WNRRV: Committed to Diversity

By Morea Steinhauer
Contributing Writer

The Women’s Network of the Red River Valley (WNRRV) is a pro-choice, feminist, community-based, nonprofit organization that seeks to address systems change for the benefit of women and girls. We are committed to engaging a richly diverse leadership of women and girls.
The WNRRV began in the 1980s as a small group of feminists who met to organize around the issues of pay equity, access to higher education, women in business, and safe, legal access to abortion. Their mission was to work in accordance with the 1977 Houston Plan of Action. In that legacy, our work continues.
 
The WNRRV, as a non-profit 501 (c) (3) grassroots network seeks to organize people around issues of equity and justice for women and girls. We work on leadership, health care, pay equity, classism, racism, reproductive rights and many other factors that impair the quality of life for women. Our purpose is to network with other women-centered organizations and individuals in the community, to organize and build a strong and active pro-choice feminist voice in the F-M area and surrounding rural communities. 
Currently the WNRRV is undergoing strategic planning and reorganization, and is seeking active input and involvement from the community to help shape the organization’s future and direction.

While renewing our vision and commitment to the community, we are currently seeking to build our board and form a cohort comprised of feminists to advance women-centered racial justice organizing efforts. We are determined to see the WNRRV flourish and serve more substantially as a catalyst for change in our community.

The WNRRV’s biggest effort, presently, is to build the organization from the inside out while also adopting measures for stability and sustainability. The WNRRV has two capacity-building initiatives underway.

The first is to build the board to enhance leadership, oversee organizational functions and provide vision and direction. This requires a minimum of a year-long commitment.

The second opportunity lies with the newly formed cohort to engage discourse around issue work and strategic planning. This arm of the network requires a shorter time commitment but involves brainstorming, issue-cutting and organizing strategies.

Individuals looking for or already having experience in marketing, branding, fundraising, grant-writing, budgeting, accounting, website design and upkeep, event planning, research, organizing, activism, advocacy, etc. are strongly encouraged to explore this short-term cohort commitment.

As a pro-LGBTQIA organization, we at the Women’s Network of the Red River Valley (WNRRV) are eager to take part in PRIDE celebrations this year as a means of offering organizational support to Fargo-Moorhead’s LGBTQIA community. This is also a unique opportunity to garner support for the WNRRV.

The WNRRV is committed to diversity in its board, cohort and membership. A commitment to exploring, acknowledging and addressing intersecting oppressions and identities is an important step in the work undertaken. The WNRRV is committed to working for equity in alleviating all forms of oppression that affect women, girls and their families. As such, actively representing LGBTQIA in the WNRRV is a critical part of our mission.

Interested in becoming a part of the Women’s Network of the Red River Valley? Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information. Your communiqué is important to us.