The Workplace Innovation Now (WIN) Narrative Challenge aims to develop and promote narratives that help everyone—especially women—thrive as workplaces transform.
Donor Name: Workplace Innovation Now Challenge
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Awards and Prizes
Deadline: 12/11/2025
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
This initiative will source innovations that open opportunities for women’s careers while improving workplaces for everyone and expanding prosperity for communities across the country. The workplace is where life barriers thread together and it’s quickly transforming. Lifting these barriers and better equipping everyone to thrive in the workplace of the future can have a multiplier effect on women’s lives, their families, their communities, and the overall economy.
When women succeed, the benefits are shared—across families, communities, and the economy at large. Strong applicants will address how their strategies and approaches to storytelling have the potential to shift the narrative at a large scale to create long term impact.
The WIN Narrative Challenge prioritizes solutions that lead to lasting impact. Proposals should address one or more of the following barriers.
- Biased attitudes. Rising percentages of men and women believe in limited views of women’s leadership capacity and qualifications. Then when exhibiting leadership qualities, women perceive being held to different standards.
- Narrow narratives. The archetype of what it means to be successful is limited and outdated. Much of the public narrative does not reflect the reality of how workers—and caregivers —navigate their careers and personal responsibilities.
- Limited public awareness. There have been great advancements in the workplace that are not getting the attention necessary to scale across society. The industries and innovators leading this change in the workplace need to be amplified to support women, their communities, and the economy.
- Zero-sum assumptions. The national dialogue often assumes a zero-sum outcome between women and men’s advancement, rather than uplifting the shared success for all.
- Downplaying harassment. Harmful acts of mistreatment continue to impact women across the course of their careers yet increasing numbers of the public believe there needs to be less emphasis on workplace harassment and violence.
- Caregiving Responsibilities. The systems and workplaces in this country are not set up to support households responsible for caregiving such as childcare or elder care.
- The Broken Rung. Workplace practices force women into tradeoffs and competing priorities that impact their promotion and retention rates, which widen the gender pay gap.
- Inflexible Workplaces. The most powerful positions or increases in responsibility often come with the most inflexible hours and expectations. The structure of these roles can make them less attractive because they make it more difficult to balance career and other priorities.
- Violence and Sexual Harassment. Harmful acts of sexual harassment and mistreatment continue to impact women across the course of their careers and can prevent them from succeeding at work..
- Bias and Toxic Workplace Culture. Issues from burnout to unfair practices and negative assumptions can create unhealthy or hostile workplaces that hinder everyone’s success.
- Salary Discrepancy. From the initial salary offer to subsequent promotions and raises, women often see less pay for their work. Industry context and intersectional barriers compound this issue and require creative solutions to break through the issue of this shortfall and deliver lasting impact.
Funding Information
Awarding up to eight solutions at $2.5M or $5M each to help women thrive and build a better workplace for all.
Eligibility Criteria
The Workplace Innovation Now Challenge (WIN Challenge) welcomes applications from the following eligible entities:
- Nonprofit organizations based in the United States and/or U.S. territories that have received a tax determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) confirming that they are described under section 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) or (2) of the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”), provided such tax determination letter remains in effect
- Private foundations based in the United States and/or U.S. territories that have received a tax determination letter from the IRS confirming that they are described under section 501(c)(3) of the IRC, provided such tax determination letter remains in effect
- Fiscally-sponsored projects of nonprofit organizations based in the United States and/or U.S. territories that have received a tax determination letter from the IRS confirming that they are described under section 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) or (2) of the IRC, provided such tax determination letter remains in effect
- A U.S. tribal government treated as a State pursuant to IRC Section 7871.
For more information, visit WIN.
