In a Job Market Marked by Stress and Insecurity, Jaime-Alexis Fowler ’04 Offers Support for Workers

orkers facing job insecurity and instability often struggle to find the right resources or people to talk to when under duress. Empower Work, a nonprofit organization that provides free, confidential, text-based support and training for people in need, aims to combat this.

Founded by CEO Jaime-Alexis Fowler ’04 in 2018, Empower Work has supported over 500,000 workers. Professionals can text 510-674-1414 to anonymously chat with a trained peer-counselor volunteer who can help navigate a variety of work-related issues, including dealing with harassment and discrimination in the workplace, low motivation or satisfaction, and job shifts or changes.

One user credited Empower Work with helping her stand up to her discriminating boss, writing, “I had no support at my work. No one to turn to. That’s when I started texting Empower Work … Connecting with one of the volunteers helped me in the moment to calm down and put the situation into words—in concise form, since it’s SMS.” The counselors at Empower Work were able to assist her in connecting to resources and eventually leaving her workplace.

Fowler decided to start Empower Work after a call with a friend who was experiencing issues at work. “When folks run into those challenges and don’t have support, there’s often a ripple effect. How can we change that and build healthy and equitable workplaces? What are ways that they can feel supported and take agency?”

Last year, Fowler was invited by Stanford University to be a Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor. The Distinguished Visitors Program invites entrepreneurs during the winter and spring quarters to co-teach a class and get involved with the campus community. The 2025 program, titled “Innovation for All: Empowering Communities Through Tech,” also hosted Alex Bernadotte, the founder and CEO of Beyond 12, a technology-based nonprofit that aims to increase the number of students from under-resourced communities that pursue and succeed in higher education; Josh Nesbit, the Technologist in Residence at Emerson Collective, which invests in entrepreneurs and innovators focused on “human flourishing”; and Amanda Renteria, the CEO of Code for America. Each member of the cohort uses technology in various ways to advance public good.

Fowler said her experience at Stanford had given her a chance to reflect on her journey and what Empower Work has been able to accomplish through the simple idea of text support for work issues. “What I didn’t appreciate when I built Empower Work is that there is not even a concept in the United States that people have a right to and deserve [mental health] support outside of their employer. It’s a huge source of inequity … another unequal distribution that continues to exacerbate existing divides.

“There are very few spaces where founders or leaders have that sort of deep and ongoing ability to really share what’s going on, and I think that was a real gift of being at Stanford,” she said.

Fowler also believes that her experience at Vassar as a history major helped her understand the power of social movements and “going to the source.”

“I give a lot of credit to my history professors, particularly Jim Merrell and Bob Brigham, who pushed me to be a writer and storyteller, [which] I didn’t know was possible,” she said. “You think of history as an exploration of the past, but you can’t figure out the future, or big challenges ahead, unless you understand what’s come before.” —Nandini Likki ’25