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.
Top posts on Philanthropy Women in 2018 featured major investments in women and girls of color, strategies working to increase political leadership of women, and profiles of new leaders in the field.
It was an amazing year for women’s philanthropy, and our top 10 posts reflect that amazing year. Amid an increasingly hostile political climate, women managed to get elected to public office in record numbers, partially due to the influence of women donors. In addition, the events of #MeToo and the Kavanaugh hearings served to highlight how prevalent sexual assault and harassment are, and how far we still have to go to become a culture that truly values women and prioritizes their safety and equality.
Ana Oliveira, President and CEO of the New York Women’s Foundation (Image Credit: Donna F. Aceto) The New York Women’s Foundation received $2.25 million from CBS.
CBS corporation announced today that 18 organizations will receive $20 million in funding to address sexual harassment in the workplace. Many of these organizations are longtime players in the women’s rights space, including New York Women’s Foundation, Women’s Media Center, and the National Women’s Law Center, while others are brand new to the field, like TIME’S UP. These grants are part of CBS’s separation agreement with former CEO Les Moonves, which stated that the donations would be deducted from his severance pay.
“These organizations represent different critical approaches to combatting sexual harassment, including efforts to change culture and improve gender equity in the workplace, train and educate employees, and provide victims with services and support,” said a press release from CBS announcing the grantees, and tying the grants to their “ongoing commitment to strengthening its own workplace culture.”
CBS worked with expert advisory firm RALLY, to develop criteria for making these grants, which were given to organizations targeting three goals: increasing women in positions of power, educating and changing culture, and supporting survivors of gender-based violence.
While this is definitely good news for feminist philanthropy, some would argue that $20 million from CBS should be just the start, and that many corporations in the U.S. have much more work to do in order to address sexual harassment. For starters, other big media corporations who have had similar issues should follow suit, including Fox News (Sean Hannity and Roger Ailes), NBC (Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw), PBS (Garrison Keillor), ESPN (Donovan McNabb) and the NFL Network (Heath Evans and Marshall Faulk). There is still a great deal of compensation due to community-based #MeToo movements that are working to address gender inequality and create a healthier and safer culture for all.
Collaborative Fund for Women’s Safety and Dignity (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors) – re-granting
Free the Bid
Freedom Forum Institute – Power Shift Project
Futures Without Violence
Girls for Gender Equity / ‘me too.’ Movement
International Women’s Media Foundation
National Women’s Law Center
New York Women’s Foundation – re-granting
Press Forward
Producers Guild of America Foundation
RAINN
STRIVE International
Sundance Institute’s Momentum program
TIME’S UP Entertainment
TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund
Women in Film Los Angeles
Women’s Media Center
New York Women’s Foundation Receives $2.25 Million Grant from CBS to support the Fund for the Me Too Movement and Allies
As part of the grantmaking from CBS, The New York Women’s Foundation received $2.25 million in funding to support The Foundation’s Fund for the Me Too Movement and Allies (The Fund). The Fund will take a systemic approach to addressing the problem of gender-based violence by beginning a new partnership with women’s funds in the community.
The partnership’s initial membership includes the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, Women’s Foundation of California, Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts and Women’s Funding Network. “Other public women’s foundations are welcome to join the partnership,” according to a press release announcing the grant.
The #MeToo Fund is led by Ana Oliveira, President and CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation, and Tarana Burke, Founder and Leader of the ‘me too.’ Movement. Based in New York, the #MeToo Fund recently made its first set of eight grants to support organizations around the country working to address gender-based violence and support healing.
Organizations interested in applying for grants from the Fund for the Me Too Movement and Allies should email metoofund@nywf.org.
Happy Holidays from Philanthropy Women Editor and Publisher Kiersten Marek
One of the main reasons I started Philanthropy Women was to shine a spotlight on women givers, because I noticed that knowing more about them made me feel better about the world. Rather than logging on to Twitter and reading the toxic political discourse, I decided to fill up my Twitter feed with women’s funds and other feminist philanthropy thought leaders. The result was astonishing — I was suddenly getting new information about so many issues related to women — their health, their money, their professional lives. The process of turning my attention to progressive feminist philanthropy also turned me into a feminist donor, as I realized how well women’s giving to gender equality aligned with my own social justice interests.
WPI’s new report has important implications for both fundraising and the role of philanthropy media in spotlighting gender equality giving.
The phenomenon of watching others do something before we do it ourselves: it’s a process that seems hard-wired into humans. And in fact, prior research from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy shows that when we see others giving to charity, we are more inclined to engage in that same giving behavior ourselves.
Now, new research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) investigates how the process of observing giving behavior in others plays out differently for men and women, particularly when they are considering making a donation to women and girls.
The Art for Justice Fund has awarded the New York Women’s Foundation $300,000 to pursue criminal justice reforms that will keep women and girls out of jail and prison.
What is the capacity for art to influence social change? The New York Women’s Foundation and its Justice Fund now have more funding to explore this question, particularly as it relates to women and girls involved with criminal justice. Recently, The New York Women’s Foundation (The Foundation) announced receiving an award of $300,000 from theArt for Justice Fund.
The grant will go to support The Justice Fund, a seven-year initiative launched under the umbrella of the foundation in fall 2018. The goal of the Justice Fund is to decrease mass incarceration and overcome the negative impacts of incarceration on women and girls. The Justice Fund is working toward this goal by supporting organizations using art to promote justice, safety, and well-being in the community.
“We’re so thankful to Agnes Gund, the visionary and transformative philanthropist, who founded the Art for Justice Fund,” said Ana Oliveira, President and CEO of the New York Women’s Foundation. Gund is also one of the first members of the Foundation’s Justice Fund collaborative, and was one of the earliest supporters of The New York Women’s Foundation.
The Art for Justice Fund is a five-year initiative created by Agnes Gund and dedicated to reducing mass incarceration through the collective action of artists, advocates, and donors. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Ford Foundation are also partners in the endeavor.
One unusual aspect of The Justice Fund is its family-centered approach. “Women and families are seldom at the center of criminal justice reform and when women are incarcerated, the ripple effect on their dependents is profound,” said a press release announcing the $300,000 donation.
The Justice Fund is working at the crosshairs of art and social justice in an attempt to influence public systems, including the courts, health care, housing, child welfare and immigration. Through artist expression, advocacy and coordinated giving, the Justice Fund is advancing a strategy that is aimed at the root causes of social and economic inequality.
“We are at a unique moment in time to drive meaningful, long-term change,” said Helena Huang, project director for the Art for Justice Fund. “This is why the Art for Justice Fund exists: to support the work of artists and advocates to seize this moment and accelerate the movement. And this movement is a defining movement of our time.”
Impact Alpha is a digital media company that describes its mission as “redefining business journalism around social and environmental value.”
Recently, I listened in on a call hosted by Catalyst at Large Suzanne Biegel, and author David Bank of Impact Alpha. Guests on the call included Luisamaria Ruiz Carlile of Veris Wealth Partners, which specializes in gender lens investing and research.
The call provided fascinating insights into the world of gender lens investing. Though in its early formative years, gender lens investing is a growing area of financial investment that is destined for big things.
Biegel began the call by giving an overview of both the expanding language and the expanding financial investments in the gender lens investing sector. “Gender lens investing is still small in the relative scheme of things, but it’s so much bigger than it was,” said Biegel. She shared the latest statistics from Project SAGE at the Wharton School of Business Social Impact, which turned up a record 87 funds that are now investing with a gender lens, with 46 of those funds being new creations that occurred between 2017 and 2018.
Biegel described how these funds are more geographically diverse than ever, and also semantically diverse. Along with gender lens investing, the terms used to described this evolving market have branched out with “gender effect, gender smart, and gender alpha,” and the range of approaches being used have also expanded, with the number of different strategies being used going form 12 in 2017 to 35 in 2018. Across all strategies that include at least one factor of gender analysis, VERIS wealth partners are reporting an estimated $843 billion in money manager assets being devoted to gender-based investing.
Luisamaria Ruiz Carlile of Veris Wealth Partners joined the conversation by recognizing that “we are early on in trying to capture the gender alpha” since the investment sector is so young. Carlile suggested that as more prominent pension funds take on forms of gender lens investing, this could be an important signal to the market that these funds are growing in value and mainstream influence. She gave the example of State Street’s signaling when they unveiled the fearless girl statue on Wall Street as they announced the new ticker for their gender lens ETF.
Carlile talked about how funds managers are listening more to women on the ground running successful businesses, and this is adding to the ability of women to function more powerfully as business owners. To expand on this point, Sharron McPherson joined the conversation and talked about the organization that she helped co-found — Winde (Women in Infrastructure, Development, and Energy) — a collective of 2,000 women construction and real estate professionals in Africa.
The call also highlighted the importance of gender lens public initiatives such as the one taking place in the New York City Economic Development Corporation under the leadership of Eric Clement. This initiative is providing $10 million to back women entrepreneurs in New York City and help build a more gender diverse procurement pipeline for public sector projects.
While gender lens grantmaking and gender lens investing are separate areas of feminist activity, it’s important to recognize that the two have some overlapping purposes. Biegel emphasized how gender alpha investing provides a value dividend across multiple domains — by growing women’s leadership in government and business, for example, while also addressing issues that disparately affect women and girls such as education and health care, or women’s leadership in steering efforts that address water access and climate change.
Cynthia Nimmo, CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, shares her epiphanies about this past year, and her vision of a more feminist future to come.
Like many organizations in the women’s funding community, Women’s Funding Network had a robust year of working on the issues most important to women, including financial empowerment, collaborating with men as allies, and strategic leveraging as a donor and an advocate.
To go a little deeper into this past year of activity in feminist philanthropy, we decided to talk to Cynthia Nimmo, CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, and hear about what it felt like to run one of the most important organizations in the women’s funding space.
Sarah Haacke Byrd, Executive Director of Women Moving Millions, played a key role in addressing gender-based violence and the backlog of unprocessed rape kits in the U.S.
After an extensive search and interview process, Women Moving Millions (WMM) recently announced the appointment of Sarah Haacke Byrd as its new Executive Director. Byrd is an influential rising star of the feminist philanthropy community known for being a “joyful warrior” in the ongoing battle for gender equality. Byrd also comes to her new position at WMM with a history of leadership focused on legislative changes that would make the processing of rape kits a necessity in all police investigations of sexual assault.
As the former Managing Director of the Joyful Heart Foundation, Sarah Haacke Byrd has played a critical role in movement-building around ending sexual violence. With her work at Joyful Heart, Byrd helped to convene a national community of sexual violence survivors, legislators, law enforcement, and major funders, to shed light on the frightening fact that rape kits frequently go untested. Byrd helped raise an estimated $169 million in new funding to address this lack of testing of rape kits, resulting in the passage of 35 laws in 26 states.
Founded in 2007 by sisters Helen LaKelly Hunt and Swanee Hunt, Women Moving Millions is focused on supporting women donors who are making large-scale investments in women and girls that are aiding in the global fight for gender equality. By taking on this key leadership role at WMM, Byrd will be steering one of the most significant and powerful networks for funding gender equality worldwide.
Earlier this year, Byrd testified before the California Legislature regarding legislation to mandate the processing of rape kits. This legislation passed in the House and Senate in California, and is only being held up by the Governor’s veto for budgetary reasons, so will likely proceed to a full pass in the near future. Byrd’s testimony is a powerful sample of how effectively she communicates within the political realm, and how well this bodes for the future leadership of Women Moving Millions. It’s also an excellent example of how philanthropy can aid in the process of gathering and disseminating critical information about a public safety issue, such as sexual violence, and push for needed reforms.
New Board Chair of Women Moving Millions Bring Financial Expertise
Mona Sinha is the incoming Board Chair of Women Moving Millions and is leading efforts to create a new education curriculum for feminist philanthropists.
Along with WMM having a new Executive Director, the organization also has a new Board Chair: Mona Sinha, who is a passionate and longtime advocate for women and girls and the recipient of Smith College’s 2018 Development Award for Exemplary Leadership. Sinha is also very involved in efforts to end sex trafficking, and received the The Last Girl Champion award in 2017 from Apne Aap, an organization working globally on the issue.
Sinha brings particular expertise from the corporate worlds of finance, marketing and business restructuring. She is also is co-founder of Raising Change, which coaches mission-driven organizations to raise resources for social change.
As incoming Board Chair at WMM, Sinha is looking forward to launching a new education curriculum for members, who will spend several days together to work on three areas of development: impact, influence, and investment. “Each pillar will be taught in small cohorts that do a deep dive into the subject matter and enable robust reflection and discussion about practices and innovative ideas that are emerging in the world of philanthropy,” writes Sinha in a recent brief on the education curriculum launch entitled Why Women’s Philanthropic Education Matters.
Sinha sees this new education curriculum as having the potential to fulfill a prediction by the Stanford Social Innovation Review that the impact of gender equity efforts will add $28 trillion to the global economy by 2025. “Match that with the fact that women will control over $72 trillion in wealth by 2020,” writes Sinha, and she sees many more large-scale investments from women aiming to close the gender gap on pay and improve health and safety for women.
But Sinha recognizes that women philanthropists making these large-scale investments need support and education to achieve this goal. Within the new education curriculum, donors will have an opportunities to clarify and amplify their strategies, bringing greater integrity and influence to feminist philanthropy. “We have found that WMM members benefit from learning in community,” she writes. In the upcoming education curriculum launching in February of 2019, Women Moving Millions members will have the chance to more deeply investigate and structure their giving for women and girls. The development of the leadership curriculum was led by Jessica Houssian at WMM and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, including a detailed assessment before a full rollout of the program.
Sinha also serves several other organizations in the gender equality sphere including, Breakthrough (ending violence against women), Direct Impact Africa (empowers women to be leaders in the lower Zambezi) the Advisory boards at the Museum of Natural History (sponsors science education for inner city girls), Columbia Business School Tamer Center Social Enterprise Program (building awareness of social justice in future business leaders), Women Creating Change at Columbia University, and Columbia Global Mental Health program (promoting mental health as integral to overall healthcare around the world).
Donating to WFRI is a great way to fuel gender equality movements in Rhode Island.
There are so many reasons to support your state’s women’s fund. Here in Rhode Island, our women’s fund plays a critical role in addressing gender equality with grantmaking, legislative advocacy, and in-depth research. All of this work helps to guide social change strategy and increases public awareness about gender equality in the state.
On Giving Tuesday, our household is pledging $500 for the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island. We support all of the goals of WFRI, but in particular, we are interested in supporting the organization’s legislative advocacy. According to WFRI, $500 will pay for “14 hours of written and verbal testimony for legislative hearings on Fair Pay, Reproductive Freedom and Freedom from Sexual Harassment.”
This is money well-spent. Every time we discuss the issues related to gender equality in a legislative setting, we may not win immediately, but we teach our legislators important lessons about the issues that need to be addressed. Sometimes it takes several lessons before change can occur, but every lesson increases the likelihood of that change.
Now is a great time to donate to WFRI, because the organization has a $10,000 match pledge. From WFRI, read on:
We have a $10,000 challenge match to meet.
A founding board member has offered a $10,000 challenge grant for us to relaunch our Women’s Policy Institute, which trains women to advocate for issues that affect women and girls in Rhode Island. She’ll match $.50 on the dollar when we raise $20,000 to relaunch this powerful program. Donate today towards WPI and have a direct impact on gender equity in Rhode Island.
But Wait! There’s More! Every dollar you give to WFRI has a direct local and statewide impact. Together with our supporters, WFRI is working hard to impact issues affecting women and girls statewide. With your help in 2018, we’ve:
Supported research on working women of color and the unique challenges they experience in the workplace, taking a deeper dive into the data of last year’s Status of Working Women in Rhode Island report
Provided training to nearly 200 women in salary negotiation skills, finding mentors and learning to advocate for causes that impact their lives
Hosted six Cocktails and Conversations panels on topics such as Feminism is a Male Issue and Intersectionality in Feminism
Made $50,000 in grants with a gender lens focus
Advocated for Reproductive Freedom, Fair Pay, a $15 Minimum Wage and Freedom from Sexual Harassment
This is just a quick post before taking a few days off to enjoy time with family and friends. We will be covering several important events in upcoming posts, including a fascinating call on Gender Alpha with Suzanne Biegel and David Bank, where they discussed how “Gender Alpha” is all about identifying the specific dividends that gender lens investing yields. Biegel and Bank are co-producers of November’s Gender-Smart Investing Summit in London. Guests on the call included Luisamaria Ruiz Carlile of Veris Wealth Partners, which specializes in gender lens investing and research.
And one other quick note to acknowledge the significance of the recent elections, where voter turnout was higher than it has been in 104 years. That’s right — the last time voter turnout was as high as it was in 2018 was in 1914, before women even had the right to vote. Now that women and millennials are getting into the driver’s seat with social change, we hope to see even better voter turnout in 2020. I don’t know about you, but I am mighty thankful that people are finally getting the message (it seems!) about the importance of civic engagement. That could mean in 2020 we elect a President that gets us back on track in terms of valuing safety, diversity, and systems change to address inequality.
