Girls Opportunity Alliance (GOA)

Background

Girls Opportunity Alliance (GOA) is a feminist advocacy group founded and led by former First Lady Michelle Obama. Created in 2018, it supports funding organizations that promote female empowerment and education. As of 2025, Girls Opportunity Alliance was one of the two major fiscally sponsored projects of the Barack Obama Foundation, the other being My Brother’s Keeper Alliance. ^{4 5 3}

Activities

As of 2025, Girls Opportunity Alliance (GOA) claims to have supported over 205 projects of “grassroots” organizations across 46 countries over the course of its existence. ¹

In September 2025, former First Lady Michelle Obama announced that GOA would be donating roughly $500,000 to 11 Chicago-based feminist organizations including Girls Inc. of Chicago and Black Girls Jump. ²

In October 2025, Michelle Obama announced that GOA would be donating $2.5 million towards grassroots education programs for girls via donations to 54 organizations in over 28 countries. The supported organizations claimed the funds would be used to advocate for ending “child marriage,” “offering economic support,” and “creating safe spaces.”  Recipients included the Small World Nepal, the Young Strong Mothers Foundation of Tanzania, the Amani Initiative of Uganda, Generation Girl in Indonesia, Jharkhand Vikas Parishad (JVP) in India, Fundacion Ninas de Luz in Colombia, and Girls With Roots in Trinidad and Tobago. ^{6 7 1 5}

Financials

Girls Opportunity Alliance (GOA) is a fiscally sponsored project of the Barack Obama Foundation. ³ In 2024, the Obama Foundation reportedly spent $27.5 million on its programs, which included Girls Opportunity Alliance. ⁴

Funding

GoFundMe.org, the philanthropic arm of crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.com, has an official page for the Girls Opportunity Alliance (GOA). As of December 2025, the Fund had received $12.7 million out of its stated goal of $20 million. According to its 2024 tax filings, the Obama Foundation received $3.45 million from GoFundMe that year to support “grassroots leaders to empower girls through education.” ^{8 9 10}

Leadership

As of 2025, Valerie Jarrett was the CEO of the Barack Obama Foundation. At that time, Jarrett was a senior distinguished fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and the board chair of Civic Nation. She was Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017 and led a number of Obama administration initiatives. ¹¹

As of 2025, former Obama administration Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker of the Pritzker family, was listed as a board member of the Obama Foundation. ¹²