After spending a semester in Washington, D.C., in Spring 2025, senior public policy majors Franchesca Moore and Michelle Xuan were inspired to bring the city’s policy networking culture back to Los Angeles. Now, the pair are launching a USC chapter of Girls Who Lead to help connect women who want to work in policy.

“In D.C., we went through the process of networking intensely in policy for the first time, and it was so eye opening and really provided us so many experiences,” Moore said. “And we were so glad that we had each other. We talked about it and were like, ‘It would be so nice if girls at USC had a group like this.’”

The organization is an offshoot of the nationwide Her Rising Initiative, “a youth-led nonprofit working to close the opportunity gap for girls and equip them to lead in policy, business, and advocacy,” according to its website. When Xuan saw Her Rising’s call for chapter applications on TikTok during the summer, she and Moore applied.

“Every Girls Who Lead chapter is honestly different. We do have more of a policy focus, I would say, in general. That was kind of the original mission,” said Sarah Shahed, the director of internal operations for Her Rising. “But as a whole, Cherie [Animashaun, the organization’s founder] really wanted to focus on making it a ‘women in leadership’ thing.”

Moore also said the pathway to policy work is less clear than careers in business or media.

The chapter will not be able to become a recognized student organization until Spring 2026 under USC rules, but Xuan and Moore plan to collaborate with existing RSOs until then. Among their plans are a women in politics dinner, allowing members to network with women in the field, as well as education along four skill tracks: business, policy, advocacy and nonprofits.

The chapters are also expected to work on either individual or chapter-wide year-end projects that focus on one of the four tracks. Shahed said this could include a business or nonprofit proposal, a research paper, lobbying a local government or a member’s own idea.

“We’re going to deliver a final project that ties everything together so that all of our girls have a deliverable that they can either put on the resume [or] talk about in different interviews, and show all the time you spent on this, this is what came out of it,” Moore said.

While they are public policy majors, Moore and Xuan said that students of all majors are encouraged to join. Xuan said policy is important to the lives of students of all majors.

“Regardless of what field you’re working in [or] you’re learning in, policy is going to touch your life — whether you are in engineering, you’re in consulting, you’re the president of a sorority, you are going to be able to establish policy within your work,” she said.

Moore and Xuan are among the first group of Her Rising chapters. Other California chapters include UCLA and high schools in San Diego and Millbrae, according to the Her Rising TikTok account.

Previously, the Her Rising Initiative hosted networking events and leadership conferences. Shahed said the decision to expand was in part due to the current political climate.

“It has become much more complicated and much more complex and harder to understand. And I feel because of that, emphasizing things like civic engagement is very important, especially among the student body,” she said. “Especially for women in policy, this can be a very intimidating space, a field that’s predominantly dominated by men.”

Shahed works with all of the Girls Who Lead chapters and said Xuan and Moore are not alone in facing difficulty with registering with their university. She said Her Rising hopes to have all chapters officially recognized by next year. She also said the nationwide organization will provide social media, fundraising, recruiting and policy training to members.

Because both Xuan and Moore are seniors, they have put an emphasis on recruiting juniors and sophomores to their executive board. They hope USC’s chapter continues after they graduate and expands to collaborate with other chapters.

“We are hopeful that, even after our time as undergraduate students at USC is over, Girls Who Lead is going to continue on,” Xuan said. “Because bringing women into positions of leadership and in policymaking spaces is something that we need to do for years and generations to come.”