What do you want to be when you grow up? For today's young women, "The Role Model Project For Girls" can help them answer that question. The site contains over 300 online job profiles, provided by real women working in various careers.

"Many of us have been asked about our futures when we were too young and uninformed about our choices. This project will help solve that problem," says Judi Clark, the site's founder. The site is geared towards nine- to 16-year-olds, and receives approximately 250 to 300 hits a day.

Clark created The Role Model Project three years ago "to share the notion that girls can grow up to be almost anything -- in a wide variety of professional careers -- way more than they probably know exist."

She started the site because she realized that even after she had been involved with several careers, it was difficult to know what interesting options were available for her next. "I realized that if this was a tough thing for me to think about, it would be really hard for a girl just getting started." She also wanted to provide exposure to non-traditional careers that girls may not know about.

Clark is currently a self-employed consultant specializing in graphics communication and information services. She manages the research and role model compilations for the site, and receives fundraising and promotional assistance from Audrie Kraus, the founder of NetAction.

Why did they decide to use the Internet as a forum for their project? "The Internet offers unprecedented opportunity to network with women in non-traditional fields," says Clark. "The Web supports this type of communication as well. This is an interesting and unique way to introduce alternative career choices to young women, and to share interest and resources among women professionals."

WOMEN HELPING FUTURE WOMEN
The Role Model Registry contains a list of career descriptions provided by volunteers. Women can add their career profile to the database by filling out a simple form with their first name, contact information, career path summary, and comments for girls considering this career.

(The contact information is used in case Clark has questions, but is not included in the online profile unless the volunteers prefer this.)

The site is not meant to be a complete list of women's professions. "It is a 'sampler' and is meant to give girls an idea of the breadth of their choices, encourage them to explore ideas that they may not have thought possible before, and offer ideas about how they could achieve their goals."

The careers are divided into various categories, such as Building Designers , Journalists & Writers , Management , Manufacturing , Transportation , and Trades.

Profiles can be read at random, or viewed by career type. For example, girls can read about Monique, a private investigator; JoAnn, the executive director of Women in Packaging; and Fern, the president of her own financial planning service.

There is also Jane, a sports writer; Carrie, a multimedia developer; and Joy, a national union representative, along with hundreds of others. For women whose careers would be hard to follow (and to categorize), there is a special "wild card" category .

Although the quality of the job descriptions varies by author, the profiles do succeed in showing the variety of options available. A few careers have been left out intentionally, such as nurses and primary school teachers, because Clark believes that these are already common role models for girls in the 9-16 age bracket.

The References and Resources section of the Role Models site provides a collection of more than a hundred links geared towards women and girls. It includes, for example, sites for or by girls , career references , and links relating to the status of women in the US .

NEXT STEPS
"The site is big enough now to need some serious attention and changes to the support structure," says Clark. She believes the current site design has restricted its growth, and plans to hire outside help "to get a real relational database designed to handle the dynamic information of this site." She would like to see the web pages redesigned with a girl focus in mind.

Clark also plans to produce a "Role Model Project CD" that would complement the web site. The CD would contain a sampling of women talking about their careers, along with some school and training program information. She plans to distribute it to schools and libraries.

To reach girls offline, Clark would like to produce some local career days. "We did a very successful pilot event last year in association with the YWCA of the mid-peninsula and the Boys and Girls Club of the peninsula (Silicon Valley, California area)."

In order to fund these projects, Clark is in the process of raising money -- the aspect of the Role Model project that she finds most challenging. To help fund raise, they have a bookstore at the site that is run in association with Amazon.com.

Their "bookshelves" contain more than 30 titles relating to science, math, careers, autobiographies, and general interest for both young and older women.

There are a number of ways to support this project. You can add your career to the database , for example, or help with some research. For more information, see the "How you can help" section. Clark says it is the support and the networking that have been the most interesting aspects of the project for her. "We haven't even begun to tap the resources of the girls the site will serve!" she says. "It's kind of like a great golden snowball, picking up more value with each roll."