Angie Allen, Claire Bowen, Enid Draluck and Marcia Jacobson had been working on a program for mentoring young women for the past 2 years which resulted in a women’s leadership class at the J. Mack Robinson College at Georgia State University. Realizing this would only reach a limited amount of students they began to consider something that had the potential to reach as many as students and in addition, young career women as possible in the metro Atlanta area. Discussing this with other likeminded community members, it was suggested that they meet with Ed Baker, then Publisher of the Atlanta Business Chronicle. The initial meeting was in May of 2014 to discuss the idea of creating a women’s leadership ecosystem in the city of Atlanta. This discussion and subsequently many more after, have led to the creation of what is now called, Women Mentor Atlanta.
After several months of planning, a launch event was held October 15, 2014 at Junior Achievement’s Chick-fil- A Foundation Discovery Center. Over 75 invited guests were in attendance, potential stakeholders from the non-profit, business and civic sectors from around metro Atlanta. Ed and Enid kicked off the meeting with the reasoning behind the project and the projected impact on the business community in the metro area along with their personal investment in the initiative.
A panel discussion led by Alicia Philipp, President of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, with Danielle Taylor of the Carter Center and Juanita Velez of UPS, young career women who would be beneficiaries of this program and the target demographic, emphasized the want and need for mentoring young women to advance in their careers.
Danita Knight recapped the information and facilitated the question and answer period with great questions from the audience, many that could be answered and others that the catalyst group had not considered and were extremely beneficial in moving the project forward.
This meeting was to introduce the community to the initiative and to get buy in. The “ask” was for members of a steering committee to continue the work and to move the project forward. Success to the catalyst group before the meeting was defined as getting twelve people to commit to being on the steering committee. Success for the day was redefined when 33 people volunteered to be on the steering committee.
Fast forward, months and months of steering committee meetings, committee meetings, and conference calls, a pilot program was put in place almost a year after the launch meeting, October 3, 2015 with 20 mentees and 18 mentors.
