Built by Community. Powered by Courage
The Center for Women's Leadership has spent more than two decades building the leadership capacity of women and gender-expansive Oregonians — and we're just getting started.
Our Story
Founded by Dr. Melody Rose, Honorable Betty Roberts, Governor Barbara Roberts —and a tenacious group of multisector women supporters, The Center for Women’s Leadership started offering programming in 2003.
Through the last 23 years, thousands of women and gender-expansive Oregonians have benefited from CWL programs such as NEW Leadership Oregon (NLO), the Rural Leaders Initiative (Turn Up Your Voice: Taking Action for Community Change), Girls Oregon Action Leadership Summit (GOALS), and the Gender, Leadership, and Policy Cohort. As well as a wide range of learning series, convenings and events. Together, we’ve built an ecosystem of leaders strengthening communities, influencing policy, and redefining what substantive leadership looks like in every corner of our state.
Today, CWL is flowing into its next evolution. After deep analysis, partnership conversations, and community reflection, CWL has transitioned our home from our origin organization Portland State University into an independent, community-based organization Fiscally Sponsored by For All Families Oregon. This change positions the Center to meet the evolving leadership needs of Oregon with greater flexibility, statewide grounding, and sustainable growth opportunities.
We invite you into our work with us by prioritizing joy, connection, accountability, and community-building. We understand that learning and unlearning are ongoing processes, and that the work is never finished. We recognize that our intersecting identities affect how we experience our work and our lives.
We approach our work with empathy and seek to understand the ways that the identities of others impact the way they navigate the world. We believe that gender is not a binary and embrace a dynamic approach to experiencing and naming our gender identities. We practice nonhierarchical and circular leadership, striving to ensure that all aspects of our work reflect our values.
Vision
The Center for Women’s Leadership works in collaboration with seasoned and emerging women and gender-expansive leaders to advance the individual and collective practice of courageous leadership in Oregon and beyond.
We engage with a wide range of community partners to co-create spaces in which we examine the practice of leadership at the intersections of race, gender, and other categories of difference, in order to enact systems-level change.
Approach
Our learning communities cultivate growth around leadership practices that are explicitly anti-racist; grounded in intersectional feminist and queer ways of thinking, feeling, and doing; embracing of radical imagination; and dedicated to creating a culture of relationality and care among participants and in our communities.
Our programming portfolio is fluid to meet the needs of leaders throughout our region. We remain committed to reducing financial barriers for our participants by offering low and no-cost programs to diverse communities of participants across Oregon.
Our Team
CWL’s organization structure is under co-creation with the communities we strive to serve. Our Executive Director, Jessica Mole Heilman has transitioned with us and is stewarding this new chapter in collaboration with a strong transitions team, financial supports, and alumni who are supporting CWL in this season of transition. Stay tuned for ways to be involved as our momentum and community engagement grows across the state.
Thank you to all of our supporters for holding us and this work in such meaningful ways.
Our Core Values
ALUMNI IMPACT
Courageously
Leading
The impacts of our programming are rippling across Oregon and beyond. We are proud of our alumni who have taken their lived experience, personal agency, and understanding of power into a variety of multi-sector leadership roles.
Serving as the youngest Oregon woman legislator and co-chairing the BIPOC Caucus
GOVERANCE
Launching the Cultural Harvest Collective in Monmouth — a gathering space where farmers of color build community and strengthen local economies
RURAL COMMUNITY
Testifying before city councils to advance inclusion, advocate for aging- and family-friendly policies, and represent neurodivergent Oregonians
CIVIC ADVOCACY
Expanding the Black Rural Network to foster statewide collaboration and support among rural Black leaders
RURAL
Building fire management and emergency preparedness infrastructure in Halfway, Oregon — meeting critical needs in a service desert
EMERGENCY PREP
Serving as chiefs of staff, policy advisors, and community engagement leaders
LEADERSHIP
Changing policy narratives as part of the ACLU Oregon team
ADVOCACY
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Whether you're curious about our programs, looking to partner, or just want to connect — our door is open. Reach out — building relationships is at the heart of everything we do.