Investing in the Vision & Ideas of Innovators

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFMN) announces new investments in its fifth cohort of WFMN Innovators – 14 young women and gender-expansive people whose leadership, ideas, and solutions advance key recommendations in the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota (YWI MN) Blueprint for Action. Each WFMN Innovator was awarded a $2,500 grant, representing a total investment of $35,000. Since the inception of the WFMN Innovators program in 2018, WFMN has made 119 grants totaling to $297,500 to 97 young women and gender-expansive youth, ages 16 to 24. Six Innovators in this cohort are returning to continue developing their projects for social change.

“At the Women’s Foundation, we know that young women are leading today, and we’ve seen how early investments in their leadership lead to lasting change and open to the door to additional investment,” said Nina Robertson, WFMN’s director of systems change. “Centering and engaging those most impacted by barriers is the only way to create long-term solutions. Through the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota, we are investing directly in their ideas and vision as an equity strategy for whole community well-being because when young Black, Indigenous, and young women of color thrive, all young women, families, and communities thrive.”

WFMN partners with Kandace Montgomery, co-Founder of Black Visions, to facilitate quarterly convenings, which are integral to the Innovators’ technical support and leadership development. Each Innovator pairs with a professional mentor of their choosing and meet three times a year for professional coaching and development. Through video and written submissions, WFMN Innovators are selected through an intentional process based on articulation of project proposal, community voice, lived experiences, and commitment to community-building and leadership. WFMN engaged a participatory grantmaking committee that included Young Women’s Cabinet members. Cabinet members on the committee received training, reviewed proposals, and recommended awards for applicants that best represented the mission, goals, and values of the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota.

The Young Women’s Initiative is on a mission to create a Minnesota where every young woman thrives. By building pathways to economic opportunity, improving safety and well-being, and promoting young women’s leadership, the Young Women’s Initiative centers the leadership and solutions of young women facing the greatest barriers in Minnesota.
Launched in 2016, the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota is a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment and public-private partnership with the Governor’s Office of the State of Minnesota to achieve equity in opportunities with and for young women of color, American Indian young women, young women from Greater Minnesota, LGBTQ+ youth, and young women with disabilities.

In total, the Women’s Foundation has granted $2.5 million through the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota since 2016.

WFMN Innovators:

Salma Ahmed-Ibrahim
(she/her/hers)
Roseville, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#3: Reframe Harmful Narratives

Salma Ahmed is a community organizer and storyteller with more than eight years’ experience in community organizing for racial justice, restorative justice, and combating Islamophobia. Salma is the co-founder and executive director of REDACT: a Muslim-led organization that supports our incarcerated community through letter writing, mutual aid, advocacy, and re-entry. REDACT also works to support Muslims unfairly targeted and prosecuted by the racist and Islamophobic policies of the war on terror. Salma will use the funds as a returning Innovator to raise awareness on the criminalization of minority communities by building a monthly newsletter called Sakinah Storytelling.

Dominica Asberry-Lindquist
(she/her/hers)
Minneapolis, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#3: Reframe Harmful Narratives

Through independent travel, Dominica has volunteered at equine rehabilitation centers and on organic farms. Dominica will use the funds to invest in equine education and share her experience by creating a website that documents her findings to support the Black Minnesotan equine community.

Npaus Baim Her
(she/her/hers)
St. Paul, MN
Blueprint recommendation: #13: Ensure Community Spaces and Conversations

Npaus is an educator and storyteller who collects narratives of Asian Americans. She is currently a St. Thomas graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in creative writing and publishing. She also works with the Hmong Museum as a content creator for programs such as the We Are Water exhibit. In 2019 to 2021, Npaus was published in #MinneAsianStories with Coalition of Asian American Leaders, Staring Down the Tiger, and The Summit Review. Npaus will create a writing workshop series using digital zine for Hmong girls to support their leadership, culture, and intersecting identities so they feel acknowledged and valued.

Ling DeBellis
(she/her/hers)
North Oaks, MN
Blueprint recommendations:
#9: Develop Young Women Leaders
#3: Reframe Harmful Narratives

Ling is a senior at Rice University in Houston, working on a dual BS in evolutionary biology and BA in visual arts. Her passion is bringing art + science together in meaningful ways. As a returning Innovator, Ling will create fictional films centered around young women with disabilities, a continuation of the screenplays she created in her first year as an Innovator, which highlight disabled people as positive, inspiring, and meaningful role models.

Anjali Donthi
(she/her/hers)
Rochester, MN
Blueprint recommendation #16: Increase Mental Health Support

Anjali Donthi is a first year student pursuing a business degree at the University of Minnesota. She is the founder of Operation Serenity, a company focused on helping pediatric surgery patients through an Android app that provides in-app surgery simulations and access to community resources. Anjali will invest her Innovator microgrant in the app, which aids medical professionals in supporting pediatric patients with anxiety before surgery. The app includes educational resources to relieve stress so that patients feel welcomed and informed before medical procedures.

Darartu Elemo
(she/her/hers)
Minneapolis, MN
Blueprint recommendations:
#9: Develop Young Women Leaders
#13: Ensure Community Spaces and Conversations
#15: Increase Access to Women’s Health Care

Darartu attends the University of Minnesota, majoring in psychology and will begin her junior year in fall 2022. She plans to become a physician assistant and also work in her community to create opportunities through education. A returning Innovator, Darartu will further her project, Minnesota Swim, a place for Muslim women to learn to swim and exercise, with the goal of increasing activities in her community.

Alma Lora
(she/her/hers)
St. Paul, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#13 – Ensure Community Spaces and Conversations

Alma graduated from Augsburg University with a BA in American Indian studies and minors in communication and culture and social justice. As a first-generation student and community leader, she is preparing a platform that will be a resourceful and creative pathway for youth and our next generation of leaders. Alma will invest in Raices, a youth-led and youth-based community interactive program that strives to support and develop empowerment and leadership skills. Raices will use multicultural and multimedia platforms in a safe, caring, and accepting space centered in culture, spiritual, and emotional support to bridge the gaps between generations.

Gayatri Narayanan
(they/them/theirs)
Minneapolis, MN
Blueprint recommendations:
#3 – Reframe Harmful Narratives
#9 – Develop Young Women Leaders
#13 – Ensure Community Spaces and Conversations

Gayatri is a dancer, bodyworker, plant biologist, and facilitator living in South Minneapolis. As a student of healing justice, they seek to celebrate queer love, honor plant medicines, and spread the message of the anti-caste movement. As a returning Innovator, Gayatri will host a series of workshops and discussions with fellow South Asian women and nonbinary folks on the topic of conflict by building interpersonal relationships and collective transformation from the violence of casteism.

Ayomide Ojebuoboh
(she/her/hers)
Minneapolis, Minnesota, MN
Blueprint recommendations:
#4: Build Gender and Community-Oriented Financial Literacy and Life Skills
#5: Enhance Career Pathways, Opportunities, and Pay in STEM
#13: Ensure Community Spaces and Conversations
#18: Increase Access to Childcare

Ayomide believes that in order to achieve health equity and justice, we must prioritize health from an anti-racist interdisciplinary lens, centering the voices of community members, and prioritize healing and rest. Ayomide will use the funds to create a Health Justice Community Fellowship, a program to engage an interdisciplinary cohort of fellows in health justice, equity, social change, and creativity through community organizing, collective learning, and cohort bonding.

Sunny Thao
(she/her)
Brooklyn Center, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#13 – Ensure Community Spaces and Conversations

Sunny is an emerging Hmong American theater maker. Sunny’s work explores her relationship with her Hmong American identity and the after-effects of the diasporas within the larger SEA collective. Sunny will use the funds to document and create a space for diaspora communities to make visible their experiences and uplift their voices in relation to issues that have affected them and their community. The project, titled Letters to Mai, will be a digital home for diasporic bodies, collecting letters online and through zines to encourage vulnerability and connections.

Afiya Ward
(she/her/hers)
St. Paul, MN
Blueprint recommendations:
#9: Develop Young Women Leaders
#3: Reframe Harmful Narratives

A returning Innovator, Afiya is a sophomore at Florida A&M University, studying agricultural science and business. Afiya will further young women’s leadership by creating a series of leadership development workshops focused on building connections between the youth and female professionals in the community.

Asha Ward
(she/her/hers)
St. Paul, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#9: Develop Young Women Leaders

Asha will create a career retreat for young women and lead workshops for participants to discover new interests, skills, and learn about various professions. These workshops will share access to resources, tools, and opportunities to help young women identify their leadership strengths and career interests.

Dan-neya Yancey
(she/her/hers)
Maple Grove, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#3: Reframe Harmful Narratives

Dan-neya is a recent graduate from the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota with mentorship, leadership, and public health experience. Dan-neya will provide African American youth with DNA kits and the tools and resources to start their genealogical research. By centering their experience, this project will address the challenges and misconceptions about uncovering their genealogy and identities. Dan-neya’s project will support creativity in using art to promote positive messaging and reframing harmful narratives.

Sarah Zalanga
(she/her/hers)
St. Paul, MN
Blueprint recommendation:
#5: Enhance Career Pathways

Sarah is an undergraduate student at Bethel University majoring in community health and minoring in gender studies. In the future, she plans to get a master’s in public health and human rights and work within the community or aid in policy change for eliminating health disparities. A returning Innovator, Sarah will host an online panel capturing the experiences of Black women in the medicine and science field to support Black girls interested in medicine and science as a career.