The “why” behind Zorya Foundation.
Women are the backbone of the healthcare workforce. Yet high childcare costs, unpaid maternity leave, low leadership representation, discrimination, and other challenges often create barriers for women that result in career burnout and attrition.
Despite making up nearly 80% of the workforce, women continue to struggle in an industry built without consideration of their needs. The Zorya Foundation was created to give back to women working in healthcare—creating and supporting opportunities for women, and their families, to work and thrive in healthcare.
What’s in a name?
Our foundation was named after Zorya, goddess of the dawn. What does dawn have to do with helping women in healthcare?
When Zorya Foundation’s founder was raising her young children and working in a role that required her to commute across the country, she’d lay awake at 3am like so many working mothers, listing all of the problems she’d need to manage in her head. But she knew that no matter how big the problem was, or how hopeless things seemed, that she could face it when the sun came up, at dawn.
We want Zorya Foundation to be the light at dawn for women in healthcare—something that keeps them going, despite adversity.
How we help.
Zorya Foundation is the parent non-profit of several funds dedicated to supporting women in healthcare. We practice trust philanthropy. Our funds are driven by direct action.
Our flagship fund, the Mothers in Medicine Fund, provides flat cash grants to clinician mothers to help them pay for childcare.
Our Zorya Support Fund offers cash grants to any woman working in the broad healthcare industry to help her thrive.
Our Zorya Opportunities Fund teams with other non-profits, associations and educational institutions to foster the next generation of women leaders in our industry.