A new, innovative vision of philanthropy can work.
This essay is part of a Women & Democracy package focused on who’s funding the women and LGBTQ people on the frontlines of democracy. We’re manifesting a new era for philanthropy—one that centers feminism. The need is real: Funding for women and girls amounts to less than 2 percent of all philanthropic giving; for women of color, it’s less than 1 percent. Explore the “Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential to Democracy” collection.
There has never been a more crucial time for envisioning a new philanthropy. Around the world, anti-rights movements are on the rise. In many places, this concerted effort to dismantle the hard-won gains global feminists have made is succeeding. We’re facing abortion bans in the U.S., dangerous anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Ghana and Uganda and Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in opposition to the treaty’s aim of preventing gender-based violence.
The anti-rights movement is incredibly well funded. In comparison, the percentage of global philanthropic giving that goes to organizations focused on women, girls or gender-nonconforming people is miniscule. It’s never risen higher than 2 percent—despite the fact that women constitute more than 50 percent of the population, that we face rising challenges around the world and that individual women donors give more, on average, than individual men.
We are leaders and activists who have spent our careers funding feminist work around the world, particularly in the Global South and East. Our organizations, Gender Funders CoLab—which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year— and the newly established Harambee~Ubuntu Pan-African and Feminist Philanthropies, work directly with feminist movements globally from Malawi to Mexico, and are joined by a shared goal to reenvision how philanthropy serves the goals of women and girls worldwide. We know that raising the tiny 2-percent figure matters, and we cheer the work of high-profile philanthropists like Melinda French Gates and Mackenzie Scott who are working to do just that.
But, we also know that if we focus simply on the amount of dollars given, we will fail. The right question for philanthropists is not just: How much money are we giving? But: How are we giving it? Are our practices and policies aligned with the priorities of feminist movements? And are we intentionally shifting power and decision-making to local groups? Are we doing everything we can to unleash the power of those we aim to support, and setting them up for long-term success?
Too often in traditional philanthropy, the answer is no. For decades, the practices of the global giving community have sometimes—often unintentionally—worked at cross-purposes with the actual advancement of women and girls. We know this because we’ve heard it, over and over, from the feminist movements we work with. And we’ve witnessed the difference it makes when movements are genuinely in partnership with their funders.
We must disrupt the existing system and its imbalanced power structure. How? We have three recommendations:
First, on a basic and practical level, the process of applying for—and maintaining—funding must become less burdensome for gender-justice and feminist organizations. Often, philanthropic organizations require onerous legwork to secure funding. Over time and at scale, think about the impact those hours have on, say, a woman-run NGO in South Africa applying for multiple grants. It just doesn’t make sense.
Early in our lifespan at CoLab, we polled feminist movement leaders worldwide on what they needed. Respondents from 29 countries told us that reducing these burdens was a priority for them. As a result, we created common application and reporting tools, designed to allow organizers to apply to multiple funders through a single, streamlined form.
Reducing the workload for grantees might sound like a technical fix, but it was a crucial step for us—and has been used by many of our member organizations, from Wellspring Philanthropic Fund to Oak Foundation. To other grantmakers: Our solution might not be your solution—but finding some innovation, some flexibility that allows organizers to access funds without taking on the kind of crippling bureaucracy too often required is essential, as is taking your cues directly from the groups you support.
Another crucial move forward is understanding that real change starts with trusting and funding feminist movements—not only projects “investing in women and girls” (often housed within larger NGOs or groups not devoted to gender), but rather locally based organizations that use an intersectional feminist lens at their core. Those movements are what drive progress. As the oldest women’s fund in the world, Mama Cash has written in its analysis of the terrain, “Strong autonomous feminist movements—not civil society in general—are critical actors” in achieving everything from the right of women to own land to the introduction of legislation on sexual violence.
Despite that, less than one half of 1 percent of all official development assistance—the aid given by governments and public institutions—goes to feminist organizations. That means that private philanthropy must fill the gap. But, even within the tiny 2 percent it gives, it too underfunds women’s movements, preferring larger NGOs and “women’s initiatives” housed within more gender-neutral entities.
Fixing this phenomenon isn’t always easy; it can require funders to build new relationships they may not already have with feminist movements, or, because those movements may not have massive infrastructure, to institute new processes—like the common application, or CoLab’s pooled fund, which provides funding for organizations and networks to collaborate together to qualify for large-scale grants they otherwise wouldn’t be eligible for.
But, putting money in the hands of local feminist organizations—who are uniquely positioned to be able to see the complex ways cultures and systems operate in women’s lives—is key. Consider movements like the Green Wave, the feminist movement whose protests and political organizing was key to legalizing abortion in many places throughout Latin America. Additionally, in Africa, our goal at HU_PAFP is to fund in a way that connects and strengthens social movements, activists and communities by moving money and other resources in service of their efforts to advance justice.
Those movements have the answers. Which leads to one more crucial way philanthropy can evolve: Instead of simply giving money to, we can partner with those we support, learning from them and standing with them in solidarity. That aspiration is embedded in both our organization’s names: CoLab—for collaborating both between funders, and between funders and grantees—and Harambee~Ubuntu, which takes its name for the Swahili and Bantu [ck] words for collective work and shared humanity, respectively. Harambee~Ubuntu itself is born of a deep partnership between Urgent Action Fund-Africa and TrustAfrica to reimagine and redefine African philanthropic narratives.
We must rise to the challenge this new world presents. That means more money—but it also means better money. Feminist movements need our partnership, as we need theirs, and together we can co-create a more just and equitable world.
Think investing in women is essential to democracy? We do too. Sign up for our daily or weekly emails to hear from (and join!) the feminist philanthropists funding the future. (We heard alliteration is back in style.) Or go back to the essay collection.
