The practice of feminist organizational development anchored the work of two collaborations: Calala Fondo de Mujeres and Mediterranean Women’s Fund: Because both funds face similar movement contexts and demands for stronger feminist funding infrastructure, they focused on what they could learn together about the contribution of transformative feminist leadership to organizational evolutions. Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, International Indigenous Women’s Forum, and Women Win: These funds focused on collective learning to embed intersectional feminism and decolonization in their organizational structures, processes, operations, grantmaking, advocacy, and programs.
Tag: Financial Resources
Feminist Funds Database
Two collaborations aimed to enhance grantmaking by systematizing processes through the use of cloud-based customer relationship management software. The Global Fund for Women, alongside the Secretariat of the Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds, developed the open-source system to facilitate women’s funds to make grantmaking and data analysis more efficient and accessible. Initially, this group was set up as one large collaborative, but discussions emerging from initial meetings demonstrated the need to divide the group based on their needs and knowledge of the topic.
Resource Mobilization
Two collaborations were formed on resource mobilization. The Collaborative Learning on Resource Mobilization brought together Calala Fondo de Mujeres, Women First International Fund, Reconstruction Women’s Fund, Ecumenical Women’s Initiative, ELAS+, and Doria Feminist Fund to enhance resource mobilization strategies, focusing particularly on ethically aligned corporate partnerships. A second collaboration involved three diverse funds strategizing on resource mobilization approaches in restrictive political contexts.
Collective Learning on Participatory Grantmaking
This collaboration aims to bridge this gap by fostering shared learning and advocating for better resourcing of feminist PGM.
Mobilizing Local Resources in Challenging Contexts
Three funds in Asia are teaming up to explore raising funds at regional, national, and community levels. This is particularly challenging amidst rising authoritarianism and a growing anti-gender movement, which shapes narratives around gender roles. Overcoming these narratives is crucial for attracting supporters and converting them into donors.
Feminist Organizational Evolution Collaborative: Co-creating practices to transform intersectional feminist funds to make the invisible visible
This group recognizes the inhTerited colonial and financial practices in the philanthropic sector that perpetuate disparities and oppressions. They decided to flip the paradigm on what it means to create change. This resulted in focusing on internalizing intersectional feminism and decolonization within their organizational structures, processes, operations, grantmaking, advocacy, and other activities.
Collaborative Learning on Resource Mobilization
This collaboration of six funds aims to address the lack of mechanisms for building sustainable funding ecosystems among women’s funds. The goal is to strengthen their growth strategies through mentoring, learning spaces, and meaningful engagement within the WF community.
Feminist Financial Resilience
Feminist financial resilience involves sustaining, adapting, and growing organizations to advance their missions using a feminist lens. This collaboration supports Women Fund Tanzania and Women Fund Z in building knowledge, skills, tools, resources, and connections for long-term financial resilience.