Taking the Avon commitment to economic empowerment in a new direction, the Hello Tomorrow Fund was launched in early 2007 to provide cash awards to individuals committed to empowering women or girls. Originally created as a one-year program to mark International Women’s Day, the program in the United States was extended for a second year, and Hello Tomorrow Fund programs have also flourished in more than a dozen countries worldwide. At Avon, we believe that given the resources, women can impact their lives, families and communities in meaningful ways…women can change our world. It is in this spirit that we created the Hello Tomorrow Fund.
From April 2007 through April 2009, the U.S. Hello Tomorrow Fund will award $5,000 every week to an individual who has submitted a compelling application to help realize a program, project or idea that empowers women and ultimately improves society. More than 8,000 U.S. individuals—women and men—have applied for the 104 weekly awards. Similar programs of varying award frequencies and amounts are empowering women worldwide as well.
U.S. applications were carefully reviewed by an expert panel comprised of notable public figures, philanthropic leaders and heads of business, including:
- Jillian Dempsey: influential makeup artist, beauty industry icon and entrepreneur
- Anne T. Dowling: President of the Institute for Cultural Enterprise (ICE), a nonprofit agency; past President of the Texaco Foundation; and Director of Corporate Contributions for Altria
- Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York: mother, businesswoman, advocate, philanthropist and author
- Carol M. Kurzig: Executive Director of the Avon Foundation
- Joan Libby-Hawk: human rights advocate and Public Affairs Specialist, United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM
- Suze Orman: personal finance expert, award-winning television host, author, magazine and online columnist, writer/producer and motivational speaker. Suze’s newest book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny, was released February 27, 2007.
- Maria Peninger: Vice President of Representative Development for Avon Products, Inc. and strong advocate for women’s empowerment
- Phylicia Rashad: award-winning actress and director
- Cynthia Rowley: award-winning fashion designer, author and entrepreneur
- Joseph Salim, D.D.M.: committed humanitarian, co-founder and Executive Director of the Virtue Foundation
- Lynn M. Stekas: nationally-recognized leader in corporate community involvement, philanthropy and volunteerism, and former President of the MONY Foundation
The Hello Tomorrow Fund in the U.S. will not continue into a third year, but winners will be announced each Tuesday through April 7, 2009. Individuals who wish to read about winners, access resources on women's issues or learn about Hello Tomorrow Fund around the world can continue to visit the website.
Hello Tomorrow Fund Winner Profile:
Alfa Demmellash, Jersey City, New Jersey
In her own words: "In the summer of 2007, when we received the Avon - Hello Tomorrow Fund award, our program to help underprivileged women launch local entrepreneurial businesses was bursting at the seams with more people wanting to participate than we could accommodate. The Hello Tomorrow Fund provided not only financial resources,but also publicity and a heightened public awareness of our program that we were able to use to leverage more funding. Thanks to the support of the Hello Tomorrow Fund, I was able to raise enough money to hire two new staff members and triple the size of the Community Business Academy. As a result, we expect that our program will be able to train between 100-140 women entrepreneurs in 2008, rather than 40. The publicity that the Hello Tomorrow Fund brought to Rising Tide Capital was tremendously valuable for our organization and we are very grateful for all the wonderful developments that have come about as a result of the award.
Initiatives like the Hello Tomorrow Fund are so important because they bring attention to women all over the world who are doing things to empower their communities.
On a personal level, winning the Hello Tomorrow Fund allowed me to see my vision on a bigger scale than ever before. I have been so inspired and touched by my fellow award winners, and have seen that there are ways to deal with major social problems in a way that can connect people from all walks of life. Initiatives like the Hello Tomorrow Fund are so important because they bring attention to women all over the world who are doing things to empower their communities. That attention brings more funding and more success and inspires more women to do the same."
Hello Tomorrow Fund Winner Profile: Liu Linlin, Beijing, China
In her own words: "I am a sophomore student at the Capital Normal University in Beijing, and my Hello Tomorrow Fund project brings Beijing volunteers to the rural area of Gansu to help local girls, providing mentoring support as well as material help, such as donations of clothing, educational materials and books and free courses to local students. By rough estimates, between 600 and 1,000 students in primary and middle schools have benefited from our project.
Most importantly, we have been serving as mentors. As someone from the countryside, I am deeply aware that girls could be subject to various growing-up challenges, largely due to local under development. A girl may come up with many questions with no one there offering good answers. That was precisely how we developed our interactive program. The girls can write letters to us in Beijing. We can help them in life, learning and all other things. We can help them shape a better future for themselves.Our help, I believe, ends up in spiritual form.
Winning the Hello Tomorrow Fund gave me more confidence and made me more optimistic.
Winning the Hello Tomorrow Fund gave me more confidence and made me more optimistic. I really hope that by engaging in such a project, I can truly learn how to care for women and make them more powerful voices of the community. A journalist who interviewed me for a newspaper article said I was 'doing small things with big love and doing big things with small money.' Big ambition and magnificent love, I believe, should be attached to a small thing, to a specific small act."