About the Program
The Women’s Opportunity Awards program, Soroptimist’s major service project, aids women seeking to improve their economic status by gaining additional skills, training and education. The program helps women who, as the primary wage earners for their families, must improve their employment status by entering or returning to the work force.

Women’s Opportunity Awards applicants have faced severe hardships that have prevented them from pursuing and achieving their educational and professional goals. Most are single mothers and/or reliant on public assistance as their source of income. Many are domestic abuse survivors. The Women’s Opportunity Awards helps these women rebuild their lives through improved employment opportunities.

This unique program supplies women with the resources they need to get ahead. Recipients may use the cash awards to offset any costs associated with their efforts to attain higher education, including tuition, books, supplies, childcare and car are. Each year, more than $1 million is awarded through the Women’s Opportunity Awards program.

Program Structure
The program begins on the club level, where award amounts vary. Club-level recipients become eligible for additional awards at other levels of the organization. In addition, Soroptimist grants three $10,000 finalist awards each year. Since the program’s inception, Soroptimist has funded almost $5.5 million in Women’s Opportunity Awards and assisted about 1,640 women. In total (including local club activity), approximately $15 million in Women’s Opportunity Awards has been disbursed to about 25,000 women since the program began in 1972.

How to Apply
Awards are first granted at the club level. To find out more information email the . Be sure to include the area you live so she can put you in contact with local clubs.