Celebrating International Women’s Day
This International Women’s Day we are celebrating the important contribution women make in the volunteer sector. After carrying out external market research in 2020 we noticed a standout figure which was that a large proportion of volunteers who earn Tempo Time Credits are women.
After recently launching our new online Tempo Time Credit platform we have also seen a large proportion of those signed up being women. Since we launched, we have signed up 1915 volunteers of which 71% are women. Showing just how important and committed women are in keeping the voluntary sector going during these difficult times.
Nationally the split between volunteers’ gender is 60% female and 40% male (NCVO). Tempo and the 1,000 voluntary organisations we work with and support, have 71% female volunteers and 2% from non-binary and transgender communities. This shows the greater affinity women have with the harder to reach and more excluded groups in society, that Tempo has focussed on. Work by the Chief Economist of the Bank of England suggests that the value in £ terms is up to £234 billion.
Mark Froud, Chief Executive at Tempo Time Credits said, “We undervalue the impact of women volunteers at our peril. They have helped see us through the last year. More importantly, they are the unsung heroines of our voluntary and community sectors.”
Volunteers that are part of Tempo Time Credit schemes are also more likely to be new volunteers. 10% had never volunteered before and 15% rarely.
Earlier in the year, we welcomed Siddhi Trivedi to our board of trustees as our 2nd female board member alongside already standing member Anna Lewis.
Siddhi founded Beyond Identity a tech start-up as she approached her 50’s. Last year, she also founded Project BIBA a social enterprise focused on increasing the number of girls and women to choose a career in technology, as currently only 3% of girls rate as their first choice.
Her career in technology happened organically from a career in pharmaceuticals followed by business consultancy that transitioned into digital transformation. Siddhi said – “International Women’s Day serves as a day of global solidarity where women joined by male champions, can draw inspiration from each other as well as celebrate the success of female role models. Each year these campaigns transcend down to girls and boys at school age to begin the process of changing mindsets at an early age which challenge the age-old patriarchal system embedded in society. The theme for International Women’s Day #ChooseToChallenge sets out a clear agenda for all men and women to stand up to inequalities women face professionally, whether it’s inequality in pay, gender bias or promotion. Female-led founders face massive challenges in accessing funding with only 2.3% of women-led start-ups access VC funding.”
Siddhi’s message to all women globally – “I #choosetochallenge women’s mindsets to become more fearless in shaping their careers in tech regardless of age or background!”
