Today is International Women's Day--as Google (GOOG) notes by placing a colorful graphic, honoring women, above the search box on its homepage.
If you click on that graphic, you'll arrive at a page that lists a multitude of ways to help women around the world. Google lists 44 organizations--such as Women for Women International and Vital Voices and Camfed--that deploy your donations to empower women.
Click on the link for Camfed, a not-for-profit that funds women's education, and you'll see a video of an amazing young Zambian woman named Penelope Machipi. Orphaned at 12, Penelope had to drop out of school to help raise her siblings. Then, with the help of a Camfed scholarship, Penelope graduated high school. And with the support of Goldman Sachs (GS), she completed the firm's 10,000 Women program. Today, Penelope manages a technology training center in rural Zambia.
We got to know Penelope because we honored her with the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Award at the 2009 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Penelope has since used her award money to work with other rural women filmmakers to produce a 20-minute documentary called Hidden Truth. The film, which tackles the harrowing subject of domestic violence, is now making its way to film festivals and women's events from San Francisco to London and back to, Penelope hopes, the Zambian Parliament. She's lobbying for the passage of laws against domestic violence in her home country.
You can see an excerpt from Hidden Truth here. The film, as well as Penelope's story, goes to show that empowering one woman can empower many more.
by Patricia Sellers
So, retail sales are up. Unemployment is down. And the Dow is near 11,000.
That doesn't mean that all is right with the world.
So says Meredith Whitney.
The analyst who brought down the bank stocks in 2007--by shining the light on their capital shortfalls--came by Fortune's offices Wednesday afternoon to explain why she's still a bear. I asked her: Will unemployment, now at 9.7%, likely go back up? "I think MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 8, 2010 2:46 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
John Mack interviewed Hank Paulson at New York University's Stern School last evening. The Morgan Stanley (MS) chairman, who recently turned over the CEO reins, told me that he wanted to push some emotional buttons in the former U.S. Treasury Secretary and onetime CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS).
And he did. The two talked about the hairiest, scariest moments of the global financial crisis. Mack credited Paulson with keeping MORE
Patricia Sellers - Mar 4, 2010 11:51 AM ET
I delved into On the Brink last evening. That's the new memoir by Hank Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary, about trying to save the world--or at least the global financial system--when Bear Stearns (JPM) and Lehman Brothers (BCS) and AIG (AIG) were collapsing around him.
The hell, the fear, the physical illness he felt are long past. When I spoke with Paulson on Friday, he seemed mightily relieved about that--and that MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 2, 2010 2:00 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Lloyd Blankfein hasn't loved buddying up to Washington this past year. After accepting--and repaying--$10 billion in TARP funds to help rescue the global financial system, the Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO has had to raise his presence in D.C., as well as in the press, to defend the firm's record profits and opulent pay. "We went from a bankrupt model to 'too big to fail,'" said Blankfein, referring to MORE
Patricia Sellers - Oct 16, 2009 1:13 PM ET
Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein was one of the few men in attendance Monday night for the opening of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. He had a special role to play: Presenting $25,000 to each of the two recipients of this year's Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Award.
The award recognizes women from developing countries for making a difference in their own communities, using the skills, knowledge and experience MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Sep 18, 2009 4:08 PM ET
"I saw it as gonzo, over-the-top writing that some people might find fun to read. I was shocked that others saw it as being supporting evidence that Goldman Sachs had burned down the Reichstag, shot the Archduke Ferdinand and fired on Fort Sumter."
- Goldman Sachs (GS) chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein in "The Rage Over Goldman Sachs" in this week's Time magazine. Blankfein is talking about last month's damning story MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 24, 2009 7:28 PM ET
Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS), phoned from Madrid a few weeks ago to share "The Best Advice I Ever Got." This is the cover package in the current issue of Fortune. And you can read wisdom from Blankfein and lots of other power players --Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt--in the issue and online.
Beyond Blankfein's "Best Advice" that appears in the issue, he told MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jul 1, 2009 12:11 PM ET
"Betting on the Future." That's the 2009 theme of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, who convened in New York City last evening for a mega-celebration and some very smart conversation. I'm not sure I belong on stage with three superstars under 40: Bank analyst Meredith Whitney, Google's (GOOG) Marissa Mayer, and Goldman Sachs' (GS) Dina Powell. But there I was (at age 49), talking with them them about how they've navigated MORE
Patricia Sellers - May 22, 2009 5:30 PM ET
Goldman Sachs' (GS) top women execs hosted a breakfast this morning for the 32 mentees who are participating in this year's Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Dina Powell, Goldman's managing director who heads corporate outreach, was front and center -- appropriately since this mentoring program was her idea. Back in 2005, when she was an assistant Secretary of State working for Condoleezza Rice, she and I hatched MORE
Patricia Sellers - May 20, 2009 12:42 PM ET
For the latest on the most influential women in business, philanthropy, government, and the arts, like us on Facebook. 
In a funny and candid interview, Google VP Marissa Mayer explains how she got to the top. Watch
Xerox CEO Ursula Burns shares how she once accepted a job with Dell but ended up staying with Xerox. Watch
Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
