Kelley Chisholm
Founder | Executive Director
A foxglove is a hardy, resilient plant that shades and protects others as it grows. It is also self sowing, representing sustainability, independence, and self determination. It contains an element used to treat heart disease, the right amount helps, but too much harms. Foxglove deals with the heart, and we seek to help through empowerment, not dependency.
Now that is the story of the name, the whole story. So, when you see ‘Foxglove Project’ read: protective, hardy & resilient, sustainable and protecting the heart.
Kelley is a speaker, author, business leader, aid and development specialist, mother, and grandmother. She is deeply committed to empowering women both locally and globally. In 2010, she founded the Foxglove Project to help women in developing nations become entrepreneurs and community leaders. Its flagship, Grassroots Rwanda, has supported over 20,000 women in establishing microbusinesses through self-help groups, creating a significant impact in a small rural district in southern Rwanda.
In Australia, she co-founded Kinwomen, an online network inspiring women to live their best lives, and the Grassroots Women program in partnership with Business Station, which won the 2022 WA Telstra Award for Accelerating Women. Kelley tirelessly advocates for women’s leadership, enterprise, and remarkable potential.
“What inspires me most is not the size of a loan or the growth of a business — it is the quiet transformation of belief. When a woman believes she can shape her own future, poverty loses its hold.”
– Kelley
When deciding on implementing partners and project support, Foxglove has a filter of 4 strategic priorities that guide our decision-making.
We believe in the inherent value of people and confidence in women’s capacity to make their own way with support, training, and self-belief. We commit to acting in the best interests of Foxglove beneficiaries, donors, and supporters.
People living in poverty have the capacity to provide for themselves, but poverty erodes confidence and hope.
Skills training, social support, financial access, and advocacy are essential. Most importantly, people must be encouraged to make their own decisions. We cannot empower others directly, but we can create opportunities and build capacity so that empowerment emerges naturally.
Sad pictures and sad stories can be harmful when they become the main way people are represented.
It’s not that hardship and poverty don’t exist or shouldn’t be acknowledged, but Foxglove chooses not to centre its promotion or reporting on deficit-based storytelling. Instead, we share stories and images of dignity, hope, and progress. When people see strength, possibility, and belief in a better future, it builds confidence and creates the environment where real empowerment and lasting change can grow.
We see people’s lives revealed through a worldwide web and captured on our small screens.
We see their deepest fears and struggles, giving us a glimpse into people’s suffering and joy. Then we travel to meet people and hear their stories firsthand. We do not want to do this without offering something of ourselves. We are not spectators of life in the Developing World. Neither do we give only to alleviate suffering or to provide opportunity. Instead, we see ourselves as co-citizens, sharing our lives and our resources as a global community.
Healthy accountability is not demeaning, paternalistic, or based on mistrust.
Rather, it is a building block of trust, a step towards a long-lasting relationship, and a means of building capacity. Foxglove sees two-way accountability as fundamental to the relationship with and between all stakeholders.