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I chose The Mom Project because it has a similar mission to my challenge project. The Mom Project's mission is they are "committed to helping women remain active in the workforce in every stage of their journey, and we’re proud to work with employers who are committed to designing and supporting a better workplace." Similar to my challenge project approach, this organization is merging both the business world and working mothers to create a more accommodating work environment. I like how The Mom Project holds business accountable for creating an environment where mothers can succeed.

The organization addresses head-on the issue of women having to chose between being a parent and having a career. I am inspired by the Project's direct approach on creating realistic solutions to issues that are holding women back. I also like how their website content and language feels approachable and relatable for a really complex, systemic issue and I want the tone of my project to feel similar.

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Glassdoor is a website/app that helps perspective employees get insight into the culture, structure, policies and salary ranges of a company. It helps interviewees make informed decisions on perspective companies before they take a job. Glassdoor combines job postings, with company rates/reviews, salary reports, benefits reviews, office photos and more.

I am inspired by Glassdoor for my challenge project because one of their goals is providing workplace transparency, which is a similar goal to my challenge project. For my project, I want to provide transparency into a company's approach to childcare and parent-friendly policies, and I think these areas contribute to workplace culture. I am inspired by their website and app interface. I like how users can easily click through different tabs like "Reviews,"  "Salaries," "Benefits" (which has a specific maternity & paternity leave section.) For my project, I'd love to create a similar interface approach and make info feel accessible and really feel like you're getting an inside view before working at a company.

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The company Patagonia is hailed over and over again in the media as one of the most parent-friendly companies out there. For example, in the Parent's article "16 Companies With Innovative Parent-Friendly Policies," the author states that "breastfeeding moms traveling for work at this outdoor apparel brand can bring along their baby -- as well as a family member or a caregiver from the company's child-care center -- all on Patagonia's dime." Patagonia provides onsite childcare center at the company's headquarters (and has been doing so for the past 30 years) and provides buses to deliver kids from nearby schools to the center for after-school care. Motherly article "Paid leave + beyond: 11 companies that have amazing benefits for working parents" noted that in 2016, "Patagonia reported that for the previous five years it had seen 100% of its new moms return to work after maternity leave..."

Patagonia is an example of what companies should strive for when trying to create policies, programs and a working environment that supports working parents. I included this company because Patagonia would be an example of a company that would be categorized as "extremely family-friendly" on my app/website.

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The Inc. Coworking and Playschool is a nonprofit space that simplifies “work and childcare needs for parents.” Its mission is “to achieve gender equity in entrepreneurship, in the workplace and at home." It is a parent-friendly coworking space in the Seattle Green Lake area that provides both a coworking space and flexible, drop-in childcare. As great idea as The Inc. is – to combine a coworking space with childcare – it’s also incredible rare. I am inspired by the efforts of this organization to mix business with childcare – two areas that have purposely been kept separate in the US. The Inc. recognizes the complicated structure of the current childcare system, where traditional daycares provide parents no other options but full-time daycare (5 days a week) that can be costly, rigid and competitive . The Inc. understands that many parents may have non-traditional schedules and need an option for flexible, drop-in childcare. I find it refreshing how this organization addresses a complicated issue in a seemingly easy, non-complicated way. It almost makes you think – why hasn’t this been done earlier?

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The Inc. Coworking + Playschool - Seattle, WA

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Is it difficult to complete a project, work or study from home with a little one and just need a few more hours a week to focus? Are you new to Seattle and need a community of modern-minded parents to connect with? Is full-time care just too expensive and you want flexible care that fits your schedule and budget? Then The Inc. is the space for you!

Learn more about our space below or check out our new video tour for a sneak peek of our space!

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The Inc. Coworking + Playschool - Seattle, WA

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Is it difficult to complete a project, work or study from home with a little one and just need a few more hours a week to focus? Are you new to Seattle and need a community of modern-minded parents to connect with?

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The Marshall Plan for Moms organization was recently created in response to the impact the pandemic is having on mothers, and how many mothers are being taken out of the workforce due to additional caregiving responsibilities as a result of the pandemic. The organization created a plan of action and framework for mothers to be recognized for being forced out of the workforce and to be compensated for their unpaid labor as caregivers. The plan also included an outline of policies that would provide more structural support for working women who have kids. The plan included:

Direct payments to moms, who have had their paid labor in the workforce replaced by unseen, unpaid labor at home.

Passing policies related to paid family leave, affordable childcare and pay equity.

Creating retraining programs to ensure women can fill the jobs that will exist.

Plans to safely reopen schools 5 days a week.

I am inspired by this organization/coalition because not only does it directly address an issue that has lacked significant public awareness, but it also outlined specific and realistic actions and initiatives that will help address the issue. I like how it is action-oriented and also supported by many allies in the business world.

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I chose the Biden/Harris administration as thought leaders that inspire me for my project because they are the first administration to actually try to tackle the broken childcare system of this country. For so long, it felt like any sort of government policy or legislation around caregiving and our childcare structure was not only not a priority among our government officials, but it seemed like there was a severe lack of awareness. The Biden and Harris Administration has created The American Families Plan, which is a package that outlines a $1.8 trillion federal investment in education, childcare and paid family leave. I picked both Biden and Harris as thought leaders because they are actually providing some government accountability into creating solutions to fix our childcare system. Accountability is a big theme of my challenge project.

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I chose Reshma Saujani as a thought leader who inspires me in the working mothers/childcare space. She is the founder of the organization Girls Who Code. She also recently launched the organization The Marshall Plan for Moms, which was created in response to how a large portion of women are being taken out of the workforce to take on additional caregiving responsibilities as a result of the pandemic. I am inspired by her fearlessness, her business-savvy approach and her ability to tackle extremely complex, societal problems with realistic solutions. Providing realistic, understandable solutions is an approach I want to replicate for my project.

One of my favorite quotes from Reshma is that due to the pandemic, moms "are not choosing to leave the workforce. We're being pushed out."

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Melinda Gates has always been a vocal advocate for women's rights and has used her very visible platform to highlight the systemic inequalities and barriers that women have to overcome to succeed. She was one of the first people I thought of when creating this challenge project because she has been advocating for solutions to our broken childcare system for a long time. She has long ago made the connection of having an accessible childcare system and women being able to succeed. Gates is also seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to reform the caregiving role of the US and how this often falls on women. She stated “If we're going to build back as quickly as we possibly can, from Covid-19, we have to look at this fundamental issue of caregiving, because it is one of the things that holds women back from doing the productive work they sometimes want to do in society..."

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Lack of affordable and accessible childcare has always been a harsh reality for parents in the US, and Seattle's childcare system is a microcosm of this. Childcare options in the Seattle area are competitive, often not affordable and schedule options are often not compatible with working parents. In addition, the COVID pandemic has pulled back the curtain on how broken our childcare system is and how when childcare is not accessible, the caregiving responsibilities fall on mothers. This results into contributing toward larger issues like gender inequality in the workforce, income inequality, lack of gender diversity among top-level exec roles and more.

Due to the impacts of the pandemic and caregiving responsibilities falling on mothers, the progress that women have made in the workplace has been drastically set back - for example, the percentage of women in the workforce has dropped down to levels not seen since 1988.

To address this complex and systemic issue, I think it's important to pull in the interest and accountability of the business community. I plan to create either a website or app that will rate companies based on how parent-friendly they are and how much support they provide toward childcare. The website or app will have tiered-system and businesses will be categorized in certain tiers. The tiered program will be broken down into how business meet certain guidelines, such as:

Does the business provide onsite childcare?

Does the business provide paid maternity and paternity leave? For how long?

Does the  business provide financial contributions toward an employee’s daycare costs (i.e. similar to monthly contributions towards an employee’s healthcare benefits?)

How many women hold positions in top-level exec roles?

The website or app will have a similar layout to Glassdoor, where current employees can provide reviews on their experiences with employers' policies related to childcare and on how conducive the environment is to working mothers/working parents.