What is
the Arch Collaborative?
The Arch Collaborative is a five-year strategic initiative building bridges between critical stakeholders in order to:
1) RESIST the escalating threats to women’s rights and gender equality around the world; and
2) REBUILD toward a future in which women’s rights are protected and gender equality is non-negotiable.
Leveraging strategic analysis, targeted conversations and convenings, and partnerships with aligned pro-rights movements across the rapidly evolving gender equality field, the initiative is an urgent response to the thirty year strategy to reverse progress on gender equality and undermine democracy.
About Us
Geeta Rao Gupta
Co-Founder
Geeta Rao Gupta is the Co-Founder of the Arch Collaborative. From 2023 to early 2025, she was Ambassador-at-Large for the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State. She has worked for more than four decades at the intersection of gender equality, global health, and systems change.
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Varina Winder
Co-Founder
Varina Winder is the Co-Founder of the Arch Collaborative. Previously, Varina was the Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the Department of State, overseeing strategy, partnerships, public affairs, operations, and policy teams.
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Jessica Marcella
Partner
Jessica Marcella is a Partner at the Arch Collaborative. Previously, Jessica served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs and Director of the Office of Adolescent Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services where she ran the nation's family planning program.
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Ashley MacPherson
Chief of Staff
Ashley MacPherson is the Chief of Staff of the Arch Collaborative. Ashley previously served as a policy advisor in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State, where she led the office’s work to advance gender equality through the United Nations.
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Jack Reeves
Associate
Jack Reeves is an Associate at the Arch Collaborative. He previously served in the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons at the U.S. Department of State and the Office of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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RESIST
We are exposing strategies used by forces who seek to restrict human rights and undermine democracy, particularly around two distinct “wedge” issues those actors deploy to fracture rights-focused movements.
The Wedge Issues
Pronatalism
An ideology framing population declines as a crisis, promoting women's reproduction as a social good and moral duty, with the ultimate goal of restricting women's autonomy and dismantling human rights.
Weaponization of Online Spaces
The multi-billion-dollar grievance-based strategy deployed by a networked industry of platforms and creators to fuel misogyny in an effort to undermine trust and democracy.
What does RESIST look like?
Through expert convenings, critical analysis, and public engagement strategies on each of these issues, the Arch Collaborative expands awareness of tactics used to undermine human rights and democracy; identifies, redefines, and creates new narratives focused on progress; and works alongside partners to test and implement response strategies. We seek to bridge silos across pro-rights movements for a more durable, proactive community committed to a future of freedom, prosperity, and equality.
REBUILD
We are reimagining the global scaffolding necessary to advance gender equality and women's rights through Project Phoenix.
Without strengthening the foundational architecture that supports gender equality efforts globally, it will be exceedingly difficult to recover lost ground, counteract regression, or generate renewed momentum on any of the multitude of issues that need urgent attention to achieve gender equality.
The Arch Collaborative aims to strengthen this foundational architecture through “Project Phoenix” — a set of recommendations across six interdependent structural components:
Multilateral Platforms & Mechanisms
which sustain global norm-setting, coordination, and accountability.
Financing Strategies
which ensure predictable, adequate, and equitable resourcing for gender equality initiatives.
Data Systems
and platforms which generate reliable, disaggregated evidence to inform policy and track progress.
Narratives and Messaging
which shape public discourse, influence political will, and counter disinformation.
Technology
as both a driver of opportunity and a site of risk requiring intentional governance.
Organizational Mechanisms
which enable the systematic integration of gender perspectives across policies, institutions, and programs.
Project Phoenix: Data Systems and Platforms
Without concurrently working to strengthen the foundational architecture that supports global gender equality efforts, it will be exceedingly...
If You Can Keep It: One Year After Massive State Department Layoffs
Arch co-founder Varina Winder joins NPR's 1A podcast to discuss the Trump Administration's overhaul of the federal government and the State...
Boot Camps and Marriage Payments? The Heritage Foundation’s Troubling “Pro-Natalist” Agenda
Arch co-founder Varina Winder joins the Washington Monthly's podcast to discuss the Heritage Foundation's pronatalist agenda and what it means for...
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