Philanthropy Women

In a Time of Escalation, Philanthropy Has a Choice: Invest in Peace

As tensions rise in the Middle East, many in philanthropy are watching closely and asking what, if anything, they can do in a moment shaped so heavily by state power and military force.

Philanthropy has never been irrelevant in times of conflict. In fact, it plays a critical role in shaping what comes next.

Because while governments fund war, peacebuilding remains chronically underfunded.

This imbalance is not new. Globally, vast sums are directed toward military capacity, while only a fraction supports the long, complex work of preventing violence, strengthening civil society, and rebuilding trust across fractured communities. The result is a persistent gap: we invest heavily in the machinery of conflict, and far less in the infrastructure of peace.

Dolores Huerta’s Truth, and How Donors Must Evolve From It

For decades, Dolores Huerta has stood as one of the most enduring and principled voices in American social movements. As co-founder of the United Farm Workers, she helped reshape labor rights, advance gender equity, and model what it means to stay with this difficult work for a lifetime.

Now, in an act of remarkable courage, Huerta, age 95, has disclosed about the sexual abuse she experienced from Cesar Chavez, a figure deeply revered by the very movement she helped build.

Dolores Huerta at The Summit on Race in America in April, 2019. Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and has spent decades advocating for laborers, women, and children. (Image credit: Jay Godwin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Her disclosure is not just personal. It is historic.

Global Power Still Belongs to Men: Where is the Funding for Women’s Leadership?

Only 2% of philanthropic dollars go to women and girls and a small fraction of that goes toward improving women’s political leadership. No wonder we’re stuck in neutral, if not going in reverse, with the battle for women’s autonomy and equality.

In 2026, only 28 countries are led by a woman head of state or government. More than 100 countries have never had a woman leader. Women hold just 22.4% of cabinet positions and 27.5% of parliamentary seats worldwide.

For decades, philanthropy has talked about women’s empowerment. But the global leadership numbers suggest that political power — the place where laws and budgets are decided — remains dramatically underfunded territory for gender equality philanthropy.

From Dream, Dare, Do to Now: What’s Changed in Women’s Philanthropy

I still remember walking into my first Women’s Philanthropy Institute conference in Chicago nine years ago. At the time, women’s giving felt like a promising subfield — important, yes, but still fighting for intellectual legitimacy. The room had a distinct charge and energy of mutual recognition and appreciation. Many in attendance had contended with a snow storm to get there (sound familiar?) and were expressing gratitude for making it there before airports started cancelling flights.

The upcoming Women’s Philanthropy conference offers new insights and conversations on how women donors and their allies are pursuing social change.

The room was filled with researchers, funders, and advocates trying to articulate something that many of us felt intuitively: that women’s philanthropy was not simply a niche category, but a force capable of reshaping the broader giving landscape. That gathering quietly shifted the trajectory of my work as a publisher. In many ways, it helped clarify the role Philanthropy Women would go on to play.

Philanthropy Women Responds to Bill Gates’ Apology to His Foundation

When a philanthropic leader as prominent as Bill Gates publicly apologizes to his own foundation staff, it is more than a personal moment. It is a governance moment. It is a power moment. And it is a signal moment for the broader field of philanthropy.

We discuss how Bill Gates’ recent apology impacts the philanthropy sector. (Photo of the Bill and Melinda Gates Building at Carnegie Mellon University by Jonathan Speek on Unsplash)

Philanthropy has long operated on a paradox: immense influence with relatively limited public accountability. Foundations steward billions of dollars in public-benefit assets, yet their internal culture, leadership dynamics, and decision-making processes often remain out of view. When those at the helm acknowledge missteps, the field has an opportunity to make meaningful change, finding ways to do differently next time to avoid future fallout.

Laughing and Linking Arms with Suffs, a Fierce Take on Women’s Rights

I had the great pleasure of seeing Suffs recently. What an amazing show and tribute to the women who changed the world by fighting for the right for women to vote. The songs of the musical riffing on marriage and questioning “Is it worth it?” to put your life and health on the line for women’s rights, and “How do we stay together as a movement?” were a joy to encounter — the writing being both tremendously insightful, and also quite funny.

Alice Paul and other 19th Amendment advocates share their stories in the musical number “I’m a Great American Bitch.” (Image credit: Suffs)

What made the most impact for me was not the history lesson, although I learned some new tidbits and details. More striking for me about Suffs was how much the show felt like it mirrored the contemporary struggles for women. Somehow, the players change, but the story stays the same.

Running on Urgency: A Calming Meditation for Women’s Advocates

There is a particular kind of tension that settles into women’s funding and advocacy spaces — a sense that everything matters deeply, immediately, and all at once. The work is urgent. The stakes are high. The calendar is full. Even the coffee tastes slightly stressed.

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

Funding cycles are short and seem to demand that we fill the hours with news-cycle-induced campaigns. Even well-intentioned conversations can carry a low hum of pressure, as if pausing too long might be wasting the precious minutes we feminist whirlwinds have available to save the planet.

Over time, urgency has a way of turning even our best ideas into sprinting marathons — a pace that no one can sustain, and that very few enjoy.

Too Vulnerable? The Unaddressed Flaws in Women’s Organizing

I can’t say I’ve seen it all, but I’ve seen enough over the past 10 years in feminist movements to make some comments that might prove useful to big picture thinkers and organizational leaders in the sector. I’ve seen:

movements diluted by demands to serve everyone, causing them to lose sight of the core constituency of women
organizations with a lack of fiscal planning and/or oversight
reactive, fear-driven decision-making from women’s rights leadership
mission drift
underprepared boards
exhausted women leaders
funders who like the idea of feminist work but won’t invest in infrastructure
unsophisticated or non-existent budgets

We all know it’s not pretty out there for women looking for a better tomorrow. We are currently facing severe political and social backlash. On top of that, many women’s organizations struggle mightily with internal issues.

Who Cares? What to Do About Our Careless Care System

Summary: Feminism has struggled to gain broad, durable support. This is not so much because people oppose women’s freedom, although some still do, but primarily because our society has failed to replace the caregiving labor women historically provided. Philanthropy, in prioritizing empowerment narratives over care infrastructure, has unintentionally deepened this anxiety—undermining feminism’s legitimacy among those most dependent on care. The following discussion offers five philanthropy-forward ideas to enhance the synergy between feminism and caregiving in a world that still wants and needs caregivers.

Here on Philanthropy Women, we have discussed the importance of caregiving in many posts, mostly in the context of philanthropic funding for health care and childcare, but today I want to talk about caregiving more explicitly as a labor issue that may be getting in the way of feminism becoming more mainstream.

How Structural Inequality for Older Women Thwarts Social Progress

As I spend more time reflecting on my own life course, I have come across some startling, and very grounding, realizations for older women that I want to take the opportunity to share. At the end, I will circle back to philanthropy and how we can build out a funding ecosystem to address the issues I discuss in this post, but let’s start first with synthesizing some of the existing knowledge about women’s life course. What happens when women age and are further removed from whatever positions of power they may have gained over their earlier lives and careers?

Men’s Power Consolidates While Women’s Power Diminishes in the Final Career Phase

For men, the research tells us that their earnings often peak in the period from age 40 to 60. Their leadership roles persist longer than women’s leadership roles. And society in general as well as workplace cultures allow their progression to be linear.