Utah ranks 37th in the nation for what women earn in the workplace and 51st for gender pay parity. Through relationship and skill building, Braid has set out to shift the economic trajectory of Utah women.
Three Aims of Braid
- Connect the women in our community so that we learn who we are.
- Empower women to start, build, and grow entrepreneurial ventures and careers.
- Create an encouraging and safe space for women to ask questions, learn, explore and connect.
The idea behind the name Braid is that one strand by itself can easily bend or break, but when you weave those threads together, they add strength to each other. We hope to see women connecting and adding strength to each other as a result of our skills workshops and networking events. We believe that relationships are economic power.
In the fall of 2015, Allison Lew gathered together a group of local women business leaders to brainstorm how to strengthen the women in entrepreneurship community.
From that discussion, Allison realized that most of the entrepreneurship programming in the community was not designed with women in mind. As an answer to that need, Braid was born.
Since then, Braid has morphed from a city program into a business and Kassidi Henrie (former financial controller at local dev bootcamp DevMountain) joined Allison as co-founder.
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Workshops
We invite industry experts to present and share insights on topics like social media marketing, website setup, basic business law, and building teams. These workshops are great opportunities for Braiders to connect with mentors and find a jumping off point for building their businesses and brands.
Community
Many of our Braiders are primary caregivers for their children and are working on building income streams for their families on the side. Braid gives these women the opportunities with other people and skills who can help them shift their economic trajectory.
Women have so much potential to help each other, but if they never connect, then those relationships may never develop. We love our community and how much good they can do when they connect with each other. Wins for us look like job positions filled, mentors introduced, and clients made as a result of connections made through Braid.
