2002. That consultant became the first paid staff person, Executive Director Niko Clifford.

Under the leadership of our founding Executive Director Niko Clifford, GFC has flourished into a well recognized organization with a national vision. Immediately after the first Girl Summit, it became clear to Niko and Whitney that GFC was not going to be an initiative or a modest organization, but it was going to become a national organization and a groundbreaking movement. Niko aligned GFC with Social Fusion, formerly the Social Entrepreneurship Incubator. Social Fusion, a branch of the Women's Technology Cluster, supports entrepreneurial organizations to launch and scale social enterprises by uniting successful business practices with positive social impact. GFC was the second organization to successfully graduate from Social Fusion.

In 2005, GFC expanded its program to Phoenix, Arizona and has added several staff members in both sites. Please visit our website for more information!

Contact person: Audrey Roderick, Program Manager, (phone), (email)

Address:

PO Box 1436 San Jose, CA 95109

Web Site: http://www.girlsforachange.org

Miscellaneous Information

Besides English, which languages are spoken at your agency?
	Spanish
What is the minimum age for volunteers at your agency?
	18
Is your agency wheelchair accessible?
	Yes
Does your agency have the capacity to host groups of more than 10?
	Yes
Does your agency have the capacity to host groups of more than 20?
	Yes