This Mentorship Program Wants Women of Color to Succeed

When Shaunah Margaret moved to New York City for an internship eight years ago, she felt completely alone. At the time, she had no family or friends nearby as she navigated an unfamiliar and white male-dominated corporate world of advertising. As a few years passed and she acclimated to her surroundings and career, she felt ready to use her experiences to help others who might be going through something similar. “After a lot of living and learning the hard way I really wanted to give back,” she said, “and I wanted to give back in the form of mentorship. I knew that community was a huge part of it, specifically to women of color, people like me.” In 2018, Margaret, a senior copywriter at Rauxa, met Ash Ramirez, director of diversity and inclusion at Digitas Health, through a mutual connection to discuss creating a community for women of color in advertising. Ramirez had also reached a pivotal point in their career: She wanted to pursue developing diversity and inclusion initiatives because that’s where their “passion lies”—but that work wasn’t exactly the top priority for many agencies at the time. On top of that, Ramirez was already feeling the pressure of “unwritten rules” and certain “things you’re supposed to do as a person of color that people expect of you.” “It was very much like you had to do your day job and then on top of that, do all the diversity initiatives, and just to me was like, ‘That’s a fallacy,’” they said. In their initial 30-minute call, Ramirez suggested instead of creating a community for creative women of color in advertising, they could expand that to include other creative disciplines. “When we think of creatives, it’s not just limited to copywriting and art direction,” Ramirez said. “Anybody can be creative.” The beginning Before the pandemic, Women Who Create hosted in-person events in New York City. That first year, Margaret and Ramirez developed Women Who Create as a mentorship program that matches young women of color with other women of color in that respective field. They started with connecting 20 people as mentor/mentee pairs. Through word of mouth and social media, they grew the mentorship program to include more than 300 women of color who participated in an 8- to 10-week program by the summer. Now, there are more than 700 mentors and mentees. “Women are having experiences in which when it comes to mentorship … with somebody who’s not from a similar background, or can share that same experience of being a woman of color, it’s harder [to build] empathy and a connection point,” Ramirez said. “So we leaned into that too. We wanted to really take away those barriers to entry of having a stronger mentorship.” Women Who Create continued to grow by hosting in-person networking events in New York City, but after the pandemic ended in-person events, Margaret and Ramirez readjusted programming. With the help of new volunteers, they started a Tea Time event focusing on navigating the workplace as women of color, extended the mentorship program length and created mentorship-specific events. They also started CreativeWomenofColor.com, a database featuring more than 750 women of color who are looking for jobs. “We got to a point where once we realized that this was going to be something long term, we had to adapt,” Ramirez said. “We couldn’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to just postpone our events. We were like, ‘No, we have to deal with Covid and the realities of it.’” What's next Despite the pandemic, Women Who Create is continuing its mentorship programs virtually. Establishing real connections continues to be at the heart of what Women Who Create does, and others have taken notice. Vera Bradley reached out to Margaret and Ramirez with an opportunity to team up for Black History Month. On Feb. 8, they unveiled a promotion for a unity tote bag. The brand also donated $20,000 to Women Who Create, and the program is giving away $10,000 of that to a woman of color pursuing a project through its new Dream in Color grant. On Aug. 19, Women Who Create will partner with We Identify, a talent collective for people of color, for the mentorship program’s first virtual summit that will have a career fair component. Margaret and Ramirez have received lots of positive feedback from women who have participated in the Women Who Create and for Margaret, that fuels her to keep giving back to her community. “Someone on our team said … that Ash and I see them as people and just hearing that, it means that other people in their job [are] not seeing them as people,” Margaret said. “They’re seeing them as to be utilized for something and being able to provide that space for people has really given me purpose in my life, and that’s something that I want to do forever, whether it be Women Who Create, in my job—whatever it is—that’s something that I’m dedicated to.” Meanwhile, Ramirez wants to “call in” agencies and other potential sponsors to make good on their promises to prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion and consider partnering with Women Who Create. “Imagine how many more lives we can change and the impact we can make in this industry and other industries,” they said. “I see so much potential and it excites and I see where we can go with the support and the backing and I’m here for the ride. Whatever happens, let’s do this.” Profiles in Black Creativity: Erin Smith Sets Others on the Creative Path

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

This Mentorship Program Wants to Help Women of Color Succeed in Advertising

Women Who Create has expanded across many creative disciplines

Tiffany Moustakas

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Tiffany Moustakas