Springfield native Vanessa Pabón-Hernandez has 25 years of experience as a champion for women and social change

SPRINGFIELD—The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts recently appointed Vanessa Pabón-Hernandez as CEO of the philanthropic organization, effective June 17. A native of Springfield’s North End and a driven, longtime mentor of women and champion for social change and empowerment, Pabón-Hernandez succeeds Donna Haghighat in the key role for the nonprofit.

Throughout her 25-year career, Pabón-Hernandez has supported women and Latinx community members, first as a marketing strategist in business for herself and later in roles that include program director for the YMCA North End Youth Center, founder of a community-based digital storytelling center and executive producer at New England Public Media. She left NEPM in early June after 14 years to accept the CEO position.

Pabón-Hernandez has experience as a program developer, grant writer, mentor, facilitator, consensus builder and storyteller, and she is excited to put her skills to work for the Women’s Fund. “I want to make a meaningful impact that’s less about program development and more about supporting the people who have the ideas,” Pabón-Hernandez said. “I’ve been the one who has been dreaming big and creating programs of impact. Now, I want to support the dreams of others.”

Luzed Guzman Romano, current treasurer and incoming board co-chair for the Women’s Fund, said the board is excited about the opportunities that Pabón-Hernandez’s experience, determination and leadership present. She said, “We are all confident Vanessa’s leadership will drive the organization forward, continuing its mission to support and empower women, girls and gender-expansive people in the region. In many ways, Vanessa’s life experience mirrors the reason why the Women’s Fund exists.”

Inspired by a strong, independent mother who helped facilitate her path, Pabón-Hernandez defied the odds several decades ago as a young, single mother, earning two associate degrees at Springfield Technical Community College before launching her own business as a marketing strategist for political candidates and area businesspeople. 

She mastered the art of storytelling to advance social change, entered the nonprofit sector, and over 25 years, led and founded innovative programs in marginalized communities that have allowed thousands of individuals to access resources, leverage their strengths, and drive their own career paths.

Pabón-Hernandez’s extensive nonprofit background began at the North End Youth Center, where she served as program director, developing community initiatives that empowered and supported young people in discovering their passions, fostering personal growth, and cultivating leadership skills to become confident, engaged members of their communities.

Recognizing that some dialogue and action in the community was driven by assumptions and not realities, Pabón-Hernandez launched an initiative called TOLD, Telling Our Legacies Digitally: a community-based digital storytelling center in a predominantly Latinx neighborhood. Through TOLD, she helped shed light on the social justice challenges in the North End of Springfield and mentored its residents in self-advocacy. 

In 2008, Pabón-Hernandez pitched the TOLD concept to WGBY Public Television, and two years later, after helping the station secure grant funding, she came on board as director of community engagement, leading WGBY’s Project TOLD and the Latino Youth Media Institute, which provided paid internships and a career pathway for Latino youth interested in a career in the media. 

As an executive producer with WGBY’s successor, New England Public Media, Pabón-Hernandez also launched Presencia, the station’s first bilingual programming, in English and Spanish. Before the show lapsed due to the pandemic, it was award-winning. 

Pabón-Hernandez has received the “Unsung Heroine” award from the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women and was named to Business West’s 40 Under 40. She was also the grand marshal for the Springfield Puerto Rican Parade. 

She said, “Everyone’s story needs to be told. And the Women’s Fund helps women, girls, and gender diverse people find their authentic voices.”

About the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts

Located at 333 Bridge St., in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts fuels progress toward gender equity by funding the most promising solutions, collaborating with results-oriented partners, and by elevating the collective power of local women to take charge, and to lead with purpose. To learn more, visit mywomensfund.org.

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SPRINGFIELD—The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts (WFWM) welcomes grant applications for its 2024 grant cycle and intends to award 10 to 15 grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 by summer. 

WFWM strongly encourages smaller, community-based grassroots organizations to apply.

Organizations with 501(c)3 status and those with fiscal sponsors are welcome to apply, and those serving women and girls and transgender and gender-diverse people in Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties are encouraged to do so. Priority will be given to organizations aligning with race and gender justice and equity, and WFWM’s strategic pillars—economic security, equality in positions of power and leadership, and freedom from gender-based violence.

The two-year unrestricted grants can be used for general operations or program support, and the WFWM Grantmaking Committee looks for grant proposals with a meaningful impact.

“We are excited to continue to fund the important work that is being done to support women, girls and gender-expansive people in our Western Massachusetts communities,” said Amihan Matias, senior director of community partnerships at the Women’s Fund. “We have diverse community members and residents from all four counties of Western Massachusetts on our Grantmaking Committee. We are grateful for their valuable perspectives regarding the needs of their communities. It is so important to hear directly from communities.” 

To apply, complete an online application. For the English application, visit https://bit.ly/3v58AX0; for the Spanish version, visit https://bit.ly/49RrvUf. Submit a brief, one-page letter of intent. The WFWM strives to make the application process as inclusive and accessible as possible and also accepts video submissions or grant proposals written for other funders in place of the narrative portion of the written letter of intent. To have the application translated into a language other than English or Spanish, email Matias at amatias@mywomensfund.org.

Applications are due by midnight on May 15. The Grantmaking Committee will announce recipients on Aug. 30.

About the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts

Located at 333 Bridge St., in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts fuels progress toward gender equity by funding the most promising solutions, collaborating with results-oriented partners, and by elevating the collective power of local women to take charge, and to lead with purpose. To learn more, visit mywomensfund.org.

The post Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts Invites Applications for its 2024 Grant Cycle appeared first on Beetle Press.

Every year, it is my privilege to write for the Springfield Republican’s annual, award-winning Outlook business section. This year was no different.

I wrote five stories, which came out in print in February. They were focused on: MicroTek in Chicopee; Donna Haghighat of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts; Westfield State University’s The Westfield Promise program; Northstar Pulp & Paper of Springfield; and Mike Schilling and Jordana Starr, the owners of Beerology in Northampton.

In this blog, and one that will post two weeks from today, I’ll offer excerpts from each article, along with links to those that have been uploaded to MassLive, a Republican partner.

Donna Haghighat

After Donna Haghighat’s parents were married in the 1950s, her father came to this country to find work, while her mother, 16 at the time, waited for him in Iran. Because she was a married woman, Haghighat’s grandfather didn’t think Parvaneh Haghighat needed to complete her high school education. Parvaneh won this right only after sneaking to school, getting caught and holding her own in a heated argument with her father.

Growing up in Connecticut, Haghighat heard this story many times. She heard as well that her mother did eventually earn her high school equivalency, and Haghighat watched her mother earn a bachelor’s degree at night firsthand as a teen. “I like to say that that really shaped my feminism, before I knew what feminism was,” said Haghighat, now the chief executive officer of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. “That my mother valued college was foundational for me.”

It was also inspirational. Haghighat earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., as well as a law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. It was her experience in law, higher education, fundraising, communications and women’s issues that positioned her as valuable asset for the Women’s Fund last summer. She took over leadership on Sept. 1, 2017, several months after the organization moved to Springfield.

MicroTek

In the early 1980s, when the doors were closing on state hospitals, three concerned residents of Hampden County were worried about the security of those being so abruptly re-introduced into mainstream communities. The trio created MicroTek so that people with intellectual and physical disabilities would have a way to earn an income.

A nonprofit with an altruistic mission, MicroTek manufactures custom cable and wire configurations for equipment used globally in the medical, scientific and security industries. Its first customer was a powerhouse tech company that needed laborers to build cable assemblies. Still a client 33 years later, that $17-billion corporation is widely known, but Phil D’Entremont, MicroTek’s current chief executive officer, can’t name it because of non-disclosure agreements. Likewise, other clients are in the Fortune 500 realm; most are smaller firms.

“They didn’t know anything about the wire and cable industry,” said D’Entremont, of the firm’s founding partners. “They went looking for the types of work the individuals could do—work using their hands. The founders hoped the business would allow these employees to live productive and meaningful lives.”

There were only a handful of employees in the early years after MicroTek opened in 1983, and most all of them had a disability. Now, the nonprofit employs 136 people, 19 of whom are disabled. It grossed $12 million in 2017 and sits on five acres of land in Chicopee; employees work in a 54,000-square-foot location that houses offices, shipping and receiving, a production and storage space, and a gathering space for staff.

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