Women Uplifting Women: The Accelerators' Initiative

On Friday morning, I woke to the news of Mexico’s earthquake. I was consumed with a sense of dread and, in my semi-dream state, an overwhelming sense that the world was falling apart. As a quick look at Facebook did not reveal the whereabouts or safety of loved ones in Mexico City, my dread deepened. I decided I needed to meditate on something positive. I chose the Tide Risers Accelerators’ Initiative.

Photo by Bekir Donmez

This is a small but growing group of women who made a bold move to fully live up to the value of supporting and uplifting other women. Accelerators’ Initiative members choose to financially support other women who are excellent candidates for Tide Risers but for whom the financial commitment is too great. Thanks to the generosity of our Accelerators’ Initiative women, over 20 percent of our 2017 cohort received financial support to enable them to be a Tide Riser.

It’s not just that these women were supporting and promoting Tide Risers members. They were also doing the same for me. Tide Risers was a dream I had driven by the culmination of years of community building, coaching, and consulting. Even as I was accepting members into our first year’s pilot cohort, however, the program model, curriculum, and back-office infrastructure was all still a work-in-progress. The leap of faith these women took to support me and my vision for Tide Risers was enormous, and for that I will always be deeply grateful.

Some of the women in the Accelerators’ Initiative prefer to remain anonymous, so I won’t post any names here of the generous souls who stepped forward to support me and other women. But you know who you are. You are a shining example of what is right in this world, and what we need to do to hurdle ourselves over some of the seemingly insurmountable impediments that face us. You are letting us stand on your shoulders as we poke holes in that glass ceiling, and shielding us as the shards fall around us. You have done all of this with the generosity, humility, and grace that are becoming of the finest amongst us, and you have given me faith and joy when it seemed the world was falling apart.

Thank you.