Letter from the President of Girls With Guts

Girls With Guts has grown SO much over the last 10 years and in those 10 years, so has the landscape of healthcare – but one thing continues to ring true – connection is one of the most powerful and necessary tools for taking care of your health.

Over the last decade, we have had the privilege of watching thousands of women walk through our doors, both physically and virtually, who have become a lifelong part of our sisterhood. I have personally had the privilege of witnessing this growth from the very beginning. With ANY growth of this scale, there will be pain points along the way.

We went from a singular retreat of 33 women to hosting multiple retreats a year as an all-volunteer org! Yes, you heard that right – we have reached a decade of GWG in our SPARE TIME!

With that said, having just celebrated our 10-year anniversary, we are planning to take 2024 “off” so that we can regroup internally for the betterment of the organization and help pave a foundation that is sustainable for another decade of GWG!

What this will look like is:

• A slowdown on our social media pages as we pause taking on any new campaigns or projects during this time.
• There will be no newbie or annual retreat in 2024, but you will find some opportunities to connect with a few virtual events throughout the year, which we will share about on our social media pages and through our newsletter
• We will be doing an audit within our community (so we will need your help!) to find out what matters most to you so that we can spend more of our time and energy on those programs and resources.
• We will be posting/interviewing for new BoD roles, as well as opening up several new volunteer opportunities. We will be sharing details about these roles on our social media pages and you can also check out our opportunities and read our job descriptions here.

We know this can sound a bit vague, but our promise and commitment to you is that our resources and private forum will remain active and open as a safe space for you to turn to during this downtime! We will be using our social media pages, newsletter, and private forum to announce changes and keep you informed during this process. We are so excited and enthusiastic to work with you all as we create a roadmap for the future of our sisterhood!

You can read more about what we accomplished in 2023 and our plans for 2024 in our 2023 End of Year report!