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The non-profit Vital Voices Global Partnership grew out of the U.S. government’s successful Vital Voices Democracy Initiative. As Vital Voices continues the work of advancing women’s economic, political and social status around the world, we speak to its CEO and President, Alyse Nelson, on providing skills, networking and other support to women around the world.

Entrepreneur (E): What was the idea behind starting Vital Voices?
Alyse Nelson (AN): Vital Voices started as a U.S. government initiative in 1997 to look at the condition of women around the world. We want to bring the voice of women to the decision-making table, and inculcate the idea of leadership in them. Vital Voices has been continuously focusing on three major areas—political participation, human rights and economic empowerment.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, former U.S. first lady, was the founder and we became a non-governmental bipartisan organization in 2000. By bipartisan, I mean that our organization has no political party affiliation though we came out of one political party. In terms of administration, we are completely independent.

When we became a non-profit organization, we felt that there was a real need to support emerging women leaders through three key means. We first try to connect women leaders and then build their capacity. Often, the women we work with are very successful and have tremendous impact on their societies, though they do not have fancy academic degrees under their belts. We help them by tweaking things a little bit in the areas of marketing, strategy planning and communications to ensure effective results and help them better identify their goals. We do give a few grants but for the most part, we invest in people’s human and social capital, their hard skills and network.

We find that when we are building leaders, if we give them grants then the moment that grant is over, they have to find another grant. Our concept is “rather than giving a woman a fish, we teach her how to fish.” Vital Voices has trained and supported 8,000 women in 127 countries till date.

E: What do your programs strive to achieve?
AN: We create a long-term investment for the women we support. We support her in building her connections, capacity and credibility. We believe strongly that we have the right focus. We have seen again and again that when we invest in emerging women leaders, who may not be the CEO of a company or the president of her country, these women definitely have the potential to become someone special some day. Many of these women are social entrepreneurs, forging new grounds in their countries.

E: Vital Voices does not have offices in the countries it operates in; doesn’t that hamper your work?
AN: Though we don’t have offices in all the countries we work in, often enthusiastic women entrepreneurs contact us directly. Many of them learn about us via our alumni members. We have a very loyal network of alumni who are our best advocates. They have been the head-hunters in finding the next generation of emerging leaders.

E: What has been your learning from working in India?
AN: We came to India through the NGO SEWA. My key learning has been that while women are an extraordinary economic, political and social force here, there are many violent acts committed against them. There are some women who are respected and hold important positions while women’s human rights are still being violated. This is not unique to just India. However, the gap could be a little larger here as you do have so many women in leadership positions in the country.

E: Which is the most critical area where women entrepreneurs need attention?
AN: One of the most critical areas is mentoring, which is an important tool in grooming talent. Imagine this: You are a woman living in Kolkata and have a small business.

You have never traveled out of India and your network is just your immediate community. All of a sudden you are mentored by a senior woman executive working in a MNC in U.S.A. or may be one of the Fortune 500 women like Beth Brooke, the Global Chairperson for Ernst and Young. Beth enjoys a global network and can ask favors from a huge chain of people. If she mentors the woman from Kolkata, her world would expand a hundred fold.

E: What are the qualities a women entrepreneur must have to make the cut for Vital Voices?
AN: We need a woman with great potential, who shows leadership skills, has the ability to go beyond the point where she’s standing now and is willing to bring others along with her. After working here for 15 years, it’s really easy for me to identify which woman will go far if we mentor her.

As we work in more than 127 countries, our model is not to reinvent. There are women in each of these countries who are making a real change to their environment and our model is to find those women and invest in them.

E: Why doesn’t Vital Voices actively take part in financing?
AN: We are not looking at getting more involved in the funding part. First of all, we believe that we don’t build leaders by giving them money but by making long-term investments that are never going to change. If you help a woman find her leadership qualities and develop those, then you can never take that away from her. That is a much greater investment than just funding.

E: What are the major pitfalls that women entrepreneurs face in India?
AN: The major constraint woman entrepreneurs face in India, and elsewhere in the world, is limited access to capital. Hillary Clinton once said that some of the greatest innovations die at bank parking lots.

Also, in many other countries women don’t have the right to property, and some of the legal issues and violence against women also act as barriers. If women do not have equal rights, support and protection, then their growth will be restricted.

These factors are absolutely necessary to turn women into successful entrepreneurs. Last but not the least, education plays a very crucial role and there is a huge need to focus on women’s education.

E: What are your goals and expectations from India?
AN: We would like to bring one of our successful programs to India called the Businesswoman Network Initiative. It connects businesswomen to mentors, corporate ambassadors and trainers. To create marketing opportunities, we are trying to develop a special program to support business leaders in India by 2011. We definitely realize that special attention has to be given to India.

©Entrepreneur November 2010 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tags:
Alyse Nelson, Democracy Initiative, Global Partnership, non-profit, Vital Voices, women