The Urgent Action Fund Sisterhood has been a pioneer and leader in the collective care space. As rapid response funders supporting women, trans, and non-binary human rights defenders, their starting point is that collective care and protection are inseparable: without collective care, the protection of human rights defenders is not sustainable nor effective.
Despite increased attention on the importance of protecting defenders, there continues to be a lack of infrastructure to support collective care. There are very few formal safe spaces where defenders can seek respite, well-being and connection with a feminist politicized lens.
The Urgent Action Fund Sisterhood seeks to consolidate and deepen their regional work on collective care and well-being. They also want to articulate, crystallize and document their unique feminist praxis around collective care as a critical offering to feminist movements.
Inspiration
Feminist movements face heightened surveillance, violence, and threats due to political, social, and environmental crises. While physical protection is crucial, integrating sustainable, supportive approaches to collective care and well-being into protection efforts is urgent.
The pandemic has forced online interactions, shrinking civil society spaces, and blurred lines between personal and professional roles. Feminist funds and their partners must now prioritize developing organizational practices centered on well-being, collective care, and resilience.
Although each regional Sister Fund has developed its own approach to collective care, consolidating and sharing these approaches will deepen understanding and practices. This initiative aims to create practical, actionable, and scalable resources for other feminist funds and the broader philanthropic field, accommodating diverse geographies, cultures, and languages.
The Process
The initiative has two main phases:
- Internal Consolidation: Each fund will strengthen its internal strategies and collective care infrastructure through workshops, mapping, and documenting practices. This will enhance understanding and build on existing work.
- Shared Learning Infrastructure: The Sister Funds will develop a collective care learning infrastructure. This involves planning and developing methodologies, mapping synergies, and creating knowledge pieces for the broader philanthropic ecosystem.
Ways of Working
The unique and long-standing relationship among the Sister Funds is reflected in the ways they have structured their way they are moving the work forward, which reflects their history of working together.
- As a collaborative, the Sister Funds have developed a Collective Agreement for working on collaborative projects, including collective care, as well as a Theory of Change. Their work as a collaborative is grounded in a commitment to Sisterhood values and collective practices.
- Whoever holds the responsibility of the work has the autonomy and power to decide – collective decision-making will not be a possibility, but collective brainstorming to influence decision-making is a possibility.
- The collaboration will be built across programs within the organizations and across the Sister Funds. This collaboration will enable the different teams – Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL), Resource Mobilization, Programs, and Communications – to work together.
- To avoid more workload on the staff leading this project, people involved in the project will reflect collective care learning into their individual work plans.
- A consultant will be hired to help hold the coordination and facilitation.
- UAF Asia and Pacific will receive the grant money on behalf of the Collective. For internal work, each sister fund has drawn up its own budget and for the collective work, the budget has been arrived at collectively.
- An administrative fee to UAF Asia and Pacific, the grant-holder, will resource staff time needed to oversee contracts and coordination of budget and reporting.
What Does Success Look Like?
Collation and curation of existing collective care practice and the creation of knowledge pieces, including:
- Creation of Shared Methodology: Developing a shared methodology and tools for collective care learning across Sister Fund regions.
- Community Building: Strengthening community capacity to replicate systems and learnings for collective care.
- Institutional Transformation: Visible changes in collective agreements and theories of change on collective care within and among the Sisterhood.
Between the lines
The 2007 publication, What Is the Point of a Revolution if We Can’t Dance by Jane Barry and Jelena Djordjevic, exposed the burnout and isolation experienced by activists. Supported by Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism, this book catalyzed broader conversations about collective care and protection central to the Urgent Action Sister Funds’ work.
Collective care is a way of being, a practice, and a guiding principle, encapsulated in the Urgent Action Sister Funds’ feminist principles of philanthropy. Their work challenges both themselves and the broader ecosystem to rethink care practices. As articulated in a recent publication:
“Our politics of practice on care is at the heart of who we are and what we do. It is embodied in our feminist values. Care is both a way of seeing and being in the world, and a decision and commitment to transform it to centering sustainability, well-being, empathy, shared responsibility, reciprocity and joy. To root ourselves in care is to connect our being with what sustains life in all its dimensions. It is to be aware that our roots are woven into a web of life, between people and interdependent beings.” – How Can We Ground Ourselves in Care and Dance Our Revolution?
Collective care is not just a principle but the essence of each Sister Fund’s practice. It supports and nurtures activism across regions, adapting to local contexts while maintaining a radical and political focus. This collaborative effort aims to inspire the feminist funding ecosystem with practical, meaningful, and adaptable learning outputs.