The Skinny on LWL
Every entrepreneur has their own unique founding story.
Here's ours:
Setting the scene: It's a chilly SF morning in January 2013, we're both working 9 to 5 (er, more like 9 to 9) at Square -- Sarah as CFO, Kelly leading Global Events, and over the course of a random water cooler run-in, we dream up an idea to host a handful of our customers in celebration of International Women's Day that March.
So how did it go? Over strong coffee and under bad fluorescent office lighting, we gathered two dozen Bay Area based business owners together for an evening of community and education. Hearing the entrepreneurial stories, challenges and passions of our first event attendees sparked something in us and we knew we couldn't stop at just one. We knew we'd tapped into something special when every single one of those entrepreneurs followed up post event to ask: Is this going to be a monthly meetup?!
From that year on, we saw this fledgling event series of ours grow to unprecedented heights. We realized that these gatherings were actually an opportunity to affect change throughout the globe for an infinite number of women who had decided that entrepreneurship was their chosen journey.
Well, what happened next? In 2019, we decided to take this movement we'd built and strike out on our own, just as so many entrepreneurs we'd met had done before us, giving us the confidence to do the same. We put our stake in the ground as a 501c3 non-profit organization with a mission to inspire, empower and fund women and non-binary entrepreneurs globally.
We’ve hosted events in San Francisco, New York, Belfast, Toronto, Sydney, Denver, Dublin, St. Louis, Stockholm, London and beyond. We've given more than half a million dollars in grants to some seriously badass entrepreneurs and we've provided online business resources and assistance to 120,000 more. We cannot wait to see where the LWL journey will take us next.
While our day jobs keep us busy, there's no other side hustle we’d rather spend our time on and we hope you’ll be inspired to come join the movement alongside us.
With Gratitude,
Kelly & Sarah
2023: Our impact, by the numbers
Last year, Ladies Who Launch expanded our reach, deepened our impact, and watched in awe as the women & non-binary small business owners in our community took their ventures to new heights.
We saw a 650% increase in applications received for our annual grant program, and developed new initiatives and resources to meet this need. In doing so, we grew the number of small businesses served annually by over 450% and saw our digital support tools leveraged more than 100K times on ladieswholaunch.org.
We brought free, educational events to Denver, CO and Belfast, N. Ireland, reached hundreds via free virtual programming, and drove $225K in grants directly to underrepresented founders.
Absolutely none of this progress would have been possible without your generosity and belief in our mission. On behalf of our community, thank you.
152
Access to Capital Program Alum
20K
Small businesses joined our network
79%
30–50 years old
75%
BIPOC
12%
Identify as LBGTQ+
Our business types are
64% CPG
36% service
Meet our leading launchers
Sarah Friar
(she/her)
Co-Launcher, CFO OpenAI
Sarah Friar is the Chief Financial Officer at OpenAI, with a distinguished career that includes serving as CEO of Nextdoor and CFO at Square, where she led its successful IPO in 2015. Before her time at Square, she was SVP of Finance & Strategy at Salesforce and held executive roles at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. Sarah co-founded Ladies Who Launch, a nonprofit supporting women entrepreneurs, and sits on the boards of Walmart and ConsenSys. A Northern Ireland native, Sarah holds degrees from the University of Oxford and Stanford University, and she was honored with an OBE for services to entrepreneurship.
Kelly McGonigle
(she/her)
Co-Launcher, Head of Events, Mutiny
Kelly McGonigle, a passionate advocate for women entrepreneurs, has led global events at Square and is now venturing into the design and experiential space with her own business. Her career began as an Oceans Advocate for the NRDC, and she has a history of fundraising and event planning. Kelly is also involved with the Edmund Hillary Fellowship in New Zealand, aiming to bring support to women entrepreneurs globally. Inspired by strong women like her mother and Michelle Obama, Kelly envisions future endeavors in bringing LWL’s impact to APAC and Africa, with dreams of opening a floral shop in retirement.