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.
Today, Brooklyn Community Foundation announced $1.9 million in new grants through its Invest in Youth initiative, bringing the Foundation’s total funding for youth-serving nonprofits in Brooklyn to $2.3 million in 2016.
BCF launched its Invest in Youth initiative in 2015 as a 10-year, $25 million commitment to improve Brooklyn’s social and economic opportunities and outcomes for 16- to 24-year-olds, particularly young people of color.“We believe that a stronger and more equitable future for Brooklyn depends upon the success of its young people today—especially those who are growing up in our poorest communities.” said Brooklyn Community Foundation President and CEO Cecilia Clarke.
By World Economic Forum [CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons]
Many experts have argued that nothing is more important for global development than empowering women to play an equal role in all societies. Lately, that view has growing sway at the world’s biggest foundation.
Signs have been emerging for a while now that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving more attention to women’s empowerment, with Melinda leading this shift—while also becoming more independent in her philanthropy. This could be a very big deal over the long term.
Here are some of the tea leaves we’ve been reading.
First, Melinda Gates has recently raised her profile as a leader on women’s issues. In the past 18 months, she’s given interviews to several national media outlets, including Fortune and Elle, about her increasing focus on women’s empowerment, and authored an opinion piece for CNN about the need for more data on women. She even recently said she would like to see a woman become president. No clear endorsement here, but that’s a pretty big hint about how this powerful female leader sees the world. She is making more videos in which we hear her voice and see her face. She’s making it crystal clear that one of the richest women in the world is also a huge believer in women’s empowerment.
Wow, impressive lineup for this event on January 12 in Southport, CT. Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, will be speaking, among other luminaries. Miles also spoke at the last Clinton Global Initiative winter meeting in February of 2016, which I attended to report on the No Ceilings project of The Clinton Foundation.
Many of these presenters will doubtlessly have interesting things to say about how women are influencing philanthropy — making it more collaborative, inclusive, and organically integrated into the economy, to name just a few of the changes that women bring to the field.
Public events and discussions like this will help women in philanthropy shift the conversation and shed light on this fast-growing movement. From the Fairfield Hamlet Hub:
Save the Children and Pequot Library present local philanthropic leaders discussing how women are changing the face of philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, on Thursday, January, 12, 2017 at 7:00pm in Pequot Library’s Auditorium.
Learn about ways you and your family can get involved and make a positive impact in our community and around the world. There will be an Introduction by Stephanie Coakley, Executive Director, Pequot Library, and Mike Tetreau, First Selectman, Town of Fairfield; the program is moderated by Bianna Golodryga, News & Finance Anchor, Yahoo!
The panelists include: Carolyn Miles, President and CEO, Save the Children; Susan Friedlaner Calzone, President and CEO, Foundation Source; Fiona Hodgson, VP for Development and Philanthropic Services, Fairfield County’s Communication Foundation; Emily Tow Jackson, Executive Director and President, Tow Foundation. There will be a wine and cheese reception to follow. For questions and additional information, please contact Amy Sinclair, asinclair@savethechildren.org , (475) 999-3077.
We live in a world where the first thought about a piece of news needs to be: what is the source? With so much fake news and misinformation out there, the Knight Foundation is amping up its support of high quality community-driven media with new funding.
Jennifer Preston, VP, Journalism, The Knight Foundation
Jennifer Preston, Vice President of Journalism at the Knight Foundation spoke to Philanthropy Women this morning, the day of the launching of this new funding initiative.
She said most of those organizations receiving matching funds from this new initiative are Knight Foundation grantees from over the past three years. “Amid all of the concerns about fake news, supporting nonprofit journalism is a great way to address those concerns. Battle Fake news with smart news,” said Preston.
Jacki Zehner, chief engagement officer for Women Moving Millions, with board member Susan Morrison.
Jacki Zehner, chief engagement officer of Women Moving Millions, wants to see corporations—particularly financial services firms—put their money where the research is when it comes to gender equity, and more specifically, women’s empowerment, inclusion, and leadership. Why? It is not only in their best interest, but key to economic stability and growth.
Zehner is one of a new breed of philanthropic leaders who transitioned from a successful career in business, bringing that knowledge and experience with her. She knows the gap between talk and action on gender equity in corporations well. Though Zehner’s career was made in fixed-income trading, rising at Goldman Sachs to make partner in 1996, her passion was women’s issues, and that passion led her to a position in the firm’s executive office where her role was, in part, to champion diversity and inclusion.
Here’s the story of how Emily Nielsen Jones and her husband, Ross Jones, discovered their niche of integrating a gender focus into their faith-inspired philanthropy. The Boston-based couple once funded Christian Union, an Ivy League campus ministry, to launch a new branch at their alma mater, Dartmouth College. They were impressed with the organization at first because of its interest in mobilizing students to engage in combating human trafficking.
Emily Nielsen Jones
But as Jones got closer to the organization and started asking gender-related questions, she uncovered that within its own organization, the Christian Union promotes what it calls a “complementarian” leadership structure, which excludes women from top leadership positions. Once the couple gained more awareness about this policy, which creates gender ceilings for both staff and students, they engaged in a dialogue to encourage Christian Union to reconsider its practices of limiting women in the organization.
You can’t get much closer to the epicenter of creativity, social justice, and women’s empowerment than the Harnisch Foundation (theHF). Through its focus on empowering women and girls of all backgrounds, its innovative grantmaking toward women and media, and its latest Funny Girls grant initiative that teaches resilience and leadership through improv, theHF’s work spans some of the most relevant and important missions in philanthropy today. And at the epicenter of the HF is Ruth Ann Harnisch.
Ruth Ann Harnisch
How did Ruth Ann Harnisch rise to her current position, with an amazing career in journalism and media under her belt, as well as 17 years at the helm of a foundation carrying out many unique and creative initiatives for women and girls?
The field of gender lens investing has been on the runway and waiting for take-off for a while now, yet barriers, like the lack of corporations carrying out women-friendly policies and practices, continue to be a problem.
Meanwhile, some funders are right on top of the issue, pushing hard to understand and grow the field of investing with a gender lens. One prime example is the Wallace Global Fund, which provided a grant to the Criterion Institute in the fall of 2014 to create a report that surveyed gender-focused investing. Wallace is a longtime supporter in the arena of women’s empowerment, and also a lead player in the philanthropy divestment movement.
If you spend time reading about women and philanthropy, you will invariably come across Helen LaKelly Hunt. Along with her sister, Swanee Hunt, these two feminist philanthropists are major players in the women’s funding movement, which hit the big leagues in the past decade as high-net-worth women began to make gifts of over $1 million dollars to fund causes for women and girls.
Helen LaKelly Hunt
While researching for her dissertation on the origins of American feminism, Hunt discovered that 19th century women didn’t fund the suffrage movement. Instead, they funded things like their husband’s alma maters, churches (where they had no voice) and the arts. Years later, when women began pledging and making million-dollar gifts to women’s funds, Hunt captured that history in a book called the Trailblazer book, which was circulated to other women donors. This compilation of women’s testimonies helped catalyze the founding of Women Moving Millions.
So this is news that everyone can use, but I particularly thought of philanthropy for women and girls and how they might cash in on the matching funds for Facebook-generated fundraisers on Tuesday. From the press release:
This Giving Tuesday, people are looking for ways to give back and do good. For that reason, we are thrilled to share Facebook’s recent announcement for new tools that will allow everybody to raise money for, or donate to their favorite charities.
Facebook expands its Fundraisers to include 750,000 US nonprofits to donate to:
Everybody can now support causes they care about this holiday season by creating a fundraiser on Facebook! Fundraisers allow supporters to set up a dedicated page to share their story, tell others about a nonprofit’s mission and rally around a fundraising goal – just in time for the season of giving! The over 750,000 US-based registered non-profits which focus on causes like animals, health, education to arts and culture make it easy to do good no matter what you support. The process is easy:
Today, Brooklyn Community Foundation announced $1.9 million in new grants through its Invest in Youth initiative, bringing the Foundation’s total funding for youth-serving nonprofits in Brooklyn to $2.3 million in 2016.
Wow, impressive lineup for this event on January 12 in Southport, CT. Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, will be speaking, among other luminaries. Miles also spoke at the last Clinton Global Initiative winter meeting in February of 2016, which I attended to report on the No Ceilings project of The Clinton Foundation.
