Compassion | Commitment | Consistency
FFG Board Members are hands-on. In addition to playing a key role in defining the strategic direction of the organization, they know the women and children on a personal basis, lead workshops, coach 1-on-1, and enhance the workshop and coaching content. They are focused on the collective impact to economically empower women and their children. Each of them has worked on the ground before moving to the board position. They all embody FFG values and principles. Our heart, pulse, and DNA are about investing in women and children to give them a brighter future.
A Statement from Janet Ganoung: Coach & Founding Board Member
It is not often that we have the opportunity to witness positive community change in real time, but I have had that honor in serving as the longest-standing member on the Board of Directors of Foundation for Girls (FFG) for the past five years. Foundation for Girls is an amazing organization that works tirelessly to change the life trajectory of marginalized girls and young adults and their babies, launching them toward economic empowerment and self-sufficiency and giving their young children the opportunity to rise out of the life circumstances that brought them into this world.
Foundation for Girls masterfully enlists the intellectual, emotional and social capital of a diverse group of talented and big-hearted volunteer coaches and mentors to implement the Foundation’s mission. By utilizing a unique, constantly-evolving approach of teaching hands-on skills in group workshops, as well as 1-on-1 engagement and genuine, trusting relationships, these coaches propel clients toward higher-paying jobs, a sense of self-confidence, independence and stability for them and their children. By surrounding clients with a consistent, nurturing support system of growth and learning, FFG is a cutting-edge organization determined to vastly improve Charlotte's ranking on economic mobility for children.
The Foundation’s leaders, who were children themselves when they started the organization in 2014, take their mission very seriously, remaining intimately involved with all decision-making and with all of the workshops that provide the Foundation’s pillars of learning. They stay in close communication with the partner organizations who benefit from the Foundation’s work and are constantly willing to morph programs so as to best serve these partners and their clients. The carefully-screened volunteer coaches and mentors come to the organization with a deep commitment to the goals of FFG. Rather than a one-and-done mentality in order to be able to check off a box of social justice volunteerism, these coaches make a multi-year investment in the work of FFG and take personal ownership of their role in the shared objectives.
Foundation for Girls’ carefully-designed approach toward empowering their clients encourages the resilience required to overcome the effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) common to all of the girls they serve. ACES are a challenging force that can negatively affect mental and physical health, concept of self and potential for success far into adulthood, and consequently, can pose huge obstacles that tend to hinder the economic mobility of their children as well. By changing the life trajectory of their clients, FFG is often breaking a multi-generational cycle of being victimized by a long-standing system of inequity within Charlotte.
I have no doubt that FFG will continue to be a force of positive change, ultimately creating a more just and fair Charlotte, an undivided Charlotte that offers equal economic opportunity to all of its residents. Endless thanks to FFG for allowing me to come along for the ride.
Janet Ganoung
Founding Board Member and Advisor