About the International Women's Day website

A platform built for purpose

More than a quarter of a century ago, when International Women’s Day (IWD) had far less digital visibility and lower levels of participation, an independent platform was created with a clear and ambitious purpose:

To re-energize the day founded in 1911, encourage participation, and help people and groups everywhere turn support for gender equality into action.

That purpose has remained remarkably consistent.

For more than 25 years, the IWD website has supported, connected and amplified people, organizations, communities and nonprofits contributing to the broader movement for gender equality.

When the website launched, the digital world looked very different. With none of the social media platforms or digital infrastructure that exist today, promoting and discovering IWD activity was far more difficult. The IWD website became one of the platforms helping to build connections, expand visibility and strengthen participation around IWD.

Its value is not only what happens on the platform, but what happens because the platform exists.
 

Creating value through enabling others

Perhaps the most important way to understand the IWD website is through what it enables.

It provides information, resources, visibility and connections that support people and organizations to participate in IWD and advance gender equality.

It offers free guidance, toolkits, campaign resources, educational content and practical tools, while helping people discover and promote events, find speakers and women-owned suppliers, access creative resources, support nonprofits and participate in campaigns.

It highlights the work and impact of organizations, gives event organizers opportunities to promote their work, helps speakers and suppliers reach new audiences, provides nonprofits with opportunities for visibility and support, and gives organizations, communities, groups and individuals working to advance gender equality somewhere to share what they are doing and inspire others to act.

That is the platform’s purpose: supporting participation and collective action.

A different kind of platform

The IWD website has always been built around a purpose rather than a conventional commercial publishing model. Its primary aim is to build value for the IWD community and wider gender equality movement, with its resources focused on enabling participation, visibility and action.

Its focus is simple: create opportunities for others to participate, connect, communicate and take action.

Supporting participation is central to the platform's purpose.

It provides opportunities for others to gain visibility. It directs attention, creates connections, and helps others reach audiences, promote fundraising initiatives, fill events, find speakers and communicate their work.

For almost three decades, the IWD website has demonstrated what is possible when a global digital platform is built around a purpose — creating enduring relevance, participation and impact.

Making action visible

As a dedicated space for IWD participation, the platform contributes year after year by creating opportunities, amplifying action, providing resources, connecting people and helping make activity visible.

An organization doing meaningful work can inspire other organizations across the world to do something similar. One event can inspire another. One campaign can inspire another. One story can spark another action.

That is one of the benefits of a platform built around collective participation.

The IWD website supports the supporters, making it easier for everyone who wants to contribute to gender equality to participate, connect, communicate and take action.
 

A powerful advocacy tool

The United Nations states: "The existence of international days predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool."

More broadly, international days can provide focal points around which awareness, participation and collective action can develop. March 8 has become a significant global rallying point for gender equality advocacy.

The IWD website has sought to play a supporting role in that evolution by providing visibility, participation and a place where activity around the day can be discovered and shared.

Today, the website connects people around the world with the wider ecosystem of IWD activity. Its value is reflected in what it enables: events promoted, organizations and campaigns amplified, groups advancing gender equality spotlighted, audiences connected with speakers and suppliers, nonprofits supported, and people given resources and tools that help turn interest into action.

Each year, the IWD website provides a campaign focus designed to encourage participation, conversation and action around gender equality across its global community. It gives people, organizations and communities a shared opportunity to explore ideas, communicate their work and contribute to IWD in ways relevant to their circumstances.

IWD is a global day with many participants, perspectives and activities, and there is value in creating more opportunities for people to take part.
 

A long history, significant potential

The history of the IWD website is one of persistence, innovation and purpose. Established in 2001, it has grown through a period of significant change in the way the world connects and participates in IWD, alongside the continuing evolution of the global IWD ecosystem.

An independent platform started small, continued building, continued delivering and grew alongside IWD to provide a digital platform through which people around the world can discover, participate in and contribute to activity around IWD. It kept opening doors for others, putting the spotlight on action, creating opportunities for participation and building relevance year after year.

That history is also what creates the platform's considerable potential for the future, as the work is not finished.

The need for collective action on gender equality remains, as does the value of places that bring people, organizations, ideas and action together.

The opportunity now is to build on everything that has already been created.

Imagine more organizations participating.

More people discovering what others are doing.

More stories travelling further.

More nonprofits benefiting.

More women's achievements recognized and shared.

More allies becoming advocates.

More action becoming visible.

And more visible action inspiring still more action.

This is a story about the purpose of the platform, the organizations whose actions it has amplified, the activity it has uplifted, the nonprofits it has helped, and the speakers, suppliers, campaigners, event organizers and equality champions who have collectively contributed to the IWD ecosystem.

Most of all, it is a story about what becomes possible when a platform is built for a purpose.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of the IWD story may not be what has already been achieved, but what becomes possible when more of the people and organizations who care about IWD are able to participate in its future.