Center for Women's Leadership

2026 Transition News

For more than two decades, the Center for Women’s Leadership (CWL) at Portland State University has been Oregon’s home for cultivating courageous, inclusive leaders.

Thousands of women and gender-expansive Oregonians have benefited from CWL programs such as NEW Leadership Oregon (NLO), the Rural Leaders Initiative (Turn Up Your Voice: Taking Action for Community Change), Girls Oregon Action Leadership Summit (GOALS), and the Gender, Leadership, and Policy Cohort. Together, we’ve built an ecosystem of leaders strengthening communities, influencing policy, and redefining what substantive leadership looks like in every corner of our state.

Today, CWL is preparing for its next evolution. After deep analysis, partnership conversations, and community reflection, CWL will begin a strategic transition to become an independent, community-based organization — while maintaining close collaboration with PSU. This change positions the Center to meet the evolving leadership needs of Oregon with greater flexibility, statewide reach, and sustainable growth opportunities.

Why This Transition Matters

CWL's mission has always been about impact beyond a single institution. As Oregon’s political and economic landscape shifts, the demand for accessible, community-driven leadership development has never been more urgent. Currently, women hold just 15% of leadership positions across sectors statewide. Programs that build civic and professional leadership capacity are declining, while the need for leaders grounded in empathy, equity, and collaboration continues to grow.

This transition ensures CWL will reach more rural and underrepresented communities, attract new philanthropic and corporate partners, and broaden programming in policy, business, and civic engagement. It also enables continued partnerships with PSU in research, alumni engagement, and academic collaboration – preserving CWL’s proud legacy while fueling its future.

Why Leadership Development Matters Now

At a moment when gender equity and democracy itself face increasing challenges, women-led movements are vital drivers of stability and progress. National research from the Center for American Women and Politics shows that women leaders strengthen governance, (re)build trust, and drive solutions grounded in community needs. CWL’s community of alumni is already leading this work across Oregon — and this transition will amplify their voices, impact, and innovation.

Ways to Engage in Conversation

We invite you to share insights, ideas, and feedback with us as we continue exploring new pathways and models for CWL’s future.

Additionally, we will be preparing for a CWL community townhall meeting in early 2026, which will allow us to be in conversation about where we are now, where we go from here. Please stay tuned for additional details on this convening, coming soon.

How You Can Support CWL’s Next Chapter

This transformation is also a call to action. As CWL establishes its community-based foundation, we invite you to help sustain the momentum that began at PSU and now moves boldly into Oregon’s future. Your partnership ensures that leadership opportunities remain accessible to every woman and gender-expansive leader across our state.

You can support this transition in three important ways:

1. Make a Leadership Gift – Seed CWL’s strategic independence and help fund essential transition planning and operations.
2. Become a Founding Partner – Join our statewide coalition supporting women’s leadership development in Oregon.
3. Share CWL’s Story – Amplify this message in your networks, workplaces, and communities to help us strengthen the support needed for this transition to succeed.

Together, we’re building what Oregon needs most right now: a movement of leaders rooted in collaboration, empathy, and courage.

Thank you for moving with us as we ensure that the Center for Women’s Leadership continues to thrive for the next generation.

Our Vision

The Center for Women’s Leadership works in collaboration with seasoned and emerging women and gender-expansive leaders to advance the individual and collective practice of courageous leadership in Oregon and beyond.

We are excited to engage with a wide range of campus and community partners to co-create spaces in which we examine the practice of leadership at the intersections of race, gender, and other categories of difference, in order to enact  systems-level change.

2025 Spring Impact Report 

We are thrilled to share our 2025 Spring Impact Report with all of you! 

Our biannual report is an opportunity to celebrate our alumni, community partners, and program facilitators. It’s also a reflective tool to discern our impact and where to center our efforts for the upcoming biennium.

Over the last two years, the Center for Women’s Leadership (CWL) has maintained our annual operating budget of $580,000 while making intentional shifts in how we invest funds across our programs, community partnerships, and vendors. We’ve cultivated a cross-regional ecosystem of skilled practitioners, facilitators and organization partners to further our collective impact.

The Center for Women’s Leadership strives to meet the needs of rising women and gender expansive leaders across our region by offering curated learning communities. These communities catalyze learning and growth around leadership practices that are explicitly anti-racist; grounded in intersectional feminist and queer ways of thinking, feeling, and doing; embracing of radical imagination; and dedicated to creating a culture of relationality and care among participants and in our communities.

Engaged Scholarship: A new initiative launched in Fall 2024, our Engaged Scholarship Projects create and connect learning pods of faculty, students and community partners to work collectively on consequential, mutually beneficial projects. 

Leadership Development: We co-design and facilitate leadership development opportunities in relational practice with community partner(s) and program participants.

Convening Community: Bringing people together is crucial to building and strengthening the relationships that make our collective work possible. In a variety of formal and informal ways, we convene and host gatherings of campus and community partners to advance the connective tissue that makes possible, nurtures, and sustains transformative change. 

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