The Global Women’s Funding Movement Emerges, part 2

When the Global Women’s Funding Movement was born, it was unclear how much, if any, philanthropic money was being directed toward women’s liberation.

To better determine the situation, in 1975, a small group of foundation program officers surveyed the level of foundation giving for women and girls. The results were shared in a publication titled Who’s Funding the Women’s Movement by Mary Jean Tully (Dec. 15, 1925 — Dec. 27, 2003, pictured above) and published by NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund in 1975.

Key data points included:

Of the 30,000 foundations registered at that time, only 20 identified women’s organizations as grantees.
A total of $12 million of the $7 billion distributed could be identified as having gone to women’s organizations and projects and only $2 million for women’s movement and feminist projects such as addressing gender-based violence. That amounted to less than 5 percent of the total pool.
Only 12 corporations were identified as donors to women’s organizations and projects; most of these gifts were $5,000 or less.

The research revealed that while generations of people were united and on the streets, demanding gender equity and equal opportunity, philanthropy—like society—was plagued with sexist and discriminatory practices, which resulted in it completely ignoring the systemic oppression of women and girls and gender-expansive people.

When the second wave of the feminist movement emerged in the 1970s, the concept of gender lens philanthropy—a feminist funding practice of considering the influence of gender, its impacts on people of all genders, and funding organizations that work for gender equity—did not exist in any form in philanthropy. Indeed, the foundation survey revealed that donors to charity and foundation directors hadn’t thought about how their philanthropic investments impacted women and girls and gender-expansive people.

Once the results of this survey were shared, feminist activists and philanthropic-minded women began organizing. Within five years of the survey, a dozen “women’s funds” had been established as nonprofit funds created and run by women to support women and associated populations. After the first funds were founded, women’s funds rapidly multiplied worldwide and flourished—as did the women’s movements and women’s empowerment initiatives they funded.

Coco Jervis, Director of Programmes at Mama Cash

In sharing the formation of Mama Cash, Coco Jervis, Director of Programmes, says: Mama Cash was started in 1983. It was started by a group of lesbians sitting around at the table, one of whom lost their parent. Unexpectedly, their parents died and left them with a huge trust fund that they did know about … The decisions about whom to fund were made in communications with the community, but essentially by these women sitting around the table. As Mama Cash has professionalized over the last 40 years, they have grown in scope and brought activists such as me into the work. We’re also giving grants to individuals, which I find interesting and exciting because it’s a recognition of the movements. We can fund group initiatives and networks. Now, we are also supporting the work of individuals … supporting them with the work they’ve already done. We’re trying to figure out ways for us to continuously get funding to those who need it most and not let the political, or economic, or safety-related challenges of funding human rights defenders prevent us from going to wherever we are around the world.

Tomorrow learn more about: The Global Women’s Funding Movement Emerges, part 3