By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Described as “one of the most consequential leaders in Alabama,” Melanie R. Bridgeforth, will step down as President and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of Alabama in 2025, her organization announced on Monday.
Named chief executive in 2018, Bridgeforth grew the organization from the former Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham to a philanthropic powerhouse and statewide influencer advancing women’s economic power.
“Melanie is one of the most consequential leaders in Alabama,” said Lajuana Bradford, Board Chair, Women’s Foundation of Alabama and head of Corporate Philanthropy for Regions, in a statement. “For the past six years, her vision and leadership has not only inspired, but activated a broad base of thousands of philanthropists, business and civic leaders, and elected officials to build, invest, and scale proven initiatives and public policies that grow economies by removing barriers to women.”
Bridgeforth told The Birmingham Times Tuesday she didn’t come to the WFA six years ago “for what it was, I came for what it could be … a powerful influencer in this state that had the authority, and the audacity, to not just pick up the pen and write a new story for women, but to bring all these players along with us was the goal.”
Those players, she said, included “powerful voices, powerful change constituencies, whether that’s corporations, philanthropists, businesses, community leaders, aligning people around a common goal …”
“Building Powerful Coalitions”
What’s next for Bridgeforth?
“My work changing the world for women started long before Women’s Foundation of Alabama and it will continue long after,” she told The Times. “I have chosen to bet on myself and to bet on my own dream which is to do this same great work but without borders and under my own name.
“I’ll be starting my own strategy consulting firm that will operate nationally and we’re going to keep on building powerful coalitions of philanthropists, businesses, and community leaders who want a better world, and quite frankly demand a better world and I look forward to continuing to being a catalyst for change,” she said.
Bradford said Bridgeforth didn’t just transform the mission of the WFA, “she transformed our business with record growth in revenue, assets, size, and market presence statewide. Her track record, combined with a strong board and team, positions the organization to win for women now and in the future.”
Under Bridgeforth’s leadership, revenue increased by 174 percent, culminating in a transformative capital raise bringing in $9.4 million in just over a year. Marked revenue increases positioned WFA to scale programming and double grantmaking to $1,000,000 annually to nonprofit organizations across 40 Alabama counties.
Bridgeforth, who will serve as president and CEO until February 28, 2025, turned her decades long career as a lobbyist and strategist to bring WFA off of the sidelines and into the game of public policy resulting in three defensive victories and six pro-women legislative wins, including the state’s first Equal Pay Statute, a $2.25 million cumulative state budget appropriation to partner in preparing women for in-demand careers, and the 2024 Child Care Tax Credit – an historic $67.5 million public investment in the critical infrastructure and workforce that keeps Alabama working.
It all came into place because “what we have built together is nothing short of a movement,” Bridgeforth said. “The exciting thing about movements is, where there may be a catalyst and perhaps in many ways I have been a catalyst, they are unstoppable once they are started. We have amassed the board, the staff, the donor base, it takes resources to do this work and to do it well and to do it in a sustainable way.”
“It’s a mindset,” she added. “We shifted the narrative and culture by winning on critical policy issues and aligning our grant making in the same way.”
Quentin P. Riggins, Board of Directors, Women’s Foundation of Alabama and senior vice president of Governmental and Corporate Affairs at Alabama Power, said Bridgeforth was indeed that catalyst. “Alabama won’t win until our women do,” he said in a statement. “Even if we all agree on this notion, our state still needed a catalyst with vision, bold new ideas and solutions, and the ability to galvanize state leaders around a common goal of growing our state’s economy by removing the barriers that impede women.”
The Board of Directors of Women’s Foundation of Alabama announced it will launch a national search with support of a volunteer-led Transition Committee to assist them in identifying the next leader of the foundation.
