Annual Report The Coaching Fellowship 2020/2021
As 2021 comes to a close, I am delighted to be sharing the third Annual Impact Report for The Coaching Fellowship (TCFS). Since our last report much has happened, we are celebrating our most productive and most impactful year to date!
Continuing to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hunkered down on what we know how to do best — provide leadership coaching and community to young women social change leaders, whose services are more than ever in demand, and they are in need of this kind of support and development.
To bolster our impact, we were honored to be awarded our first ever significant grant in February 2021 from #StartSmall, the public fund of Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for global COVID-19 relief. These funds supported TCFS to further expand our core programs, and as a result, we served 306 young women social change leaders from 40 countries, over 40% of whom are leading in fields directly impacted by COVID-19 (Behavioral Health/Social Work, Public Health, Education, and Poverty Reduction/Homeless Prevention). Furthermore, we launched an annual evergreen initiative — The Nightingale Program, a 1–1 coaching and community support program for courageous women on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic response to nurture resilience, wellbeing, and full leadership potential.
“We believe strongly that those who are helping others, should also be helped.”
With our increased programs and number of women served, we increased our staffing capacity by hiring Amber Smith as our Operations Coordinator. She has a background in psychology and has several years of experience in social work and non-profit programming. Amber has been able to bring a level of support to both the fellows programs and our coach volunteer support initiatives, which has brought a new level of operational excellence to the organization. It was tremendous to further increase the weekly hours from 10 to 25 hours per week served by our long-time and dedicated volunteer and team member, Head of Coaching, Elise Rankin. This additional support from Elise has been a game changer for our coach recruitment, engagement and coaching programs development. We also welcomed two new board director members, Pear Urushima and Mary Ellen Muckerman who are both seasoned professionals and branding and storytelling experts. We are lucky to have their breadth of experience and support.
Our coach volunteer community also passed the 200 coach mark! We recruited more than 50 coaches in the last year, and are in a great position to serve 300+ women on an annual basis going forward. We could not do without our coaches’ continued generous support. In the last year our coaches volunteered 3,261 hours of coaching. Based on an average coaching session costing $280 USD, our coaches donated $913,080 USD of coaching.
We have now served more than 1,300 young women social change leaders from more than 70 countries since our inception.
We ended the fiscal year (2020–2021) in a strong financial situation, mainly because of the substantial grant from the #StartSmall team. We are proud of our increased impact, and are continuing to work on increased funding in order to further sustain and expand our impact.
In addition to all of the great work we executed as a team, during this last year I published my first book Unlocked — How Empowered Women Empower Women. Unlocked is both a referendum on women’s inequality and a toolkit for leveling the playing field for women and girls. In the book I share a collection of real-world short stories highlighting impactful accounts of incredible female leaders working to propel women and girls forward. Part inspiration, part practical guide, Unlocked demonstrates how these pioneers are creating lasting change, and how you can apply their trailblazing lessons to your own life.
As of December 10th, 522 copies have been sold since our launch on Oct 18th 2021, and with all proceeds going to TCFS, I am thrilled and proud to be making a difference not only through my book’s message, but also through every sale. I wrote the book because I want to activate women to take progress into their own hands. I have witnessed the incredible and world-changing endeavours from our fellows, and I know that when more women are unlocked, the world will be more fair and equitable for all.
I am looking back on indeed a very full and rewarding year! It has all been a lot of great work and feels like a big year. Once again we punched above our weight and made a lot of important things come to pass.
We have proved repeatedly that we can do so much when the sustainable support is there. We are excited for a new year of continued growth and impact, we are hitting our stride and marching forward!
With love and gratitude,
Jane Finette, Founder and Executive Director of The Coaching Fellowship
P.S. Do you want to know more about The Coaching Fellowship? Read more about our history on our website.
Our Mission
We ‘empower young women leaders of impact to build the new world.’ In these difficult times where the pandemic continues to affect millions of lives, where we are struggling to find unity and collective action in tackling the climate crisis, and where millions of people face hardship, repression and injustices — we must work to build a new world for everyone.
We support young women leaders already tackling our global grand challenges, and we believe helping them is the best way to accelerate change.
We know that when we support a young woman to increase her confidence, to help her develop and amplify her leadership and provide her with a community of other powerful women impact leaders — we have an enormous opportunity to create lasting change.
Accelerating Impact
This year we surpassed serving more than 1300 young women social change leaders in total, accelerating their impact by making leadership coaching accessible. With the dedicated support of more than 200 coaches from twenty countries, our women leaders experience a unique opportunity to advance their leadership, deepen their impact, and take time to work on their own special skills, abilities and goals.
We stand by our expertise and experience, now in our 8th year of doing this great work, that supporting women change makers earlier in their careers is an imperative for their leadership growth, and further advancement of impact and influence.
It’s an honor to share three fellows who are incredible examples of the kind of women we serve and support:
2020–2021 In Numbers
Here’s what our mission looked like in 2020–2021 in numbers:
2020–2021 in $US
The last year was a crucible moment for TCFS. With our largest ever injection of financial support from #StartSmall, we were able to advance our work in a way which had never been done before.
We are a small and nimble team who does a lot with a little, and we continued to prove even though the significant donation made a massive difference, that we were still scrappy, frugal and made decisions based on how to spend and invest wisely in order to maximize our efforts and future potential.
The addition funds allowed us to invest in our people, bringing Amber Smith on as our first Operations Coordinator and increasing the hours of our longtime coach volunteer and Head of Coaching for many years, Elise Rankin. Both of these hires created significant fire-power to increase efficiencies, recruit and engage coaches, and to develop new program offering specific to our fellow’s changing needs.
2022 Core Focus
As we move forward into 2022, this will be an evolution year for TCFS. For many years our work in serving young women social change leaders has been expanding well beyond access to coaching. We offer several other leadership development opportunities, and have a core focus on creating connection and community within the fellowship among participants. It is this special focus on community where we believe we can increase the depth and breadth of a woman leader’s impact, and the collective impact of the group.
To date there is no specific place for women of impact to join together and be in support of each others’ growth and professional advancement.
With equal focus on connection and coaching we aim to be the leading network for women in the social sector to grow their leadership and impact in the world. And, with our existing community of more than 1,300+ global women leaders we are off to a great start!
We have three core areas which will create a foundation for our expansion and deeper impact in 2022.
Systems Upgrade
As with any start-up, our systems have grown to match our needs and have been added to and stitched together. It has served us incredibly well, and given us a level of sophistication rare for a non-profit of our size. However, there are some aspects which can be brittle and with our plans to evolve we need a robust system for growth. In the first half of the new year, we will install a new database system and customer support tracking tool to prime us for secure and solid growth.
Rebranding TCFS
We have been exploring the question of rebranding TCFS over the past 18 months and are clear, The Coaching Fellowship does not fully represent what we offer, and the mission and vision for our work. We are examining potential options with the support of our two new board members Pear Urushima and Mary Ellen Muckerman, both branding and storytelling experts. We plan to be ready to implement new naming, website and messaging changes by the half year point.
Expanding the Program
After supporting 1300+ women leaders we see the great potential to be in service of their growth and development in ways where they can take full advantage of the opportunities provided.
Starting from 2022 Cohort 2, we intend to launch a year long program, which will still offer our flagship 6-month leadership coaching program, and will also encompass many other development programs. Building relationships and inclusive leadership into the very beginning of the fellowship experience will be designed to foster deep connection and co-support within the group.
Furthermore, we intend to make special elements of our new year-long program available to our alumnae who will also be able to participate on an annual basis.
Our desire to move to a longer program means we can provide more value and deepen the core leadership development of participants.
We again intend to serve more than 300 women leaders in the next 12 month period, and many more alumnae with their ongoing leadership growth needs.
We Rely on Your Support
Ever since our inception, our work was only possible because enough people believed in our mission and were willing to donate their precious time and hard earned money to our cause.
Over the course of the year so many people have supported our growth and impact at TCFS. We want to highlight a few, knowing full well we will certainly be missing some. Please let us know and we will add you!
A huge thank you to:
Our Core Team
Jane Finette, Executive Director
Skylar Gieseke, Head of Programs
Elise Rankin, Head of Coaching
Amber Smith, Operation Coordinator
Our Volunteers
All of our wonderful and dedicated coaches from around the world, who number more than 200! You are amazing and we couldn’t do this without you and your expertise.
Our Core Team Volunteers:
- Maria Troya
- Joanna Cotton
- Sharon Weinberg
- Maureen Johnstone
- Laura Burns
- Rachael Stanley
- Eileen Goldman
- Sharon Gilor
- Anu Gorunkanti
- Laura Holford
- Jo Macias
- Sophia Jones
Our Generous Donors
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated again this year, and a special thank you to our new donors.
More special thanks to several of our donors making significant gifts. Thank you —
- Mike Smith
- Eileen Goldman
- Dhinesh Dharman
- Michele Taipale
- Anne Storer
- Rebecca Westerfield
- The Co-Active Training Institute
A special thank you to #StartSmall for our most significant grant to date. It is such an honor to receive this funding, and was a huge vote confidence from #StartSmall in our ability to create a big impact along with other recognized incredibly impressive nonprofits.
Alumnae Committee
TCFS’s Board of Directors
“I continue to be amazed by the work and commitment of the TCFS team. In 2021 we worked with new coaches in 15 countries outside of the US representing 37% of all coaches, we are truly making an international impact. We were also recognized by Jack Dorsey (Twitter/Square), who entrusted TCFS to develop a leadership program for women navigating leadership challenges on the front line of the COVID-10 pandemic with funding through his #StartSmall fund. With their help this year we supported over 300 women social change leaders.
Our reach has never been longer, and with over $800,000 of donated coaching time our impact never greater. Jane and team — thank you for all you continue to do for women the world over. And congratulations to you Jane on the successful launch of your well-received book — ‘Unlocked’. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of The Coaching Fellowship team; it feels so good!”
~Rocco Capobianco, TCFS Treasurer
And also…
Dino Andersen, our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisor.
Corinne Kappeler and Allie Ladio for all their donor and fundraising advice.
Thank you For Reading.
We hope you are not only informed by our work, and the behind the scenes information, but also inspired and moved to continue your support, or get involved. We would love to hear your comments and to answer any questions.
Are you interested in supporting our mission, or becoming a fellow? Don’t hesitate to reach out to our Executive Director, Jane Finette.
The Coaching Fellowship is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing young women leaders in social impact. A small gift will greatly help us reach and serve more extraordinary women around the world.
Please consider making a gift today — we deeply thank you.
The Coaching Fellowship is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation is tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.
