Building the Global Women’s Funding Movement

In the immediate aftermath of the birth of the Global Women’s Funding Movement, between 1975 and 1985, the number of women’s movements worldwide more than doubled. This triggered a virtuous cycle: as gender justice movements grew and multiplied, women united to form new, powerful women’s funds, which funded more women’s movements.

By 1985, approximately 35 women’s funds were in some stage of development. The Global Fund for Women supported the emergence of other women’s funds, such as the African Women’s Development Fund, now a strong regional fund that made $11 million in grants in 2022 and which also brings an influential voice to philanthropic discussions in Africa and globally.

The early funding provided by women’s funds were grants determined by what was needed immediately or as seed funding to pilot initiatives. Today, women’s funds work through diverse strategies that enable them to seed new ideas, fund pilots, collaborate on funding projects, invest in programs that can be adapted and scaled in different contexts and settings, and mobilize hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for gender justice from larger, mainstream funders. The Global Women’s Funding Movement is a revolutionary philanthropic movement that gives women, girls, and gender-expansive people a way to collectively wield their money as a source of great power for themselves and each other.

Nearly every great social advancement for women over the last half-century has been powered by women’s movements, many supported by this global women’s philanthropic force. This includes laws expanding women’s access to their financial accounts, laws supporting women’s inheritance rights (associated with greater agricultural landholding), and laws protecting women against sexual harassment.

A strong women’s movement led to the UN’s world-changing 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In the U.S., feminist activism has had the most profound effect on advancing policies that have improved women’s lives and economic status, including equal workplace and education opportunities.27 The movements that women’s funds have funded have begun not only to close the gap in gender inequity but to strengthen democratic practices and improve women’s economic options and power.

Tomorrow learn more about: Democratizing Philanthropy