Q&A with Project Glimmer’s Founder, Sonja Hoel Perkins
Blog Post by Valeria Ballesteros
March 2024
During Women’s History Month, we sat down with Project Glimmer’s founder, Sonja Hoel Perkins. We set out to uncover how Project Glimmer came to be and how Sonja’s personal journey shaped our organization’s mission, but we uncovered so much more. We’re so excited to share Sonja’s inspiring journey, invaluable advice, and her hopes for Project Glimmer!
Project Glimmer: Could you share a bit about your personal journey and the experiences that led you to found Project Glimmer? How did your own background and aspirations influence the organization's mission?
Sonja: I have been a venture capitalist my entire career. Venture Capital is a great job for women because performance is so easily measured - by returns measured in actual dollars. Yet there are so few women in the profession. During my entire professional career, I was usually the only woman in the room. In 2008, when I became a mother for the first time, something shifted inside of me. I finally noticed and became upset by the lack of women and people of color. I thought that is not okay - the world really needs more women and people of color starting companies and in the VC industry. We need them in other important places too - where decisions are made like in the White House and Congress and corporate board rooms. Instead of complaining, I decided that I wanted to do something to help change the power dynamic in the US.
In 2010, I started two organizations - Broadway Angels and Project Glimmer. Broadway Angels is a professional angel investment network of top women venture capitalists and women founders. We share deals and due diligence. I believe women and girls need role models and meaningful networks. Women and girls can’t be what they can’t see. Women benefit from networks - working with and for each other. Project Glimmer is a non-profit that supports underserved teenage girls from diverse backgrounds, backgrounds rarely found in positions of power. Project Glimmer’s original mission was to inspire women and girls to believe in themselves by letting them know their community cares. If we showed girls that we believed in them then they had a better chance of believing in themselves. I hoped some of them would change the world. It turns out, they are.
Project Glimmer: As the founder of Project Glimmer, you're undoubtedly an inspiration to many women and girls. Who were some of the women who inspired you on your own journey, and how did they impact your life and work?
Sonja: That's a really good question. I did not have many female role models. When I was young, there was a girl that lived on my street named Wendy. She was a few years older and was accepted into the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. All the neighbors talked about how smart she was. I wanted to be her. I ended up going there too, thanks to Wendy’s inspiration. Well into my career, I started attending the Fortune Most Powerful Women Conference. There were so many amazing women professionals all in one place. All of the celebrated speakers on stage would always mention the special person in their life who believed in them. They would explain that that person’s belief in them enabled them to achieve greatness. The one thing we all had in common was someone who really believed in us. It became clear to me that the key to success for every woman and girl is for someone to believe in them. Every woman and girl needs another person to believe in them in order to believe in themselves. For me, that person was my dad. He just assumed that I could do anything I put my mind to. He never second guessed me or told me that I couldn’t do something - even if it was hard. I rarely doubted myself because my dad never doubted me. That is what Project Glimmer does for all of our girls - we believe in them.
Project Glimmer: Have you faced any significant challenges or setbacks in your career or personal life? If so, how did you overcome them, and what lessons did you learn that might inspire other women facing similar obstacles?
Sonja: In every chapter and every category of my life, I have had challenges. There are too many to list - really! But for me, I look at each one of these challenges as a quiz from the universe. I don’t let them define me or take me down. I can choose to be happy. I am not going to define myself by the circumstances around me. I get to choose. It is my choice not to let negative stories or negative events define me.
Project Glimmer: What are your hopes for the future of Project Glimmer, especially in the context of advancing women's rights and equality?
Sonja: My wish for the world is that power matches population. Women are truly the super majority and need more power in government, business, education and finance. My goal for Project Glimmer is that we reach everyone who needs our support. If there is still more of a need out there, I want to serve it with our Gifts + Goods program, our Empower Hours, and the Empowerment Academy. I want to keep expanding our partners, volunteers, and programming. We can do that with the support of our community - both men and women.
Project Glimmer is in a good place. I would have never dreamed of the impact we are having when we were founded in 2010. Project Glimmer has evolved into a meaningful and impactful organization. I am really proud of what Project Glimmer has become! Our girls are and will be changing the world!
From all of us at Project Glimmer… THANK YOU!