Read the original article on New York Times “Women in the World” here.

Duo behind Women You Should Know parlays that success into crowdfunding platform

Cynthia Hornig and Jen Jones are the enterprising founders of Women You Should Know, a popular website that puts a spotlight on extraordinary women from all walks of life and tells their stories. The site launched six years ago and really hasn’t looked back. In fact, Hornig and Jones looked right ahead to how they could extend the brand and do something that would proactively benefit women. The sister project they launched earlier this year aims to nurture and help raise capital for underserved women innovators. It’s called Women You Should Fund.

“Every day, through our work, we see and cover the incredible things that happen when women-led invention meets the mighty dollar,” Hornig said in a statement provided to Women in the World. “But what we hear over and over is that there never seem to be enough dollars to go around when it comes to helping women get their products, projects, and business ventures off the ground. So we decided to do something about it because now, more than ever, our country is desperate for a more dynamic and diverse ecosystem of women entrepreneurs and leaders.”

With an already established platform that has an audience built in — Women You Should Know pulls in about half a million unique visitors each month, according to a report by Forbes — this next step made sense for the duo. “Most crowdfunding starts and stops with a campaign creator’s personal network or social circle,” Jones said in the statement. And already, at least one filmmaker has used the new platform to crowdsource funding for her latest project. Leah Warshawski said she liked the entire atmosphere Hornig’s and Jones’ budding media conglomerate brought to the table, and she successfully used the new platform to fund her documentary Big Sonia, which centers on a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor. “Personal relationships mean everything to us and the WYSF crew truly makes us feel like a collaborator versus a client,” Warshawski said about her experience with Women You Should Fund.

Read the full story at Forbes.