A Joyful Collaboration
One of the most exciting projects we have accomplished at Forai this year was doing a collaboration with the Iowa non-profit Argrow's House for Mother's Day. This collaboration grew out of a friendship between our founder and executive director, Jennifer Owens, and their founder and director, Dr. Kit Evans-Ford. Both organizations had been chosen by Invested Faith as fellows and grant-recipients for 2024, and Jennifer and Dr. Kit met at Invested Faith's conference in January of this year.
The two founders discovered the common missions and visions of their organizations--both designed to meet women who come from difficult circumstances and provide support and hope in the form of fair wage employment opportunities. While Forai's mission is empowering re-settled refugee women, Argrow's House targets women who are survivors of violence.
Through that chance meeting arose the idea of doing a collaborative Mother's Day gift box, featuring products from both organizations. There seemed no more fitting way to honor mothers than by working together to empower the many moms both organizations work with!
The collaboration gave us a great opportunity to get to know Dr. Kit and others from their organization, to learn about the work they are doing and implement one another's ideas. I (Marianne) had several great conversations with Heather Tewkesbury, Argrow's House director of social media, and through this learned how to host my first Instagram Live as well as doing a "social media takeover."
The best part was seeing Forai's supporters get excited about Argrow's House, and vice versa! And we hope that their customers enjoyed the Rana Pearl Threader Earrings included in their gift boxes as much as our customers enjoyed the yummy scent of Argrow's Honey Almond Soap.
The collaboration was such a success that Invested Faith highlighted it on their own blog as an example of great things happening in their organization's work!
All this has given us at Forai an excitement about the possibilities that can come from collaborating with other organizations in the future to further multiply the impact of incredible organizations and their important work.