Ms. Magazine: “The Future of Feminist Funding — It’s Not Just How Much We Get. It’s How We Get It.”

Sept. 27, 2024 — This article by ANNIE HILLAR and TSITSI MARYLIN MIDZI 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 on 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.

Annie and Tsitsi write: 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. Read more here.