Three years ago, the Girl Effect sprang into being for one purpose: To get powerful people to talk about girls. It totally worked, and “The Girl Effect on Development” was a huge success at the 2009 World Economic Forum. For the first time, world leaders, business leaders, and the smartest and richest people in the world were talking about this untapped resource. But something else happened along the way: the thing called the Girl Effect was having an effect of its own. It engaged people, inspired people, made them cry, and made them mad. It made them want to do something like write books, give money, or sock ignorance in the mouth.

And who doesn’t want to sock ignorance in the mouth?

The Girl Effect is a movement. It’s about the unique and indisputable potential of adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world. It was created by people at the Nike Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, but it's about you using your voice, your talents, and your community to help girls help themselves—and, as a result, everybody else. It’s about giving you the tools and the network you need to spread the word about what girls can do and, with a little elbow grease, change the world.

The math is simple: Girls + Girl Champions = Something Way Bigger Than All Of Us. That’s why we exist. That’s our whole schtick: to advance the Girl Effect. There are 250 million adolescent girls living in poverty today. By 2030, we want 50 million of them out. Nothing less than 50 million girl effects.

We started out with a problem that needed solving: Poverty. We did a ton of thinking and researching and talking to smart people. We came up with a quite surprising answer: Girls. Girls? Really? Yup. Girls.

If it had turned out that rubber bands could cure poverty, we would have started the Rubber Band Effect.

It has been shown that an educated girl will invest 90% of her future income in her family, compared to 35% for a boy. Yet 250 million adolescent girls live in poverty and are more likely than boys to be uneducated, married at a young age, and exposed to HIV/AIDS. Today, less than two cents of every international development dollar go to girls, the very people who could do the most to end poverty. As long as girls remain invisible, the world misses out on a tremendous opportunity for change.

The Girl Effect exists to help everyone. And everyone includes boys. Indeed, better lives for girls mean better lives for everyone in their communities, including their brothers, fathers, future husbands and future sons. When you improve a girl’s life through education, health, safety, and opportunity, these changes have a positive ripple effect. As an educated mother, an active, productive citizen and a prepared employee, she is the most influential force in her community to break the cycle of poverty.

The secret behind the Girl Effect is that it’s not one large campaign – it’s hundreds of thousands of small campaigns started by girl champions all over the world. You see, an adolescent girl has the power to actually stop poverty before it starts. But she needs your help. She needs information, healthcare, and education. She needs laws to change, money in her pocket, and she needs her parents, her government, and the global community to see that she is valuable. Her change can’t happen without the girl champions who each bring their own superpowers to the party.

The movement will reach its furthest through you. The communicators, artists, culture shapers, master organizers and everyday, amazing people with passion, energy and networks of your own. Whether you are the oldest person in the world, an interior decorator, a reader of romance-werewolf tales, a Bollywood star, or a second grader with an agenda: if you’re working to help girls, you are a girl champion. And starting the Girl Effect is easier than you think.

Step 1: Give the world a good kick in the pants.

You know that Girl Effect video you found so inspiring? Well, we want everyone in the entire world to see it too. That’s right. All 6.8 billion of your fellow earth-mates need to know how powerful girls are. It’s ambitious, but hey, that’s how world change happens. Show it to your mom, brother, teacher, friend, random person in line with you at the grocery store… you name it. Show it to everyone you know and everyone you don’t. That’s our call-to-action for you. How you do it, well, that’s up to you. Be as creative as you want. The options are endless.

Step 2: Tell poverty to run and hide.

Right here is where the magic starts. We have everything from two-minute videos to detailed reports and fact sheets that will help you spread the word and share the video. The Mobilize tab also has a ton of tools that can help, including website banners, stickers and a PowerPoint presentation with talking points. We even have logos you can use and graphics you can download to create your own Girl Effect gear. If you want to download the one-stop shop for spreading the word, check out our toolkit. We also encourage you to join the movements on Facebook and Twitter to connect with other girl champs.

Step 3: Wash, rinse, repeat.

If you have any questions, or want to tell us about something exciting you have planned, please email us.

As we mentioned, the Girl Effect is a collaborative movement of TONS of amazing organizations and people who are passionate about alleviating poverty by investing in girls. It’s not one big campaign, but thousands of smaller ones acting in concert. Since we’re a movement – a powerhouse of girl-focused organizations – rather than a stand-alone organization, donations to the cause are collected through the GlobalGiving Foundation and distributed to a select number of innovative projects that we chose especially for you.

Online donations to the Girl Effect can be made in one of two ways:

Give to the Girl Effect Fund, which distributes your donation equally among a select group of girl-focused projects that are actively unleashing the Girl Effect around the globe,

or, direct all of your donation to one specific project.

You also have the option of donating to the Girl Effect Fund by check. Checks should be made payable to The GlobalGiving Foundation, and the project ID should be written in the memo field. The project ID for the Girl Effect Fund is 2150.

Mail all checks to:
The GlobalGiving Foundation
1023 15th Street, NW, 12th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

If you still have questions, GlobalGiving is happy to provide you with more information about how funding is used. Or, if you opt to donate to a specific organization, you can reach out to them directly through the contact listed on their GlobalGiving page.

The Nike Foundation created them with help from these amazing contributors:

• The Girl Effect video was produced by Wieden+Kennedy Portland and directed by Man vs. Magnet, in association with the production company Curious Pictures. The music in the video is by Elias Arts.
• The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking video was also produced by Wieden+Kennedy Portland and scored by Elias Arts, in association with the animation company Nexus Productions.
• Our website was produced by LOVE Creative and Wieden + Kennedy Portland.

Unfortunately, not yet. However, we do have a number of helpful tools that can get you started.

In the Learn section of our website, you will find materials suitable for any attention span – from two-minute videos to in-depth research reports. We’d particularly draw your attention to the More Resources section, where there is a wealth of data.

We also have a toolkit that is located under the Mobilize section of our website. Among other materials, it includes a PowerPoint presentation with talking points.

While our media kit is intended for the press, it contains a thorough summary of both facts and stories about girls.

That’s awesome, but for right now, our main purpose is to give all girl champions the tools they need to raise awareness and take action; we are not a grant-giving entity.

However, once a year we hold something called the “Girl Effect GlobalGIving Challenge.”

Basically, this is an opportunity for amazing, girl-focused nonprofit organizations and projects to connect with the movement and compete for a chance to win a one-year spot on our GlobalGIving fundraising page. To put it in perspective, the Girl Effect Fund raised more than $250,000 in 2010. If you believe your organization’s focus fits well within the mission of the Girl Effect movement, fill out this Expression of Interest form and GlobalGiving will send you more information as it becomes available.