The Girl Effect is a movement designed to get powerful people talking about girls. Created in 2009 by people at the Nike Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, the Girl Effect succeeded in getting girls on the agenda at the 2009 World Economic Forum. How did they do it? By leveraging the power of social media.

Girleffect.org created several videos to help people understand why girls are the answer to a better future for everyone. This one, "We Have a Situation," has more than 900,000 views on YouTube, and is the one that inspired me to join the movement. It’s simple, uplifting, and to the point.

Last year a friend of mine shared the video with me, and asked me to join her in a blogging campaign organized by Tara Sophia Mohr. As an A Fund for Women volunteer and donor, I already knew the importance of empowering women and girls, and was thrilled to see so many other people being inspired to do the same. I wrote about the Girl Effect on my blog, Peculiar Girl, encouraging readers to donate to girleffect.org.

In 2010, just over 100 bloggers joined Mohr’s 2010 campaign to further the Girl Effect movement. In 2011, there were more than 600. You can read their posts here.

If you’d like to join the Girl Effect movement, you can download a complete Girl Effect Tool Kit with everything you need to spread the word. For more about the Girl Effect, visit girleffect.org.