David Rockefeller, 1953, public domain from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Certainly it is worth noting for women in philanthropy when one of the great funders of progressive causes passes on. David Rockefeller is one of those progressive philanthropists who helped contribute to early funding for human rights overall and particularly for women’s rights.
More will need to be said on this blog about how David Rockefeller contributed to the evolution of women’s empowerment in philanthropy. For now, we offer prayers and good thoughts for the Rockefeller family as they celebrate his amazing life and navigate this transition.
I recently returned from DREAM. DARE. DO. in Chicago, the every-three-year (maybe more often now!) convening of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute.
Wow. I am still reeling from the experience. It was an intense two days of immersion in conversation about women’s leadership in philanthropy, where it is coming from and where it will be going in the brave new political climate of a Trump presidency.
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) sponsored this amazing conference, held at the Magnificent Mile Marriott in downtown Chicago. Led by Debra Mesch and Andrea Pactor, WPI is one of the biggest hubs for knowledge on gender and philanthropy.
Melinda Gates greets conference participants. “Women play a unique and powerful role in philanthropy,” said Gates.
WPI recently received a $2.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support its work, and the conference started with a video welcome from none other than Melinda Gates, talking about the “unique and powerful role” that women play in philanthropy, both nationally and globally.
The 27 speakers at the WPI conference helped to expand the conversation on women and philanthropy in several important ways. Just a few examples:
Vini Bhansali of Thousand Currents challenged members of the philanthropy women community to recognize discrimination or prejudice happening among us. “Don’t just talk about feminism – practice daily acts of sisterhood.”
Casey Harden, YWCA USA shared how the YWCA maintains inclusiveness as a core value, and that the organization does not agree with the Trump administration’s ban on Muslims.
Kimberly Jung, Co-Founder, Rumi Spice
“My dream is that saffron would replace opium as the primary crop of Afghanistan.” Kimberly Jung, CEO and Co-founder of Rumi Spice, shared her experience as a for-profit leader with a social impact agenda, and described her desire to build a for-profit business as being tied to her company’s vision of its sustainability.
Kristin Goss, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, shared her knowledge about the history of women’s legislative advocacy in Washington, showing the trends over time. Goss reminded us that women win elections at the same rate as men, and if more women ran for office, we’d have more women IN office.
Left to Right: Debra Mesch, Lynne Brickner, Dorrie McWhorter, Vanessa Cooksey, Kristin Goss, and Trish Jackson.
Jacki Zehner of Women Moving Millions spoke about the need for women to talk about money, even if it makes them uncomfortable. She alluded to the renowned Helen LaKelly Hunt, one of the founders of Women Moving Millions, who helped women to break through the barrier of their discomfort about asking for and giving a million dollars to fund gender equity initiatives.
“Let nothing stand between you and the people you are trying to connect to,” said Ruth Ann Harnisch, President of the Harnisch Foundation, while discussing the power of media to impact social change, with Dianne Lynch, President of Stephens College. Harnisch also responded to an audience question about the movie Equity by reminding participants of the double standard in film where we expect films to portray women acting heroically, but we don’t hold men to this same standard.
Tracy Gary gives an amazing acceptance speech after receiving the Shaw-Hardy Taylor Award.
One of the most heartfelt moments in the conference was when Tracy Gary received the Shaw-Hardy Taylor Achievement Award. Gary, author of Inspired Philanthropy and longtime advocate for advancing women’s philanthropy, gave an impassioned plea for women to get stronger in their commitment of dollars and time to philanthropy.
In making the Award, Shaw-Hardy noted that when she and Taylor co-authored their landmark book, Women and Philanthropy, Gary was one of the chief knowledge sources they called upon to learn about the world of women’s giving.
Gary had some of the most interesting and thought-provoking things to say at the conference, which makes sense given her four decades of experience with the field. She reminded the audience that one of her big keys to success is simply showing up. She is one of those people who makes it to many conferences a year, and noted that her ongoing visibility and accessibility are essential traits to her success. She talked about the importance of setting aside money in your budget as a woman philanthropist in order to attend conferences and be part of the visible leadership of the movement.
“We need to stop letting men be in charge,” said Gary, and, “Learning to love is learning to listen,” — both timeless messages that embody Gary’s fearless persistence in advancing the causes of women’s rights, LGBT rights, and other progressive causes. Gary was bold enough to say that if she were to get hit by a bus, she would be ecstatic, because she has laid out her giving plan and is looking forward to making those large donations. She also told the audience that she lost 100 pounds in the past year by cutting wheat, dairy, and sugar out of her diet, and these big changes are partially about wanting to be around to participate in the women’s philanthropy field for another twenty years at least.
Gary helped establish the Women’s Foundation of California in 1979-1980, one of the first locally based women’s funds in the country. She also helped build out several donor networks including the Women’s Funding Network, Women Donors Network, and Women Moving Millions.
In the last breakout session of the conference, I sat with a group of about 30 women. The legendary Jacki Zehner was leading the discussion, which centered on identify next action steps for women’s philanthropy as a whole. It was time for the rubber to meet the road. What were we going to do as a group, and where were we going to get the resources to do it?
Of course, these questions can never be answered quickly, but the conversation was intense, and involved much careful listening and questioning. Some of the priorities that received the highest votes from the group were:
1.) Establishing a hub for women’s philanthropy (Hey, sounds a lot like Philanthropy Women!).
2.) Establishing a shared policy agenda for women’s philanthropy.
3.) Identifying next steps for movement activities like The Women’s March.
Unfortunately, I had to rush out of this last break-out session, since I received a text that my shuttle to the airport had arrived early. Thankfully, I just made it to the van as the driver was closing the door to drive away.
But that’s okay, because the conversation is ongoing, as it should be. I saw on Twitter that a group of millennials from the conference is planning to do monthly update calls.
The energy and discussion is continuing around how women in philanthropy can carry the strategy forward for gender equity. I’m looking forward to staying involved!
An innovative publishing hub out of Chicago called Make It Better has developed an impressive list of the top 30 women in Chicago philanthropy. From Make it Better:
In honor of Chicago hosting the National Symposium on Women, Philanthropy and Civil Society, we proudly share our list of the top 30 female philanthropists.
Chicago will soon be hosting the Women’s Philanthropy Institute conference, DREAM. DARE. DO and Philanthropy Women will be there!
Justine Bevilacqua, Director of Video Program, Marketing and Fund Development, Everett
“Unconditional love for people is what’s needed,” says Justine Bevilacqua. She speaks with a calmness that somehow also conveys how strongly she feels about this. “Of course, you have to draw the line sometimes,” she adds, “and there are bad people in the world, but just seeing people as humans, I definitely think the world needs more of that.”
Bevilacqua was 3 years old when her maternal grandmother Dorothy Jungels and several of Dorothy’s children acquired the carriage house that would become a place dedicated to the arts and social justice in Providence, Rhode Island. Doing most of the renovation themselves, they turned the neglected building into a studio and theater and named it Everett, after Everett Weeden, a fellow artist and family friend.
Join the Washington Area Women’s Foundation campaign to activate #our100days
Back in April of 2016, I wrote an article for Inside Philanthropy profiling Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat, President and CEO of the Washington Area Women’s Foundation (WAWF). It was exciting to learn about how Lockwood-Shabat was leading an ambitious campaign to raise funds for the amplification of WAWF’s work.
Now, WAWF is leading a campaign to keep gender equality activism on track. The new campaign, #our100days, is an effort for gender equality advocates to claim the first 100 days of the Trump presidency as a time to complete a single task every day that will help improve the lives of women and girls in America.
Want to know more about Lockwood-Shabat and how women’s funds are building community and solidarity for women and other marginalized groups? Lockwood-Shabat will be presenting at DREAM, DARE, DO, a symposium on March 14 and 15th of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute. I will be there to learn from Lockwood-Shabat and other experts in the field of women’s philanthropy. I hope you will be there, too.
From WAWF:
WE MARCHED. WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
We are already seeing some of the new administration’s priorities, and they will continue to become more clear as their first 100 days unfold. That’s why we’re proud to invite you to #our100days campaign — because these 100 days will be our 100 days too. Each day, we’ll give you a single task. As more join our movement, our message will be amplified across social media and throughout our communities.
There is much at stake for women and girls — health care, education, jobs, and our most basic rights. In his inaugural address, President Trump said, “This moment is your moment, it belongs to you,” and he is right. This is our moment.
To get started, please forward this email to those in your life who believe in the power and potential of women and girls. Sign up on our site to join me and thousands of other women and men to create lasting change in #our100days. To see the latest Twitter feed of #our100days, click here.
And now, my profile of Lockwood-Shabat:
Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat, The Washington Area Women’s Foundation
Every community across the U.S. has unique features, but the challenges facing women tend to be depressingly similar. For example, in the Washington D.C. region, as in so many other places, many women are just barely getting by economically. Women make up about two-thirds of all low-wage workers in the D.C. area, earning $10.10 an hour or less.
“There is a tremendous gap between what many women in our region are earning, and what they really need to survive and take care of their families,” says Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat, President and CEO of the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, which serves as a hub for on-the-ground services and advocacy for women and girls in the greater D.C. metropolitan region.
This is a mandate that many women’s foundations take on—bridging the gap for low-income women so that they can not only get a job, but also get ahead, with child care services, housing, and asset building—all ways to build more financial stability into their lives, and the lives of their families.
As part of this work, the Washington Area Women’s Foundation is one of the 28 women’s foundations across the country collaborating in Prosperity Together, which pledged collectively to invest $100 million over the next five years to improve the economic security of women and girls of color. The funding investment was made in partnership with the White House Council on Women and Girls in November 2015.
Now, under the leadership of Lockwood-Shabat, the foundation has mapped out a five-year strategic plan called Together We Thrive, that will amp up the resources available to help women and girls, and broaden the range of practices and financial tools—including donor-advised funds—to make the foundation a more powerful giver, convener, and influencer in the D.C. area.
The Washington Area Women’s Foundation has been around since 1998, starting out with $35,000 in funds raised in the first year, with half of that redistributed as grants to the community. The foundation does not have an endowment and instead raises and redistributes its funding yearly.
In 2014, the Washington Area Women’s Foundation granted $1,015,000 in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. But this milestone is small compared to Lockwood-Shabat’s hopes for the foundation—which is to quintuple its grantmaking to $5 million a year over the next five years, essentially adding another million dollars in funding every year by persuading more donors to put their money toward funding for women and girls.
Where does Lockwood-Shabat see this funding coming from? “We’ve been taking a long look at the role of women in philanthropy, and how we connect women in our region who, in many ways, have made it—they are at the pinnacle of their careers, and they are looking for ways to give back.”
Estimates of the net worth of women in the D.C. metro region are at $253 billion, said Lockwood-Shabat. “That number is projected to grow to $500 billion in the next 10 years, so harnessing the power of those resources, and catalyzing those resources toward women and families who need a little bit of investment to lift themselves out of poverty, is our goal.”
One difference in empowering women financially is that the money is more fully reinvested in the community. “Studies show that in female-headed households, women will reinvest as much as 90 percent of their new income back into their families, so for every dollar that we’re able to raise the income of low-income women, a great deal of that is going back into their families and to their children. This is really about improving the entire community.”
The foundation has a long list of grantee organizations, many of which are providing much-needed child care, educational, and workforce development services on the ground in the community. The Women’s Foundation currently supports places such as SOME’s Center for Employment Training, which places women into good jobs, and the YWCA of the National Capital Area and College Success Foundation of D.C., partner organizations that provide academic, social-emotional, and financial support for students and their families—a two-generation approach that serves middle school-aged girls and their mothers or female caregivers.
The foundation also takes a systemic approach to social issues that impact women and girls, with funding for advocacy through organizations like Voices for Virginia Children, which fosters public policies to prepare all children, particularly those who are disadvantaged, for kindergarten, and a partnership between D.C. Appleseed and D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute to advocate for high-quality child care for low-income families in D.C..
The foundation is also looking to expand its partnerships with government, businesses, and philanthropy to encourage and influence funding programs with a gender focus.
“We have a number of corporate partners that participate in our Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative,” Lockwood-Shabat said. “These are private, family, and corporate foundations pooling their dollars, all to invest in early care and education across the region.” She added that the Early Care and Education Collaborative is just one example of a partnership designed to educate and influence others about the unique barriers faced by women in the region.
Partnerships with corporations and others are not just about funding, said Lockwood-Shabat. “Sometimes it’s about influencing how a corporation thinks about their own workplace policies and how they can better support women in their workplace. Or it’s about influencing how a government agency administers a program. That kind of education and influence is critically important—just as important as the dollars going out into the community.”
Lockwood-Shabat also wants to target the foundation’s dollars more specifically on piloting new methods of philanthropy and community engagement. She sees great potential for this coming from the unprecedented power of female philanthropy. “Women want to be very connected to the work, they want to see it, to touch it, to feel it. It’s not just about the impact today or a year from now, but a deeper focus on significant, long-term impact. Many of our donors have a deep understanding of the need for advocacy at the same time that we focus on direct service.”
Lockwood-Shabat is at the helm of a quickly evolving women’s foundation, one that is hoping to take off and fly, tapping into piles of new wealth in the hands of D.C.-area women. For Lockwood-Shabat, much of this is about cultivating the next generation of women leaders who can bring more gender equity and economic stability to our nation’s capital region.
“The more we can do to invest in young women, to strengthen their voices and their leadership skills early on, the better,” she said. “At a very grassroots level in their neighborhood or school, we can encourage young women to use their voices for greater things.”Read More
Girls for Gender Equity received a $250,000 grant from the NYC Fund for Girls and Young Women of Color
With grassroots activism on the rise across the country, we are seeing more and more funders step up to address populations who face multiple forms of marginalization, especially the combination of both gender and race.
Now, the NYC Fund for Girls and Young Women of Color (the Fund), a collaboration of 16 foundations, has announced grants totaling $2.1 million, awarded to 28 non-profit organizations across the five boroughs.
These organizations are the ground-level hubs where young women and girls of color go in communities to engage in leadership development, health and employment advocacy, educational support, and help with community safety issues including violence against women.
The Sadie Nash Leadership Project received $100,000 in funding from the NYC Fund for Girls and Young Women of Color.
“There’s a renewed sense of urgency, and a renewed sense of focusing on the biggest disparities for young women and girls. We find them localized around dimensions of racial and ethnic difference,” said Ana Oliveira, CEO of the New York Women’s Foundation, in a recent chat with Philanthropy Women about this new set of grants.
Oliveira described how The New York Women’s Foundation developed this multi-funder partnership that is granting this new money. “We began with our main partner, The NoVo Foundation, and said, ‘let’s come together and ignite a process with others.'”
The two foundations invited a host of their colleagues to join them in focusing on girls and young women of color, and many foundations took them up on the offer. The Ford Foundation came on board, as did other well-known and established progressive foundations, including the Surdna Foundation, the Schott Foundation, the Pinkerton Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, and the Foundation for a Just Society.
Communities foundations also stepped up and joined, including the New York Community Trust and the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Family foundations also came to the table including the Andrus Family Fund and the Cricket Island Foundation. Feminist Foundation allies the Ms. Foundation and Third Wave Fund also came on board.
“We’re just beginning,” said Oliveira, of the process of rounding up foundations to focus on young women and girls of color. “We are going to continue to invite colleagues in the foundation world to join our coalition. It’s more important now than ever.”
The Fund was initially launched by The New York Women’s Foundation and NoVo Foundation in 2014 as a way to increase philanthropic resources available to organizations that advance the leadership of New York’s girls and young women of color. The Fund also seeks to address longstanding barriers to opportunity for young women and girls of color at the structural level.
“We all want to get to the tipping point of supporting enough organizations that are helping women, that we can resolve economic and social injustice for women,” said Oliveira. “We want to make sure these organizations can do their work and grow. We want to make sure they are ready first responders in community fights for justice and equity.”
“If we want to create a world in which girls can live free from violence and discrimination, we must truly listen to them and follow their lead,” said Pamela Shifman, Executive Director of the NoVo Foundation, in a press release announcing the grants. “Girls and young women of color are the best agents in transforming their communities and it’s time we invest in their leadership. That’s exactly what these grants will do.”
The 2016 NYC Fund for Girls and Young Women grantees are:
Ancient Song Doula Services
$50,000
Arab American Association of New York
$60,000
Arab American Family Support Center
$60,000
Atlas: DIY
$75,000
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
$75,000
Black Women’s Blueprint
$75,000
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
$70,000
Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education
$100,000
Community Connections for Youth, Inc.
$75,000
CONNECT, Inc.
$85,000
DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving
$60,000
FIERCE
$60,000
Girls for Gender Equity
$250,000
Hetrick-Martin Institute
$70,000
Make the Road New York
$50,000
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
$60,000
New York City Anti-Violence Project
$75,000
Resilience Advocacy Project
$50,000
Sadie Nash Leadership Project
$100,000
South Asian Youth Action
$60,000
S.O.U.L. Sisters Leadership Collective
$80,000
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
$60,000
The Alex House Project, Inc
$100,000
The Audre Lorde Project, Inc.
$75,000
The Brotherhood/Sister Sol
$75,000
Turning Point for Women and Families
$50,000
Welfare Rights Initiative
$60,000
YWCA/The Young Women’s Christian Association Of The City Of New York $50,000
How great to see The Rhode Island Foundation embracing giving circles and offering to provide matching funds to six giving circles that meet their criteria. From the Foundation’s website:
The Rhode Island Foundation seeks up to six informed and engaged community leaders who are interested in forming, leading, and facilitating small groups of peer networks organized around charitable giving. Giving circles are groups of people who pool their donations and decide together how to distribute them. Groups typically have a shared interest or connection, but it’s not required. Individual giving circles will have the ability to set their own member requirements and giving levels.
Each circle will identify its own needs and design the appropriate goals and structure. This initiative is meant to inspire philanthropy throughout the community and to provide an opportunity for groups of people that might not otherwise come together around a fundraising effort – to do just that. It is not about giving to the Rhode Island Foundation. Likewise, the Rhode Island Foundation will not solicit gifts for your giving circle.
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.
