In January 2024, New York City made a bold commitment: invest $43 million in gender equity with the goal of becoming “the most women-forward city in the United States.” Now, two years of data reveal what that investment has accomplished—and where the work is heading in 2026.
According to the city’s own reporting, all 43 commitments in the Women Forward NYC action plan were either launched or completed in the first year, serving over 300,000 New Yorkers. In 2025, the city expanded the initiative with an additional $19 million and 30 new safety-focused programs.
But beneath the impressive numbers lies a more complex story about what works in addressing persistent gender disparities—and what community organizations say still needs to change.
The Economic Reality Driving These Programs
The need for Women Forward NYC is grounded in stark economic data. Women in New York State earn 86 cents for every dollar a man makes. For Black women, that drops to 64 cents. For Hispanic women, it’s 57 cents.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, almost 250,000 mothers in NYC left or downshifted their jobs due to lack of access to quality childcare—a crisis that accelerated existing career advancement disparities for women. Meanwhile, 75% of women in NYC reported being harassed during their daily commutes, according to 2018 data.
These aren’t abstract statistics. They represent real barriers to women’s economic mobility, health and safety, and ability to thrive in one of the nation’s most expensive cities.
What’s Actually Happening on the Ground
The Women Forward NYC action plan focuses on three key areas: economic mobility, health and wellness, and safety. Here’s what the first year accomplished:
Career and Economic Programs: The Women.NYC Network, launched in April 2023, reached over 80,000 women in its first year and directly served over 1,800 participants. According to the program’s impact report, 65% of participants were BIPOC women, and 66% of jobseekers in the program reported career changes.
The city also launched Pivot to Growth, a cohort program specifically designed to help women of color transition into high-growth industries like technology, green economy, and life sciences—sectors where women remain significantly underrepresented but that offer family-sustaining wages.
Entrepreneurship Support: The city expanded NYCHA’s Childcare Business Pathways Program and Food Business Pathways Program, creating entrepreneurship opportunities for public housing residents. More than 1,000 women received support in growing their own businesses through various city programs.
A new initiative, Scale Ready Studio, offers a 12-week business growth program for women tech founders—critical support given that only 1.7% of women-owned businesses grow beyond $1 million in revenue, while nearly 90% earn less than $100,000 annually.
Health Access: The Abortion Access Hub expanded its reach, helping to provide information and access to abortion services to more than 9,000 individuals since its fall 2022 launch. The city invested $8 million to open a substance use disorder clinic for families at NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln and expanded access to menstrual products in school buildings serving students in grades 4-12.
Safety Initiatives: The city launched NYC Her Future, a new office focused on young women and girls in communities of color. The JustUs program, which supports lesbian, gay, and bisexual girls and transgender or gender non-conforming youth at high risk of criminal justice involvement, is expanding from its original location to Queens and the Bronx.
The Community Organizations Doing the Work
While city programs provide crucial infrastructure, community-based organizations are often the ones delivering direct services and building trusted relationships with the women they serve.
The New York Women’s Foundation, operating since 1987, has invested $133 million across 500 partner organizations working on job training, housing access, abortion care, and safety. Their 2025 investments continue expanding access to care and opening opportunities in underserved communities.
Women Creating Change runs the PowerUp Civic Leadership Initiative, which launched in 2024 to train emerging civic leaders. Their cohort programs bring NYC women together to understand government systems, build advocacy skills, and create action plans around issues like economic justice, environmental justice, and education equity.
Participants in their July 2025 cohort reported that the workshops helped them “find a community of advocators” and provided “significant knowledge, tools, encouraging real life stories, and empowerment.”
New Women New Yorkers has served more than 2,000 immigrant women through workforce development, community programs, and storytelling initiatives. Their LEAD job readiness program equips intermediate English learners with knowledge and skills for the U.S. job market, while newer programs focus on high-growth industries like clean energy and tech.
The Women’s Empowerment Coalition of NYC (WECNYC) serves over 10,000 people annually through ESL courses (with 120 currently enrolled), biweekly food pantries, women’s leadership programs, support for domestic violence survivors, and job training. During the pandemic, when many organizations shuttered, WECNYC stayed open and pivoted to emergency food distribution.
“The most rewarding part of my work is seeing the women that we’ve helped grow and become the change that they want to see,” says WECNYC founder Somia El-Rowmeim, herself an immigrant from Yemen who started from scratch when she arrived in NYC in 2007.
What the 2025 Expansion Addressed
Building on the first year, the 2025 expansion added $19 million focused specifically on safety—a direct response to community needs identified at a Mayoral Summit on Women’s Safety held in January 2025.
The summit brought together almost 100 social service providers and government representatives for discussions on improving safety and reducing violence for women, girls, transgender, and gender-expansive New Yorkers. Key themes emerged around community safety, domestic safety, housing stability, health and medical safety, and financial empowerment.
Initiatives launched in 2025 included:
Community Safety: Grants to LGBTQ+/TGNC community organizations to implement anti-violence projects, family-friendly design guidelines for capital projects, and expansion of NYPD’s Girls Talk supportive network through increased citywide events.
Domestic Safety: High Risk Teams to support those at high risk for domestic violence homicide and the Respect First program to intervene with young people who have used violence in dating or family relationships.
Housing Stability: Expanded housing navigator services for domestic violence survivors in the shelter system and increased capacity for the Home+ program to keep survivors safe in their homes.
Health and Medical Safety: Enhanced hospital-based responses to gender-based violence and expansion of the domestic and gender-based violence hotline to include text and chat capacity.
Financial Empowerment: Partnerships with banks and financial education entities to support older women in combating financial abuse, and relaunched family literacy programs in Family Justice Centers.
The Entrepreneurship Gap NYC Is Trying to Close
While NYC has the highest global share of venture-backed companies with at least one female founder at 18%, the reality for most women entrepreneurs is far different. According to NYCEDC’s November 2025 report, 57% of women in NYC are working or actively looking for work—up four percentage points from 2019 and reaching an all-time high of 2.15 million women in the workforce.
But women entrepreneurs still face significant barriers. The Scale Ready Studio program, developed in partnership with GetSh!tDone, addresses the reality that market conditions have changed dramatically. “We’re not going back to the days where success is how much money you raise,” says founder Alex Batdorf. “To future-proof your businesses, founders must build sustainable, people and profit-first models that can scale no matter the market conditions.”
This focus on sustainable business growth rather than just venture capital fundraising reflects a shift in how programs support women building businesses that create wealth for themselves, their families, and their communities.
What the Numbers Don’t Capture
While Women Forward NYC’s first-year metrics are impressive—300,000 New Yorkers served, all 43 commitments launched or completed—community advocates point out that numbers alone don’t tell the full story.
The National Organization for Women – NYC chapter continues advocating for systemic changes beyond programs: strengthening laws, ensuring fair wages and safe working conditions, amplifying women’s voices in politics, and transforming culture around gender-based violence.
“We’re empowering you to be the truth tellers, the rule makers, and the rally voices,” their materials state. “We can’t do this alone, and neither should you.”
The persistent pay gaps—especially for Black and Hispanic women—suggest that while programs can provide crucial support, broader structural changes are needed to achieve real economic parity.
How to Access These Resources
New Yorkers can access Women Forward NYC resources through the relaunched women.nyc website, which serves as a one-stop shop for city services supporting women and families.
Specific programs include:
- One-on-one career advising: 30-minute virtual sessions with Women.NYC advisors to build skills in high-growth sectors
- Networking groups: Intimate “power circles” offering mentorship and industry insights
- Industry events: Panel discussions, site visits, and office hours with sector leaders
- Bridge programs: Career pathway programs for women looking to transition into emerging industries
- Entrepreneurship support: Business growth programs for women founders
Community organizations like Women Creating Change, New Women New Yorkers, and WECNYC offer additional pathways to support, particularly for immigrant women, women of color, and those seeking community-based programs with cultural competency.
What Comes Next in 2026
As the initiative enters its third year in 2026, Women Forward NYC has set ambitious goals for 2030: close the gender pay gap for the same work, close the female labor force participation gap, achieve gender parity in the top 40 highest-paying occupations, and drive to parity in business ownership gender representation.
Reaching those goals will require sustained investment, continued partnership between city government and community organizations, and addressing root causes of inequality beyond what any single program can accomplish. The programs launched in 2024 and expanded in 2025 provide a foundation, but advocates emphasize that systemic change requires ongoing commitment.
As NYC City Council Member Farah N. Louis, Chair of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity, noted about the Women.NYC Network: “This initiative has proven to be a transformative force in connecting women with opportunities in high-growth industries, and I look forward to seeing how Women.NYC will further expand access, diversify opportunities, and empower women across all boroughs to thrive in the future workforce.”
Two years into this ambitious initiative, the combination of city programs and community organizations offers NYC women tangible resources for career advancement, entrepreneurship support, safety services, and health access. As 2026 begins, the question becomes whether these programs can scale and evolve to meet the 2030 goals while addressing the persistent structural inequalities that programs alone cannot solve.
Interested in accessing Women Forward NYC programs? Visit women.nyc to learn more. Looking for community-based support? Explore organizations like Women Creating Change, The New York Women’s Foundation, and New Women New Yorkers. Read more about career development, financial empowerment, and community resources for NYC women.
