Anticipating Philanthropy’s Ability to Fully Fund Gender Equality

Philanthropy Women May be Winding Down Due to Lack of Support for Feminist Media about Donor Leadership, Strategies and Practices.

With nearly 1,100 posts published, an unusually high and rising domain authority, and hundreds of feminist leaders and strategies highlighted, Philanthropy Women is simultaneously a feminist media powerhouse and running out of resources. And it’s not for lack of trying to find those resources, or generate them on our own.

Photo by Valentina Conde on Unsplash

What happened to us? It’s a case of what I can only describe as our strategy anticipating a time when philanthropy is ready to fully invest in equality for women and other marginalized groups. We’re not there yet.

Feminist Media like Philanthropy Women Runs on Relatively Small Budget

We ran on a budget ranging between $10,000 and $35,000 a year for five years, employing myself part-time as publisher and editor, and employing a dozen or so freelance writers over that time to add to our content. At this point, about half of our budget is being generated by subscribers, but unfortunately, that’s not enough to fly on our own, and it honestly appears that there is not a lot of room for growth of this audience, at least not on a budget of our size.

Publishing is a tough racket, whether for-profit, non-profit, or grassroots. It requires real effort, strategy, technical skill, writing talent, marketing acumen, and a whole bunch of dollars to keep all of those facets running. I’m proud to have made it five years, and I would have gladly gone another five years if donors would have provided the very small amount of subsidizing we asked for this year. They did not. We looked for new donors, we applied for new grants, we tried to form new partnerships. None of it worked.

So December 2021 may see the end of our little home for news about women donors and their allies. It’s a sad, but, I’m sure, not unexpected potential outcome for a publication that was fueled by the dream of our world accelerating in its respect for women. I’m no longer confident that acceleration is happening, and when/if it does happen someday, hopefully we will pick up the pace. In the meantime, without more resources, Philanthropy Women will become an archived addition to the feminist media ecosystem, waiting for the world to catch up with our dreams.

Related:

The 12 Most Promising Trends in Women’s Philanthropy

Feminist Donors: The Way to the Future

Big Doings in Feminist Philanthropy For Women’s History Month

Author: Kiersten Marek

Kiersten Marek, LICSW, is the founder of Philanthropy Women. She practices clinical social work and writes about how women donors and their allies are advancing social change.

2 thoughts on “Anticipating Philanthropy’s Ability to Fully Fund Gender Equality”

  1. I subscribe and have appreciated your newsletter. As a board member of an all volunteer run nonprofit, I feel a similar weight as we try to find resources, volunteers and continue the mission of our organization.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.