Rena Greifinger and Alex Idol: Maverick Collective

We won’t have equity for women until we have health equity, say the leaders of this unique nonprofit. Maverick Collective brings together women philanthropists to solve problems from a feminist perspective by making investments in health and reproductive rights projects that elevate women and girls.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
And we really believe that without health equity, we're never
going to achieve gender equity. There's eight hundred and ten
women that die every day due to complications or pregnancy
and childbirth. So these are things that we have answers to,
we have solutions to. You know, we have modern contraception,
we have all of the you know kind of knowledge

(00:27):
that we need to have strong maternal health care. That
was Rena Gryfinger talking about the state of women's health
worldwide and about a unique approach to improving it. Rena
is managing director of the Maverick Collective, which brings together
women philanthropists to solve problems from a feminist perspective. I'm

(00:50):
alion Ververe and this is Seneca's one Women to Hear.
We are bringing you one hundred of the world's most
inspiring and history making women you need to hear. One
of the founders of the Maverick Collective is Melinda French Gates.
Here's what she has to say about Maverick. This is

(01:11):
what happens when smart, dedicated, compassionate women come together to
make the change they want to see in the world.
Rena is joined in today's conversation by Collective member Alex Idol.
She's a philanthropist and head of the John Idol Family Foundation.

(01:33):
Listen and learn why Rena Gryfinger, Alex Idol, and the
women of the Maverick Collective are amongst Seneca's One Women
to Hear. I'm speaking today to two leaders of the
Maverick Collective, Rena Grindfinger and Alex Idol. It is an

(01:54):
innovative funding initiative of high net worth women supporting women's
health and relay did projects. And I'm eager to talk
to both of them today and grateful they are with
us so we can all learn about what this important
platform does. Rena welcome, Alex welcome. Thank you so much.
It's great to be here. Well, tell us what does

(02:16):
the Maverick Collective do and why is it different or
how is it different from other nonprofits. So, the Magic
Collective is a community of women philanthropists that are investing
in global health and reproductive rights with the aim to
accelerate gender equity across the world. We were co founded

(02:38):
by Global Health Organization p s I with Melinda French
Gates and the Crown Princess of Norway about nine years
ago and the idea was to bring women philanthropists together
to quote unquote give beyond the checkbook, to engage deeply
in the work that they were funding, so that they

(02:59):
could be authentic champions for women and girls and reproductive health,
so that they could get smart on the issues and
be able to use all of their capital, not just
their money, but their curiosity, their time, their testimony, um
their influence to advance the issues that they care about,
while at the same time really using their their financial

(03:23):
capital to help k s I, which is a leading
kind of cutting edge global health organization, really move the
needle on some of the most intractable problems in women
and girls health across the world. And do you think
that this model would have been workable twenty or fifty
years ago? Even I'd like to think that women have
been ready for this kind of model for a really

(03:44):
long time. Um, But I do think that when we
were founded, when the maver Re Collective was founded, um
about nine years ago. I will point out that p
s I is fifty two years old, so we've been
in the business of global health a long time. But
about nine years ago really was around the time when
women like Melinda Gates were really kind of stepping out

(04:06):
on their own and UM creating UH an identity around
philanthropy that was truly their own. And I like to say,
you know, being taken seriously for their mastery, not that
not just their money or who they're married to. And
I think Melinda herself was really getting smart UM on
the issues that she cared about, which she still does today,

(04:27):
gender equity, reproductive health, and she wanted to see more
women be able to champion those issues and be strategic
and wise about how they fund those issues and saw
this UM creation of a community is a place where
they could really do so together. What we certainly know
is that women want to practice philanthropy differently than men. UM.

(04:49):
For too long, philanthropy has been very white, very male,
UM quite patriarchal in the way it's set up. And
we really believe in a more feminist, kind of redefined
approach to philanthropy that looks and feels different. And I
think ten years ago was a really important time for
women like her to step out and lead, and we've

(05:10):
just seen a real movement galvanized since then. Well, she
has certainly been a leader in this field, and I
know how committed she is, and I think it's extraordinary
that the Maverick Collective has come into being. Alex, what
brought you into the Maverick Collective and how has that

(05:31):
enabled you to do the kinds of things you might
not be able to do otherwise? And how does one
join the Maverick Collective. So I was at a unique
point in my life when I had first joined Maverick Collective.
I was I was in business school, I was going
through a major career transition. And I was also in

(05:52):
a position where my family had asked me or had
sort of let me know that I was going to
be taking a leadership role in our family foundation. Today
i'm president of our family Foundation. And what was really
important for me was to make sure that I had experience,
both locally and globally to be able to make the

(06:16):
type of grants and and sort of UM effectuate philanthropy
in a way that reflected my family values. And I
think what was great is that UM I was able
to partner with an organization, Maverick Collective, who had sort
of this big p S I N GEO behind them,

(06:39):
and we were able to take risk right. And that's
what I came in to do. Is really fund innovation
in global health, and UM I was able to UH
invest in projects that philanthropists were otherwise UM maybe UM
nervous to do. I think what I also had the

(07:05):
what was great about Maverick was that I gained not
just experienced sort of in writing the grant, writing the check,
but we we went into two in country and really
UM sat with the women and girls that we were impacting.
That's so terrific. So it was a learning experience and

(07:26):
not just a check writing experience. Rena, I know that
the collective has programs all across the world. Can you
give us a sense of the state of women's health
right now and perhaps some of the specific kinds of
programs that you're supporting to help improve women's laws. Absolutely, so,

(07:48):
UM to give you a sense of our size and scale.
P s I, which is the global health organization behind Matter.
Collective operates in about forty six countries. We have five
thousand employees across the world old about nine percent of
whom are local to the countries and regents where we work.
And as I mentioned earlier, we're fifty years old. So
we're an organization that is deeply locally rooted. And locally

(08:11):
lad but globally connected. And I would say the state
of women and girls health right now is is, you know,
continues to be pretty dire. And I hate to be
kind of one to you know, drown ourselves in the negativity,
but I think it's important to acknowledge that. You know,
the Global Goals Report came out just a few weeks

(08:35):
ago saying that without investment, gender equality will take nearly
three hundred years to achieve. And we really believe that
without health equity, we're never going to achieve gender equity.
Right now, there's still over two hundred million women around
the world that go without modern contraception that they want.
Right There's eight hundred and ten women that die every

(08:58):
day due to complex patitions of pregnancy and childbirth. So
these are things that we have answers to, we have
solutions to you. We have modern contraception, we have all
of the you know kind of knowledge that we need
to have strong maternal healthcare, and we know that we're
failing women and girls all over the world, including in
this country. Of course, more than six of women did

(09:21):
not get tested for any of the most dangerous diseases
in the past twelve months and more women die from
cervical cancer than childbirth in the global South, and that's
really because there's still a severe lack of access to
healthcare and a lot of stigma, a lot of barriers
put up, particularly against women and girls access in that

(09:43):
healthcare and being able to make choices for their own bodies,
in their own lives. You know, we're we're very kind
of steeped in it in the reproductive health and right
space right now, particularly here in the US, which which
reverberates globally um and that translates to a lot of
other health issues as well beyond reproductive health, where women
are women and girls particularly lack the ability to kind

(10:07):
of take their health into their own hands. You know.
The plus side of this, of course, is that we
have incredible ingenuity and creativity that come out, particularly in
times of crisis and constraints. We have a lot of
known solutions out there. We do actually know how to
provide better access to healthcare. And I think now, particularly

(10:27):
from the seat that I sit in and in working
with individual philanthropists and particularly women philanthropists that are that
are bold and curious and willing to go where others won't,
we have a huge appetite and a lot of momentum
around using philanthropy to really catalyze the type of systemic
change that we need in order to break down those

(10:48):
barriers to health and to gender equity. Um, how Maverick
Collective has always operated is is this idea, as I
just said, of going where other funders won't and use
in philanthropy as a vehicle to test new innovations, new technologies,
new approaches and ways of working in order to move

(11:09):
the needle and to accelerate rapid innovation in healthcare. You know,
for instance, we have Maverick members that are helping p. S.
I introduce new contraceptive technologies in different markets. You know,
one of our members funded a piece of work that
allowed us to test whether women can self inject contraception

(11:31):
in Mozambique. This is a technology we don't have here
in the US, but it's becoming more popular across the
global South, trying to kind of leap fraud or bypass
the major roadblocks in the healthcare system. You know, taking
it's very hard for women to be able to get
to clinics to get their prescribed contraception. This self inject

(11:52):
contraceptive is something that a woman could pick up in
her local pharmacy, take home and inject in the privacy
of her home. We were able to use Maverick money
to test the kind of desire and uptake of this
contraceptive technology in Mozambique, to also prove to the government
that women could in fact self inject safely at home.

(12:14):
Of course, um, women you know aren't always trusted to
do such things, and of course the data showed of
course they can um And within five years of this
Maverick investment, we have been able to demonstrate that there
was a real desire and a real demand for this
new type of contraception and also show the government that
that they could actually um allow women to access it

(12:37):
in pharmacies. And after five years policy was changed and
now women are able to access self inject contraception across
the country. So we see some really important uses of
Maverick money not only to help ps I try new things,
but really to change policy engage systems in the countries
where we were. Yeah, that's an excellent example of not
just direct funding one project, but really being able to

(13:01):
go well beyond that by affecting policy changes that then
make it enormously sustainable for larger numbers of people. Seneca
has one hundred women to hear. Will be back after
the short break, you know, Alex, I'm wondering um. Rena

(13:30):
mentioned the fact that the Collective works with other female
philanthropists and you are clearly one of them, and I
wondered what projects you you have been perhaps closely involved
in in terms of the funding, that have been particularly
significant for you. Yeah. So I've invested with the Collective

(13:52):
for many years now. I was pretty early on in
it in its inception as well, and so I've invested
in three ways and in three programs. So the first
program that I invested with is called Maverick Venture and
if you're familiar with finance, sort of a venture capitalist
approach to investing in philanthropy. UM, it's UM larger investment

(14:16):
in size, it's a few years, but as Rina mentioned,
it's really catalytic and change. And so I focused on
women's health. In Uganda. Many women still die um within
during childbirth or within weeks of childbirth, and we, similar
to the example that Rena had mentioned, not only funded

(14:39):
UM clean birth kits that saved women's lives, but this
was ultimately adopted into policy change, and UM there was
additional funding that's that was provided. Uh. That sort of
led me to help discuss with Rena the founding of
another program I invested in called Maverick Next, and that

(15:01):
was a cohort model, So that was bringing on young
women who not only wanted to invest in this innovation,
but wanted to invest in deep systemic change. And so
for my project with Maverick Next, that was also related
to sexual and reproductive health and that was in Ethiopia
and my project there was related to contraception. I think

(15:25):
what was really great about this experience was that it
led me to want to invest in Mavericks third program
because you know, with that we also again are focused
on scaling up the project. I think from the two
UM women that were initially impacted in the cavell that
we had focused on. Now the goal is to reach

(15:49):
half a million girls with contraception in Ethiopia and some
surrounding countries. What was so apparent about that was sitting
down on with this young girl and putting her at
the center of you know, impact, in the center of
you know, we're really here to support her. And so
Maverick has a new um, has a new program called

(16:12):
Portfolio that is really putting women and girls at the
forefront of the decision making, and all of the initiatives
and all of the partnerships are really going to be grassroots,
and they are going to come from in country and
come from the women and girls who are directly impacted
by these health initiatives. That's terrific. I can just hear

(16:36):
how enthusiastic you are as an investor in these programs
over the fact that they make a difference in Rena,
telling us as well about the significant impacts that the
programs have had. I know that the Maverick Collective has
been involved, uh significantly in helping with the evacuation of

(16:59):
Afghan women and human rights defenders women leaders when the
Taliban took over. Can either of you talk about that? So?
I think I can touch upon that quickly in that
I think what's really incredible about the Maverick Collective is
the trust that we have placed both in p s
I and in the community as a whole. We are

(17:22):
really friends and family. As Maverick Collective members, we not
only have personal relationships and now professionals, some of us
invest in venture capital together. But one of our members,
Amy dorn Bush, came to the community and in partnership
with Vital Voices and discussed what funding was needed. And

(17:43):
none of us had really batten eye. And I think
within forty eight hours as a community, we had mobilized
a few million dollars and this was not something that
we needed to vet. We needed to, you know, get
the analytics behind or the number or as we we
know our community, we know our members and there are
such trust and trust based philanthropy that has been built

(18:07):
that I think that's just one example of why our
community is so special, um, and the impact that we
can really have, Well, that's terrific. In and you've just
described yet another dimension of the collective and how you
work together. Rena. You're the managing director of the collective,
and I wonder how you got involved. Alex has told

(18:30):
us about her engagement. What have you learned from coming
into the collective and being in the position you're in? Oh? Sure,
I mean this has absolutely been a dream job for me. Um,
It's it's really one of the most Uh. I feel
like I have the best job in the world, you know,
I was I was born into a family of what
I call high achieving do gooders. So my grandfather rose

(18:54):
up from working the auto factory floor to becoming the
vice president of the United Auto Workers Union at a
time when labor leaders like him kind of moved in
sync with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. Caesar Chavez. UM.
This is kind of my d n A. My father
is a prison health expert UM who fights for inmates
rights to healthcare, and my mother founded and ran one

(19:16):
of the largest nonprofit health plans in New York City.
So public health was always really close to me and
my heart and my family and just doing purpose driven work.
I cut my teeth in global health really early on.
As a college student. I studied abroad in Cape Town,
South Africa. And in addition to you know, traveling around

(19:36):
that beautiful country and um, you know, pretending to know
how to serve, which I never really learned, I also
was volunteering in a township with HIV positive um families
and communities. It was at a time when anti retroviral
treatment was not available to people in South Africa, so
there were protests and marches in the street almost every day.

(19:58):
I got very involved with the Student Action Campaign and
just really kind of found my inner activist and became
pretty obsessed with UM working on the global HIV epidemic
and then later particularly with adolescents and young people. So
I spent about fifteen years at my career focused on
the needs of adolescence and youth UM around their sexual

(20:21):
and reproductive health, HIV prevention and treatment. I founded programs
in the US working with teens and young adults and
made my way to p s I about ten years
ago as our global Youth and Girls advisor, And it
was right around that time that Maverick Collective was was
getting started, and I worked hand in hand with a
lot of our founding Maverick members who were funding the

(20:42):
youth and girls work of p s I, and I
kind of fell into being almost like a m a
liaison to them, you know, kind of helping helping them
navigate the global Youth and Girls space, spending time with
them in country and in conferences as they were getting
smart on the issues and going deep on their own

(21:03):
learning journey. I even got to live in me and
mar for several months starting up a Maverick project, so
it was pretty close to the community from the get
go um and then moved over to found start up
Maverick Next along with Alex um And and then take
over the collective a couple of years ago when my
predecessor left. And it's just been this amazing way for

(21:26):
me to combine my deep passion for designing with and
and and really kind of learning directly from communities about
what they desire, what delights them, what what is important
to them when it comes to their ability to thrive,
and being able to co design with them the programs

(21:47):
that are going to really um really helped them see
success in the world. And being able to then bringing
bring donors into that space. Uh, and watch the magic
that happens when our Maverick members really get to stick
right there proximate, you know, in the room with the
women and girls that they're supporting the way that Alex

(22:09):
talked about, you know, her moment of meeting a young
married girl in Ethiopia, it's really one of the biggest
pleasures of my life. Well, I can hear that your
enthusiasm and commitment and experience certainly come through. We're quickly
running out of time, but I want to ask both
of you, as you've given us this wonderful introduction to

(22:30):
the work of the collective, and perhaps even more importantly,
caring about the impact and the change that is created
from that kind of work. Given that, what makes you optimistic?
I mean, obviously, Rena, you talked earlier about the dire
situation of women's health around the world, and it is that.

(22:52):
But yet you are making such a difference collectively through
the collective and what you're doing individually. So what gives
you hope in these times? I think if you can
UM do something or make a difference in one person's life,
that can have such a cascading and crucial and important impact.

(23:18):
I you know, as I mentioned, sitting across from a
young woman who is sixteen and married and has the
pressure of UM pressure coming from family, and and you know,
whereas I have a choice, I think is UM motivates
me every single day. I think that also UM, you know,

(23:42):
just growing up that is part of our values. I
was raised as UM an equal. My father, my mother,
my family. They always had treated me with equity, and
so I feel as though I have a responsibility UM
to support in any way that I can to help

(24:06):
uplift UM those that are in poverty, or do not
have the same opportunities or access to health care. What
really gives me hope is being able to sit at
this kind of nexus where I sit at p s I,
where I get to spend my days listening directly to

(24:28):
leaders on the ground, proximate leaders, feminist leaders, community leaders,
hearing from them directly what they want for the world,
what they want for their own lives, what they think
the solutions are, uh kind of solving and dismantling these
really deep seated systemic problems. And then being able to

(24:48):
go and sit in rooms with a community of you know,
bold spirited, curious women who have a lot of resources
and a lot of passion and a willingness to listen,
and bringing those worlds together, and and being able to
ensure that we can resource not only be creative in

(25:09):
genuine ideas, but ideas that are driven by the people
who are experiencing the problems the most. And so what
gives me hope is that we have an opportunity to
redefine the way global health is done, to redefine the
way philanthropy is done, and mad reflective is doing that
even in just our tiny slice of the world. And
if there's any type of you know, if we can

(25:30):
share anything that impacts and inspires others to act more boldly,
to listen to communities, to give more flexibly, to take
on a more feminist approach to the way that they
mobilize their resources. I think that we have made a
real impact. Well, certainly, the Maverick Collective provides so much

(25:50):
hope two women around the globe, and for that we
should all be grateful and grateful to you, Rena grund
Finger and to you Alex I'd for the work that
you do with the collective and making so much possible.
Thank you both so much, Thank you, thank you. That's

(26:12):
a refreshingly different and effective approach to improving women's health
around the world. Here are three things I took from
that conversation. First, as Rena says, women won't have gender
equity until we have health equity, and we know how
to create health equity through testing, access to healthcare and

(26:35):
other strategies that Maverick supports. Second, it's wonderful to know
that women increasingly have the means and the ability to
put their money where it will make a real difference
in a way that makes sense to them and to
the women they support. And finally, the women of Maverick

(26:57):
Collective are creating a model of ailanthropy that goes beyond
check writing. As Alex says, this means that donors engage
deeply in the work the organization does and learn from
in person visits about the women and girls they are impacting.
Tune in next time to learn about our next featured

(27:20):
woman and learn why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear.
Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
support from founding partner Pung. Have a Great Day,