Resources, leadership and long-term commitments are necessary to close persistent gender gaps and improve the rights and well-being of millions of girls around the world.

The question is how we really reach the 250 million adolescent girls living in poverty today. Our starting point has always been and will continue to be girls themselves. We all need to ask ourselves what we know and truly understand about adolescent girls, or indeed what we think we know.

I am leading my non-profit organization Give Running full-time. Like the first day of school, it is intimidating but more so exhilarating.

Americans will spend over $465 billion dollars on holiday shopping this season. Giving the gift of hope to the world's least fortunate will not only change a life, but will provide something that money couldn't buy: happiness.

When we invest in girls -- we all win. Our communities are stronger. Our families are healthier. And our collective future is brighter.

Let us not forget that a rising population of 7 billion means a greater pool from which genius and innovation can emerge.

Many of us in the charitable community have already heard about the Girl Effect, a ground-breaking campaign launched by the Nike Foundation. But a recap never hurts, so here are some compelling stats to set the stage.

When Lindsay Brown, a junior at the University of Notre Dame, decided to host a bake sale in her dorm last year to fundraise for girls' education at the Kopila Valley Children's School, she had no idea that she was launching a movement.

Hundreds of thousands of kids in India and Cambodia will be oblivious to the start of the academic year as they begin another day at work.

It doesn't take long to see that there are few better ways to change the course of the world than to get girls into school and to keep them there. Fur...

Maria Eitel is the founding President and CEO of the Nike Foundation where she works to unleash the girl effect, the unique potential of 600 million adolescent girls.

Women stand at the center of every type of dramatic change occurring in the world today: whether it's coordinating relief in Japan, consolidating democracy in Egypt or running Facebook.

Is there some mystery involved in using social media to make messages spread contagiously? Yes. But it's not as mystical as the gurus would have us believe.

GirlEffect.org, an organization created by the Nike Foundation, raises awareness and funds to help girls escape poverty around the world. The organiz...

The goals of the Nike Foundation are to get girls on the global agenda and to drive resources to them. After accomplishing the former at the World Economic Forum, it's time to tackle the latter.