FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | AUGUST 28, 2024
With major new commitments by billionaires like Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott, and a host of women’s funding networks organizing with increasing urgency, Ms. Magazine yesterday released a special installment of its Women & Democracy platform: “Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential To Democracy.”
Funding for women and girls, last assessed in 2020 at $8.8 billion, amounts to less than 2 percent of all philanthropic giving, with less than half of 1 percent of all foundation grants going toward women and girls of color.
Yet as a matter of political and policy urgency, global democratic backsliding makes gender equity a crucial investment. With ascending authoritarianism comes inevitable attempts to rollback women’s, reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. The connection is not coincidental: There is not an authoritarian playbook that does not make gender a core focus.
“Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential To Democracy” features 20+ visionary leaders charting new ground to demonstrate exactly what it looks like to fund and mobilize at the intersection of gender and democracy. Among them are representatives from Open Society-U.S., Democracy Alliance, Gender Funders CoLab, Black Feminist Fund, Proteus Fund, and others.
Women & Democracy is Ms. magazine’s online forum that focuses on key issues impacting full and fair representation in our democracy. We team up with leading advocacy organizations to provide expert content and release a new installment each quarter; past partners have included the Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Reproductive Rights, International Women’s Media Foundation, Represent Women, and Supermajority, among others.
Questions or press queries about the project can be directed to Ms. magazine at press@msmagazine.com.
About Ms. magazine: Founded in 1972 and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation since 2001, Ms. has been a trusted, popular source for feminist news and information in print and online for 50 years. Ms.’s time-honored traditions of an emphasis on in-depth investigative reporting and feminist political analysis have never been more relevant, bringing a new generation of writers and readers together to share news, analysis, research and strategies for fighting back and moving forward, for shaping the future.
