Career Girls

The specific problem within the Gender Equity in STEM Challenge that we are working to solve is the staggering drop-off that occurs along the education and career pathway for women and girls in STEM. By middle school, boys are already twice as likely to show interest in a science or engineering-related job; by college they are five times more likely to choose a STEM career path.

The lack of women in STEM careers is national in scale, reaching across all sectors, and impacting both rural and urban communities. According to a report from the American Association of University Women, women make up only 28% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). That lack of representation limits the economic mobility and self-sufficiency of an entire gender, especially for women of color.

Our solution targets girls between the ages of 10 to 13, a critical inflection point in a girl’s education and career pathway. According to the 2021 U.S. Department of Commerce American Community Survey, there are approximately 11 million girls ages 10-13 in the United States. Within that group there are approximately 5 million girls of color. 

The lack of women represented in STEM fields causes an economic disparity between men and women. Without the ability to make as much as their male counterparts, women are not able to sustain themselves and their families, which impacts the broader community at large. In the United States, women make up 50.5% of the population. 

Unless we remove barriers to achieving equity in STEM fields, we are reducing the pool of talented people who can contribute to economic growth, with the majority of our population failing to achieve their full potential.

Our solution addresses four fundamental factors that contribute to the drop-off that occurs along the education and career pathway for women and girls in STEM.

1. Career awareness. Most girls are not aware of the increasingly wide variety of STEM careers that exist and could be a good fit with their natural strengths and interests.  

2. Belief and inspiration. Many girls do not have access to role models that foster belief, provide encouragement, and inspire them to pursue a career in STEM. 

3. Understanding the steps. Many girls simply do not know the steps needed to stay on track to successfully pursue a STEM career.

4. Developing foundational skills. Girls will struggle to stay on track if they do not develop both the hard and soft skills necessary to be successful in a STEM career.

Our solution is Career Girls – a free resource that supports K-12 educators in effectively teaching and engaging girls in STEM. Career Girls provides online teaching and user guides for teachers, school counselors, library media specialists, after-school group leaders, mentors, and family members. Career Girls content may also be accessed directly by girls. 

With a strong emphasis on STEM, Career Girls provides access to more than 800 diverse and successful women role models, imparting girls with inspiration, advice, and a real-life context for the academic subjects girls are learning in school.

Career Girls Role Models share in their successes but also explore the challenges they face, which aids in building confidence in girls. Career Girls Role Models show that it is ok to fail and make mistakes and explore key social-emotional concepts like resilience. 

Career Girls utilizes a two-pronged approach. The first is the CareerGirls.org website, our online career exploration and skills development platform. The second is our direct student engagement programs where we connect with K-12 educators to provide in-person and virtual programming for students. 

Career Girls Website: Careergirls.org is a comprehensive video-based career exploration and skills development platform for girls, with an emphasis on STEM careers. We offer girls and educators free access to 16,000 video clips of interviews with over 800 diverse and accomplished women role models, an online career quiz, college major quiz, detailed information on hundreds of careers and college majors, and topic-based empowerment role model videos with related curriculum to develop the skills necessary for success in the workplace. 

Career Girls Direct Student Engagement Programs: With an emphasis on STEM, Career Girls offers free in-person, hybrid, and virtual programming to girls. Career Girls virtual camps feature industry-leading women role models who share their expertise and facilitate breakout session activities. Girls are able to engage in real-time with women role models. We create programming alongside diverse role models to provide unparalleled content that reflects what girls need to know from women who look like them. Other forms of virtual and hybrid programming include webinar series, town hall events, and library collaborations. Direct in-person engagement consists of Career Girl Club and Career Girls Day events. 

Career Girls engages girls through the use of technology, specifically through use of embedded videos and interactive quizzes on our website, virtual programming on Zoom, and in-classroom pairings of topic-based videos with discussion guides and activities. Our use of online technology provides access to diverse and accomplished role models regardless of geographic location.

Our solution serves all girls aged 10-13, with a specific emphasis on diversity to address the disparities of opportunities for BIPOC girls to learn from role models who share their lived experience. 

We impact the lives of girls by providing access to role models to help close the “Imagination Gap” – the difference between career choices that girls imagine for themselves and the range of careers actually available for them to pursue based on their interests. 

Third-party research shows that the timing of our intervention is critical because it reaches girls before there is a dropoff in their performance in math and science. 

Girls cannot be what they cannot see. Our solution serves their needs by providing access to women role models, the majority in STEM professions. Learning from role models is a proven strategy to keep girls on track academically to enter the education and workforce pipeline to STEM careers. We provide access to role models directly through our website CareerGirls.org and our virtual and in-person programming. 

Continuously striving to understand the needs of the girls we serve is paramount to directly and meaningfully impact their lives. We do this in three ways. 

1. We listen to the advice from our Advisory Boards, including our School Counselor Advisory Board, Girls Advisory Board, and Special Advisors. We invited these professionals and near peers to impart their expertise in developing relevant and impactful programming. 

2. We conduct surveys and focus groups to learn from girls, educators, group leaders, mentors, and family members of the girls we serve. 

3. We use a proprietary measurement and evaluation tool to provide immediate feedback after each program. This tool, the Imagination Index, measures two dimensions: career and self. The career dimension measures the career exploration and goals of girls. The self dimension measures their decision-making abilities, curiosity, and leadership potential. 

Career Girls is founded on the dream that every girl around the world has access to diverse and accomplished women role models — to learn from their experiences and to discover their own path to empowerment. By providing freely accessible resources to educators, group leaders, mentors, family members, and to girls themselves, we empower girls to expand their vision of what is possible, understand the steps required for success, and develop the confidence and skills they need to stay on track to achieve a rewarding life of their own choosing. For many, this dream will include pursuing an educational and career pathway to one of the many higher-paying STEM jobs of the future they might not have known existed.

Career Girls programming focuses on serving girls in the United States, however, our offerings are open to any girl or educator who needs them. Our website analytics show users from 232 countries and dependent territories. 

Our Founder/CEO, Linda Calhoun, created Career Girls from her experiences as a Black girl in the United States. Simply put, Linda wished she had a resource like Career Girls growing up. When she found her own personal success, she was determined to eliminate the barriers and limitations encountered by girls, especially BIPOC girls. 

As Career Girls grew, we intentionally recruited diverse women to fulfill our mission and ensure our team has shared lived experiences with the girls we serve. We have built our Board, team, and Advisors around this founding principal. We are as diverse as the women we represent on our website and the girls we engage with directly. We invite you to meet our Board, team members, and advisors by following this link here.

Our diverse, nine-member Board of Directors is a stable, engaged, enthusiastic, mission-driven brain trust that guides the organization. They have years of expertise in education, DEI, accounting, law, HR, management, and computer science. 

The Career Girls team lead and team representatives are also diverse. The Career Girls team, who engage directly with the girls we serve and implement programming, are predominantly female and identify as BIPOC. 

We also have advisors who provide specific recommendations from the communities we aim to serve. In particular we have a School Counselors Advisory Board and Girls Advisory Board. 

These groups directly guide the design and implementation of our website and programming. School counselors’ perspectives are critical to understanding how we can best support educators in teaching career exploration and readiness. Our Girls Advisory Board is critical to understanding the needs of girls. They tell us what they like about our programming, what they would change or improve, and what else they want to see Career Girls provide. They also share feedback on our website, including how they like the images presented, navigation, and other features. 

We also learn from the hundreds of role models we interview. Each role model brings a fresh perspective based on their own lived experiences.

Career Girls has served 506,000 users in the United States over the last twelve months through our website and direct programming events.

Career Girls is applying to Gender Equity in STEM because our solution is perfectly aligned to this challenge. Participating in the six-month tailored support program run by MIT Solve would accelerate our growth and help position us as a leader in solving gender inequity in STEM. If our solution is chosen, more girls will receive the inspiration and tools they need to maintain parity with boys along STEM education and career pathways.

Many of the opportunities afforded to us in the six-month MIT SOLVE program would be particularly helpful as we work to overcome barriers we currently face, such as diversifying our revenue streams and refocusing priorities in light of post-pandemic cultural shifts that impact our programming. 

Allowing us to participate in an initial needs assessment, along with access to the network of resource partners across industries and sectors to fully develop our strategy to scale, will result in increased reach and impact on girls. A new strategy would allow us to address the new realities of learning environments and the best approaches to reaching girls.

Aisha Ali is our Executive Director. Aisha is responsible for the organization's strategic direction, including program and event strategy and execution, fundraising, partnerships, role model and sponsor recruitment, operations, and more. Aisha is a BIPOC woman, and throughout her career, she has created and implemented programs fostering equal access and empowerment of young people. 

Aisha has ten years of experience developing curricula for elementary through high school-aged children for after-school and summer programs. She is dedicated to using her expertise to provide opportunities to the girls and communities Career Girls serves.

Career Girls is the only educational platform for girls that combines both the “see it” and the “how to be it” components for imagining their future. The Career Girls solution is unique in that we combine the presentation of inspirational career role models with career and college preparation information. Inspiring videos from diverse and accomplished women represent hundreds of real-life careers. Role models share their career, education, and life stories to help a girl learn how to create her action plan for success. 

A factor that also separates us from other nonprofits is we provide an intervention for girls at an age where they begin to lose interest in STEM. Our solution changes the market by setting up girls for success in pursuing STEM careers and has a lasting impact across the entire educational and career pathway. 

We have seen our innovative programs become a catalyst for innovation with other youth serving nonprofits. We are seen as leaders in this space and our virtual camps, for example, have been the inspiration for other programming by our partners and competitors. 

Our innovative approach creates a platform for diverse and successful women to scale their mentoring, advice, and hard-fought lessons learned to reach a wider audience. This approach disrupts stereotypes. All girls, no matter their background, can learn from the individual and collective wisdom of role models.

Our overarching goal for Career Girls is to have a transformational impact on girls entering the STEM pipeline. Our impact goals align with the opportunities we will receive by participating in the MIT Solve program. Leveraging these partnerships will help us achieve efficiencies in order to scale our impact. Our immediate goals for the next year and the next five years focus on our virtual and in-school programs.

Year 1:

• Increase efficiencies of impact with the help of strategists by revisiting our program models in a post-pandemic environment. 

• Virtual Camps

  • Leverage strategic partnerships to expand the community of organizations and leaders to get more girls involved in our virtual camps 

  • Design and implement training materials for volunteers and an online registration portal for participants 

  • Increase the number of virtual camps with the goal of 1,000 girl participants

  • Utilize the network of MIT experts to further refine and develop our measurement and evaluation tools 

• Career Girls Club

  • Restart our pre-pandemic program to continuously develop and improve Career Girls Club curriculum for middle schoolers 

  • Recruit 2-3 schools to participate in our program and work together to plan launch of the program at their respective schools 

  • The focus will be working with schools with a large population of BIPOC students

  • Leverage strategic partnerships to work directly with school districts to implement the program 

  • Initial design of a revised training module for middle school staff 

• Career Girls Day Assemblies 

  • Restart our pre-pandemic program to continuously develop and improve Career Girls Day program for schools 

  • Leverage strategic partnerships to recruit local Role Models to participate in the Career Girls Day program 

  • The focus will be working with schools with a large population of BIPOC students

  • Leverage strategic partnerships to encourage more schools to implement the program 

Year 2 - 5:

• Virtual Programming 

  • Serve a minimum of 5,000 participants annually with a 20% year over year growth

  • Continue to maintain and grow a robust network of partnerships with schools and community organizations who connect girls to our program opportunities 

  • Utilize feedback and measurement and evaluation tools to continuously improve our programs 

  • In consultation with educators to track the number of participants who enroll in higher level math and science classes

  • Develop a self reporting mechanism for girls to share their post secondary STEM education and career achievements

• Career Girls Club

  • Expand the number of clubs by shifting our focus from individual schools to district and state-wide implementation 

  • Utilize feedback and measurement and evaluation tools to continuously improve our programs 

  • In consultation with educators to track the test scores in math and science for Career Girls Club participants  

  • Expand internal capacity to support the growth of the program 

• Career Girls Day Assemblies 

  • Expand the number of assemblies by shifting our focus from individual schools to district and state-wide implementation 

  • Train and support school districts and staff in outreach to local Role Models 

  • In consultation with educators to track the number of participants who enroll in higher level math and science classes

Methods of Outcomes Measurement:

Career Girls has created the Imagination Index, a proprietary evaluation tool that measures how Career Girls programming is shaping career and leadership aspirations of girls.

The Imagination Index consists of a weighted combination of indicators that provides a quantitative basis for assessing the impact of the Career Girls program on near-term outcomes of girls’ lives, across two dimensions: career and self. 

The career dimension measures career exploration and goals of girls. The self-dimension measures their decision-making abilities, curiosity, and leadership potential. 

We gather the data for the Imagination Index through pre and post surveys of the girls participating in the Career Girls Clubs and Virtual Camps. The surveys are proctored by the education consultant who we work with to ensure that the data is collected in a uniform manner. 

Anticipated Measures of Success:

Key outcomes for our Virtual Camp program are based around whether the girls indicate a positive change in their understanding of the careers available to them and what it takes to get there – in addition to a positive change in the perception of themselves and their abilities. Here are a few examples of what we’re measuring:

Career:

• Likelihood of considering a STEM career

• Understanding of the education and skills needed for the career of her choice

• Awareness of the steps needed to achieve career goals

• Understanding the importance of having role models

Self:

• Belief in oneself

• Ability to keep trying even when something goes wrong

• Likelihood to ask questions when she doesn’t understand something

• Understanding of how doing well in school now will help in achieving her dreams

Career Girls aligns with four of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Quality Education, Gender Equity, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Reduced Inequalities.

Career Girls’ Theory of Change is centered on our mission to close the Imagination Gap for girls. Our organization is founded on the dream that every girl around the world has access to diverse and accomplished women role models - to learn from their experiences and to discover their path to empowerment. Role models are critical. Studies show that the number of girls interested in STEM and other careers doubles when they have role models (up to 41%). Girls with role models are 15% more likely to imagine themselves working in those careers. More than 25% of children do not have a role model to look up to, and 50% leverage YouTube for career advice, according to the Institute of Engineering and Technology.

Career Girls concentrates its work into four priority areas: 1) Creating role model videos for use in programming inside and outside of the classroom and on the website platform; 2) Developing curricula, activities and events both online and offline for educators, parents and learners; 3) Providing role models a platform to share their own stories, and 4) Highlighting successes and sharing stories at key national and global fora. 

By conducting these activities, Career Girls strives to achieve the following four outcomes: 1) Increasing girls’ self-confidence and awareness of a wide range of career options and understanding the steps necessary to achieve their choice; 2) Increasing role models’ interest in mentorship and supporting girls’ career choices by scaling their reach, 3) Increasing educators’ and stakeholders’ access to resources regarding diverse career choices for girls by supporting their instructional needs and 4) Creating space for women to claim their authority and leadership through their role model video interviews.

Our Imagination Index measurement and evaluation tool demonstrated an 18% increase in girls’ career goals, decision-making abilities, and leadership potential after our most recent virtual camp along with a 37.5% increase in girls identifying the importance of having role models in their lives.

Career Girls is a digital platform that uses traditional video and website technology, but in a new and innovative way. Some of the technologies we use include:

• WordPress for website platform

• Google Analytics and Data Studio for data analysis

• Vimeo and YouTube for video hosting

• Zoom for virtual programming

There are many diverse, accomplished women role models who would like to be a positive influence on the next generation of girls and there are millions of girls who would benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of these role models. Career Girls uses technology to connect these two groups in a safe, scalable and equitable learning environment online, in-person and hybrid settings. 

We purposefully do not have a backend algorithm that controls a learner’s career exploration experience. We ensure girls have agency over their career journey online and in their life. 

Board of Directors = 9

Full-time staff = 3

Part-time staff = 3 

Contract Staff = 4 

Advisory Boards = 26

Career Girls got its start in 1996 with a simple idea: Give young girls useful methods for attaining their professional dreams and goals. By using a video-based format, Career Girls brings these women directly to girls wherever they are, increasing access to role models working as astronauts, engineers, animators, teachers, physicians, marine biologists, computer systems analysts, authors, attorneys, and more. 

CareerGirls.org went live on January 11, 2011. Since its launch, the Career Girls team has interviewed more than 800 accomplished women role models from cities around the US for the largest online collection of career guidance videos.

Diversity is in our DNA. Career Girls founder, Linda Calhoun, founded Career Girls to solve a pain point that was personal to her. As the first in her family to attend college, she knew that “you can’t be what you can’t see.” Access to diverse, successful role models is critical. After attaining career success, she wanted to ensure that girls coming up behind her, especially girls like her - girls of color experiencing economic hardship - see diverse and accomplished women to close the imagination gap for what is possible in their lives. 

We disrupt stereotypes of who can be successful and we do that by creating an inclusive and equitable environment for our staff, Board, volunteers, role models and most importantly, girls. Our multicultural team has extensive experience and technical knowledge in video production, design, business strategy, communications, accounting, legal and curriculum development. We recently expanded our team with the hire of an Executive Director, Aisha Ali. Throughout her career, she has created and implemented programs fostering equal access and empowerment of young people.  

Our Board of Directors and Advisory Board members reflect the diversity of the girls we serve and the careers of our role models. 

Most importantly, our entire team is driven by the motivation to make positive change in the world. Below are the Career Girls Core Values which drives the work we do: 

★ We believe all girls can and have the right to pursue and achieve their dreams.

★ We hold our role models in the highest esteem. 

★ We respect everyone in our office.

★ We can safely ask each other for help.

★ We can ask questions without ridicule.

★ Talent is distributed equally, opportunity is not.

★ We disrupt stereotypes about who can be smart, successful, and

ambitious.

★ We are a snark free zone.

★ Our behavior inside and outside the workplace should reflect these values.

Career Girls is a free career exploration and readiness platform featuring videos of hundreds of diverse and successful women role models. The platform not only provides inspiration and insights but offers tangible action steps and tools for girls to plan and prepare for their futures. It is available to parents, educators, and learners for use online, offline, and in hybrid settings. 

We rely on donors and funders to support the work we do. This includes private philanthropy, corporate partners, and public funding.

At our core, we are a platform for role models to share knowledge with the next generation of girls. Our founding principles are diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity for all. We don’t tell girls what to think, we let them hear directly from role models. 

Our three main offerings are:

• Video interviews of women role models

• Curriculum and activities for parents, educators, and learners

• Virtual and in-person programs where girls engage directly with role models

While Career Girls is financially sustainable at our current level of programming, there are several paths to financial sustainability as we look to scale. 

We know that our 800+ role models find value in Career Girls as they have donated after volunteering with us and have helped with fundraising within their networks. Role models are critically important in our fundraising efforts and in creating additional corporate partnerships. 

We also know that corporate partnerships help us sustain our programming. We would partner with companies on role model video shoots and our virtual programming with their financial support. This model has been tested with our virtual camps and is how we anticipate sustaining this solution moving forward. 

We are actively pursuing government funding by developing relationships with congressional offices and government agencies. We are optimistic that this can provide a significant revenue stream as early as 2024. 

Other methods include:

• Board expansion, leveraging contacts and network

• Active fundraising committee with board members, volunteers, and advisors

• Recent hiring of an executive director to increase fundraising capacity

• Hiring a dedicated development director as we grow

• Implementing partnerships with larger organizations

• Foundation partnerships and grant support

• Corporate partners and program sponsorships

• Gala role model awards event sponsorships

• Partnerships with educational institutions

• Government funding through Career and Technical Education (CTE) and other programs

Career Girls primarily raises funds through foundations, corporations, and private donors. In 2022, Career Girls received $410,003 in donations, $41,500 in foundation grants, and $17,900 in corporate funding. Our Role Models provide another avenue for financial stability through individual donations and are also helpful in connecting us to corporate sponsors. 

One example of our cultivating corporate donors is our partnership with the Toyota Research Institute, a sponsor of our AI, Machine Learning and Robotics Virtual Camps since 2020. In addition to in-kind support, they donated a total of $30,000. This serves as our model in approaching potential corporate donors. 

As a cohort member of All Stars Helping Kids nonprofit accelerator, we will receive $75,000 over three years.