Flexible Funding and Rapid Response

The Global Women’s Funding Movement is like a prism to look through to find new developments in feminism and gender equality and a portal to the frontlines of women’s movements worldwide.
Over the course of time, women’s funds and the movements they support routinely face fresh political and philanthropic challenges and possibilities. This requires nimbleness, flexibility, and responsiveness from grantmakers and activists alike. This reality is often at odds with traditional philanthropic practices, which can be based on fixed plans, top-down governance, and little flexibility with the resources offered. No other realm of philanthropy works as the Global Women’s Funding Movements does—a decentralized, justice-centered, self-perpetuating movement of feminist funders investing in women’s and feminist networks and movements.
Women’s organizations can mobilize and reach the most isolated women, girls, and gender-expansive populations while working to sustain important gains made. Because of their rapid response and funding prowess, women’s funds have been critical first responders in numerous wars and disasters, including Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the U.S., the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the military coup in Myanmar, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Women’s funds have become some of the most rapid responders in the philanthropic world, transforming first responder practices from the ground up with women- led, women-focused solutions.
Women’s funds have deep relationships, networks, and knowledge that can be tapped during a crisis to get funds quickly to where they are most needed. Click here to read more!