This past weekend, I had the opportunity to invest in a crowd-funding campaign for Bella Minds – whose mission is quite simple – “Bringing Tech Education to ALL Women”. There is lots of press these days on the lack of women in STEM… so rather than just read/write about the problem, this was an opportunity to participate in an actual solution; yes do something!
Bella Minds had set a goal to raise $25,000 to fund their first pilot program of educating 25 women set to launch in the Spring of 2014 in Alliance, Nebraska. When I made the decision to invest in this endeavor, the project was 2 days away from the funding end date and a few thousand short of the goal. As soon as I funded this fabulous project at the Investor Circle level, I immediately turned to Twitter to shout this out to all of my connections. I was able to follow, in real time, the success of the funding campaign and was very excited when the funding level crossed the $25,000 goal.
As of this post, Bella Minds has raised over $28,000 (exceeding their goal!) from 270 backers.
Why a crowd-funding campaign?
Crowd-funding enables an organization to leverage the power of their social networks to reach out to an ever expanding group of potential contributors.
The campaign was run on the crowd-funding platform – Plum Alley – the brain child of Deb Jackson , a former investment banker turned tech entrepreneur. Now in terms of full disclosure, Deb is a friend, a colleague and a true “kick-ass” woman igniting the tech scene in NYC! In Deb’s own words, the mission of Plum Alley can be seen in the following quote:
“I founded Plum Alley for women to create products, build companies and enhance their esteem and wealth. We offer 3 things: a way for women to raise money for projects, hire experts to help them and provide a way to sell their products with an emphasis on their story.”
There are many “crowd-funding” platforms available, but Plum Alley is the only one I am aware of that has a focus on empowering women in their entrepreneurial endeavors.
My hope is that organizations like Bella Minds and Plum Alley will help to ensure that the answer to the question – Where are the women in tech?
will be….
THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!
Women Invest 
Thank you so much for believing in us and joining our Investor Circle, Carol! So glad to have you on board!
So glad to see you supporting this campaign Carol! Key initiatives for women are the building blocks of the future, for sure.
Carol, thank you so so very much. 1) for believing we are worth investing in, and 2) for believing ALL women are worth investing in 🙂 So very glad to have you as a part of the Bella Minds family!