Fearless 4.7.25

Good morning, Fearless readers:

Have you registered for our first Fearless Focus event of the year? You can learn more about our speakers in today's newsletter.

In this week’s Fearless e-newsletter, you will find:

A story about the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs.
An essay from Mollie Giller about the link between financial stability and mental health.
In the headlines: Ellipsis announced Kelly Hannan as its new CEO.
In case you missed it: A pilot project will bring "community navigators" to Iowans at food banks and nonprofits.
Lots more!

— Macey Shofroth, Fearless editor

Event details:
Thursday, April 17 | Noon to 1 p.m. | Virtual | Register for free

The 2024 Wells Fargo Impact of Women-Owned Businesses Report showed that women-owned businesses employ almost 12.2 million people and that the number of women-owned businesses between 2019 and 2023 increased at nearly double the rate of those owned by men.

But several obstacles still disproportionately affect women business owners, including lack of access to capital, child care challenges and mentoring opportunities.

In our first Fearless Focus virtual event of 2025, we’ll talk with four female business owners about their journeys starting their businesses and the struggles they’ve experienced along the way.

Registration is free. We hope you join us and encourage others to do the same. These Fearless Focus events allow us to highlight amazing women working across the state of Iowa and fulfill our main goal: to empower Iowa women to succeed in work and life.

Meet our speakers
Ahead of the event, we asked each speaker to tell us about one challenge they’ve faced as a business owner that they think should be addressed. Here’s what they said:

Alyx Coble-Frakes, CEO, The Agenda Period
One challenge I’ve faced as a business owner is securing funding for a product that serves a historically overlooked market — women’s hormonal health. Despite the overwhelming need and demand, many investors hesitate to back solutions in this space because they don’t fully understand the problem or see it as a niche rather than a fundamental health issue.

To bridge this gap, I’ve had to refine my storytelling, back every insight with data and educate potential partners on the business opportunity within women’s health. Access to capital shouldn’t depend on familiarity — solutions that serve half the population deserve investment. This is a challenge many founders in underserved markets face, and it’s one that needs to be addressed.

Alicia Jaime, co-owner and president, International Veterinary Supplies
My biggest challenge was related to competing with big corporations that can offer different types of things that a small business cannot. From hiring and giving good benefits to new employees to having a good presence in the market, or getting good spots at trade shows that are not going to be close to the bathrooms or the end of the hall where nobody is walking. It was very frustrating until you understood that you can offer something that big corporations cannot: special and personalized customer service, and a good and personalized environment at the office where people can feel themselves as "people" instead of a number. These are advantages that small businesses have, and many times we forget there are other ways to compete in the market.

Gabriella Torres, Clinton-based artist and consultant
A challenge I’ve faced as a business owner, particularly as a solopreneur, is navigating how to build capacity as a one-woman show. It can feel like an uncrossable chasm, where you’ve reached a noticeable level of growth yet need to invest in the business to continue growing, but may not yet have the capital to invest in that leap; not to mention the time to acquire needed capital to hire someone and then train the person to get them up to speed on a train that’s moving a million miles an hour. How do we make this transition attainable and more easily navigated? How do we achieve sustainability and growth without burning out?

LaDrina Wilson, founder and CEO, Iman Consulting
The challenges I have faced as a business owner are often psychological. I’ve struggled with calculating when to outsource. The feeling that you have to work hard and have your hands in all aspects of the business is challenging to let go of as you continue to grow. I struggled to balance the need to work on the business versus in the business.

I’ve struggled with when to hire new employees and how to maintain a culture of connection, trust and family in a hybrid business environment.

Recently, I’ve struggled with the impact of executive orders and how they change the landscape of how some organizations prioritize professional development due to planned or proposed budget cuts.

Sometimes you learn about compounding interest in the hardest of ways. Despite having a pretty good understanding of my personal finances and how to manage them (or so I thought), at the end of 2019 I found myself underwater in credit card debt, feeling like Sisyphus every time my bill came at the beginning of the month. How did that happen?!

Well, I had an old car, an old house and an old dog, for starters.

I didn’t live extravagantly, but I was working in the nonprofit sector making not much more at 34 than I did at 24. My dog needed expensive medicines, my car and house always had something break (always at the same time, of course). This would happen one month, then the next month, then the next … compounded. Simply put, my monthly expenses grew and exceeded my fixed income.

As a single woman, it’s empowering to think about all I have accomplished on my own – homeownership being the pièce de résistance. But, it goes without saying, when you’re single, you’re on your own. There were many nights I would lie awake, my brain scrambling for ways to figure out what money I could pull from where to pay a bill, pleading to the universe not to throw me any unexpected expenses for the month. I was just grasping and desperate to regain financial footing when there wasn’t any obvious plan B or plan C. After a few attempts at Uber driving and realizing (1) how little money one makes when they’re at the bottom of the hierarchy, and (2) how unsafe that situation can quickly become, I just kept thinking and wracking my brain for other ideas to regain financial stability and health.

To say financial stress takes a toll on one’s mental health is an understatement. We know about the eight dimensions of wellness – financial being one. We know about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – that when you do not have the essential needs in your life taken care of, it is hard to thrive, find joy or just think beyond the immediate moment.

I’ve realized over time that very little else will have the level of negative impact on me as does financial instability. If you’ve experienced this before, it consumes your waking hours and then steals your dreams and sleep, too. For women in particular, I believe this is even more acute. If you’re single, there aren’t always people or things you can depend on for rainy days and pandemics. If you’re partnered up, it may be that you’re financially dependent on your partner, and we know that can create challenges if a relationship isn’t healthy or safe.

Then my story took a turn. Partly, I just got lucky. Early 2020 (I can say that time and you all know exactly where this is going …) brought the shuttering of hair salons, restaurants, travel, and most of us spent less money, which was helpful for me. The government stimulus checks were an unexpected gift that truly helped me get back into the black and out of the red. I found myself in a new job that, while it didn’t pay much more than the last, allowed me better work-life balance. I could breathe, stop and think, "How do I ensure that doesn’t happen again?"

The first change I made was the way I used my credit cards. The false sense of security with credit was shattered each month when the bill came. Paying for things in real time via cash, an app or a debit card has been a much healthier process for me to enact.

Second (again, I thank the universe), I was introduced to a financial adviser who changed my life. I always thought that people who already have a lot of money are the kind of people who have financial advisers. Wrong! My adviser started showing me where I did have assets, though they weren’t necessarily liquid. She taught me about cash flow (lesson three, there is a better way to live than paycheck-to-paycheck even if you’re not making much), home equity lines of credit, and most importantly, she opened my eyes to other revenue streams I could be working toward. I always thought a side hustle was something for people with a lot of creativity and skill, but there are many opportunities, especially now with websites like Upwork, Etsy and Fiverr, where you can open up clientele outside of Iowa and even the U.S. doing something you enjoy or can make marketable.

I started side hustling, with my adviser’s guidance every step of the way, and the work and clientele grew so much that I could no longer maintain my full-time job and hustle. It was one or the other. I considered the money I was making in my hustle off-limits for any spending and stuck it in a business account (another hack I’ve learned). I used that to pay for all the capital needs one incurs when starting a business and it became my rainy day fund. Just knowing it was there brought me so much peace of mind. And then my adviser worked with me in lockstep during the incredibly scary transition from full-time to self-employment. I could not have done this without her.

I have never, ever, ever desired self-employment, and leaving my job was the scariest thing I have ever done. It is also the best gift I have given myself – financial freedom. The sky is the limit, and as a female, that feels incredibly empowering. In my 10 years working in the local nonprofit sector, I never felt fairly compensated, particularly when I compared my salary and work quality (being in fundraising, it’s relatively objective) to those around me. I am now able to set my own terms for engagement, to take as much or little work as I desire, and I have the processes for managing those dollars responsibly. I can envision, finally, having the life I want and deserve.

This is not to say I am now stress-free. The tumult of this year has created a U-turn with all of the instability in nonprofit funding and the sector as a whole. It’s scary for all of us, whether you’re a consultant or a nonprofit staff member. But I tell myself frequently, "I’ve been here before. I can do this."
If I could go back in time and tell the Mollies of the past anything, it would be the following:

It is OK to ask for help (I still struggle with this).

Get a financial adviser yesterday!

Trust yourself. You work hard and you will be OK.

I would be remiss not to mention that I have a lot of emotional support around me, and that there are areas of my life that are innately privileged – not everyone has that. My journey may look different from someone else’s and I do consider my network of support to be instrumental in my career. But if I could impart one last thing, it would be that regardless of who you are or what your life looks like, as a woman you should have your own version of financial independence and well-being. Maybe that’s $10 that you put away for yourself each week, maybe that’s a side hustle, and maybe that’s something else entirely. Maybe you are on your own and struggling like I was to see a better path forward.

There are always plan B’s and C’s – it may just take someone you trust to help get you there.

Mollie Giller is the founder and principal of Giller Consulting Group, focused on supporting nonprofits, causes and individuals with fund and organizational development services. She holds a Master of Public Health degree and Bachelor of Arts degree in English, communication and international studies from the University of Iowa. Giller’s entrepreneurship journey began at nonprofits in Des Moines, working in fundraising, charitable investment, and program and community service delivery positions. Community, family, time spent outdoors and advocacy for social justice remain central to her work, her personal life and all of the spaces in between.

Ellipsis announces Kelly Hannan as new CEO. Des Moines-based nonprofit Ellipsis announced Kelly Hannan will serve as its next CEO, effective April 28. Hannan joins the organization, which provides social services for children and families in need, after her tenure as chief operating officer of the Iowa Primary Care Association. Hannan succeeds Chris Koepplin, who announced she would step down in February. Koepplin has been with the organization for 30 years and served as CEO for the past three. She will remain with Ellipsis through May 30 to support the transition.

Iowa Donor Network CEO to retire. Suzanne Conrad, CEO of the Iowa Donor Network, is retiring after nearly three decades of service. Conrad’s career began in 1981, when she served as a cardiothoracic surgery nurse at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn. There, she began her work in organ donation and transplantation as a coordinator. In 1985, she moved into leadership roles in Dallas at the Southwest Organ Bank, now known as the Southwest Transplant Alliance. In 1997, Conrad became CEO of the Iowa Donor Network, a statewide organ and tissue donor program. Under Conrad’s leadership, the organization quadrupled its staff size and expanded its scope to include services like tissue recovery. The Iowa Donor Network has not yet announced her replacement.

Advocates: Reynolds' child care bill could hurt other programs. Gov. Kim Reynolds has proposed a $16 million program that would provide funding for more full-time day care facilities for 4-year-olds. Her bill would use existing funding from the Early Childhood Iowa program, which helps families with kids prenatal to 5 years old. Advocates say this would hurt already existing programs that rely on ECI funding. "The governor is not wrong to want to increase money for child care — to see transportation as being a real barrier to accessing child care today. The solution is not to break something that's already working," Rob Barron, a board member for Polk County's ECI board, told Axios Des Moines.

'Birth centers could fill a gap': Midwives push for a bill to expand options for expecting mothers. A bill moving through the Iowa Legislature could make it easier to open birth centers in Iowa. Currently, no birth centers operate in Iowa, which midwives say is due to the state's certificate of need process. House File 887 would remove birth centers from the CON process, allowing them to open without having to pay the up to $21,000 required to request approval. Opening birth centers, which are staffed by midwives and provide maternal care for women with low-risk pregnancies, would provide more access to prenatal, birth and postnatal care for women across the state, according to an article from KCCI.

UI researchers file discrimination lawsuit, revealing similar legal battles at public universities (The Daily Iowan). Paid parental leave for state workers clears legislative hurdle, advances to Senate floor (Des Moines Register). What RFK Jr.’s plans for baby formula mean for parents (The 19th). Millions of women will lose access to contraception as a result of Trump aid cuts (New York Times). The unexpected art: How women in math combine calculation with creativity (Carnegie Mellon University). Rosie the Riveters honored for service in WWII (NPR).

A new pilot project stemming from the Central Iowa Food Security Plan will create three community navigator positions to link Iowans with food banks and other community services.

The pilot program was announced March 27 at an event providing updates on the communitywide food insecurity reduction plan, which was launched in February 2024 by United Way of Central Iowa and the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines. The plan called for a united, collaborative response that "aims to address food insecurity equitably, respectfully and with dignity."

The new community navigator positions will be contracted out by United Way. Luke Lynch, senior community engagement officer with United Way, said the pilot project will last two years, with community navigators working approximately 30 hours a week at food pantries and other community organizations.

"We’re hoping to learn together as a community, and then, based on that learning, determine the next steps," Lynch said.