The Stowe Center Joins the Social Enterprise Accelerator 2023

For immediate release:

November 1, 2023

The Stowe Center Joins the

Social Enterprise Accelerator 2023

Joined alongside AHM Youth Services, Camp Courant, Conference of Churches, HartBeat Ensemble, Leadership Greater Hartford, Urban League of Greater Hartford, and URISE Ventures
The Social Enterprise Accelerator program was created in 2019 by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving’s Nonprofit Support Program
Each of the eight nonprofits developed and implemented business plans which will boost revenue and heighten our mission impact, with the guidance of No Margin, No Mission

HARTFORD (CT) – The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is pleased to announce that we have joined seven other local nonprofit organizations in the Social Enterprise Accelerator 2023 program: AHM Youth Services, Camp Courant, Conference of Churches, HartBeat Ensemble, Leadership Greater Hartford, Urban League of Greater Hartford, and URISE Ventures. Created in 2019 by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and administered by the HFPG’s Nonprofit Support Program, our eight organizations will engage in a 30-month process with the goal to strengthen our entrepreneurial capacity to grow revenue generating ventures that are mission-aligned. Guided by No Margin, No Mission, a national consulting firm that helps nonprofits become stronger and more vibrant through earned income, social enterprise, and entrepreneurial practices.

Each of the eight organizations attended a series of learning labs and consultations with No Margin, No mission, and over the next two and a half years, we will learn from each other in the 2023 program as we collectively build and execute our business plans and grow our ventures and heighten our mission impact.

“The Stowe Center is excited to join the Social Enterprise Accelerator program with the other seven incredible organizations with the unified goal to make Hartford better in our own way. This is a great step to connect with community to make us stronger and better able to serve our neighbors,” said Karen Fisk, Executive Director of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.

“The Social Enterprise Accelerator has served as a platform for nonprofits to learn and take the evolutionary steps necessary to become thriving, sustainable organizations with greater impact in our region,” said Hartford Foundation’s Associate Director of the Nonprofit Support Program Meher Shulman. “The leadership, readiness, and culture demonstrated by this cohort will facilitate their efforts to strengthen their entrepreneurial capacity through this exciting 30-month process. Congratulations to these enterprising nonprofits, and thanks to all the organizations that participated in the learning labs.”

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The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is a museum, research library, and program center in Hartford, Connecticut. The Stowe Center encourages social justice and literary activism by exploring the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe. For general information and updates, visit www.HarrietBeecherStoweCenter.org.

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CONTACT: Christina Tom

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

860.522.9258 x305 | ctom@stowecenter.org

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2023

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.