Gates Leaders on COVID: Liveblogging New IUPUI Series

On May 21st, attendees gathered for IUPUI’s first webinar in the Perspectives on Philanthropy Discussion Series. The series asks, “As we search for context in our transforming world, what role does philanthropy play? Broadly understood to encompass the human voluntary spirit, philanthropy is responding in a variety of ways to the current global crisis today. How is it doing and what role will it have in the world that is emerging?”

Gates leaders on COVID
Jennifer Alcorn and Victoria Vrana were the first guests on the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s new discussion series, Perspectives on Philanthropy. (Image Credit: IUPUI)

Today’s webinar started with an introduction from Amir Pasic of IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. The morning’s guests were Jennifer Alcorn (Deputy Director, Philanthropic Partnerships) and Victoria Vrana (Deputy Director, Giving By All) of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Funders and Women Leaders Join Forces to #EndDV in COVID

MILAN (May 20, 2020) — The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns imposed by the governments in countries around the world have intensified gender inequalities, including violence against women. Gucci, through its Chime for Change initiative, and the Kering Foundation have teamed to launch a new campaign to fund nonprofit organizations supporting women and girls around the world.

End DV in COVID
The Chime for Change Initiative will be working with Kering Foundation to increase funding for women and girls impacted by domestic violence in COVID. (Image credit: Chime for Change)

“Now more than ever is the time to join together to protect the health, safety and human rights of girls and women around the world,” said Salma Hayek Pinault, who co-founded Chime for Change in 2013 and is a board director of the Kering Foundation.

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Enrolling Now: Launchpad, a Giving Circles Incubator

By any measure, giving circles are one of the biggest growth areas in philanthropy. It’s no accident that giving circles are heavily female, and women of color are involved in giving circles at much higher rates than they are in traditional modes of philanthropic giving.

giving circles incubator
Participants pose for a group photo during the Giving Circle Infrastructure Conference at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington on April 1, 2019. (Image Credit: Philanthropy Together)

A simple giving circle definition from Philanthropy Together: “Giving Circles are groups of all shapes and sizes collaborating for change: like-minded individuals come together to pool their funds, share and discuss the issues that matter to them, and decide together where to give their money, time, and talents.” Giving circles enable individuals to leverage modest individual donations into a critical mass. They are by definition participatory, and the power of the collective provides individuals greater input and influence than were they giving in isolation.

Philanthropy Together places special emphasis on the role of traditionally underrepresented communities, noting:

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wiseHer Launches Coaching for Frontline Workers

Put yourself in the orthopedic shoes of a frontline worker in the midst of this crisis.

Imagine you’re a young hospital staffer, supporting a team of other frontline workers through something no one has experienced before. On top of the physical and mental demands of a regular day in the ER, now you have to handle the mental and emotional load of an ongoing pandemic, figure out how to keep your team safe with dwindling PPE, and support the emotional needs of a group of people pushed past their mental endurance.

wiseHer launches coaching
Kathryn Rose is the founder of wiseHer, an advisory platform for women in business. (Image Credit: wiseHer)

When it’s your job to support the rest of the team, where can you turn for support of your own?

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Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models (Liveblog)

At 2:00 on May 14, more than 100 attendees gathered for “Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models,” Philanthropy Women’s first-ever webinar.

feminist giving for COVID

Joined by Marianne Schnall, Surina Khan, and Emily Nielsen Jones, our Editor-in-Chief Kiersten Marek sought to explore the questions surrounding giving and COVID: how can a gender lens improve funding and make funding more accessible?

Marianne Schnall on Feminist Giving to Address COVID

To begin, Marianne Schnall, Founder of Feminist.com and What Will It Take?, took the lead to discuss what she sees happening in terms of the feminist approaches to addressing COVID. Schnall draws on her perspective from the media and activism space.

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Connecting Art to Justice: the Feminist Art Coalition

“Rather than seeking stark divisions between approaches or themes within feminism, perhaps we should instead look for the many possibilities for productive coalitions.” – Sally J. Scholz

It’s no secret that art comments on, fights against, and breaks the molds of society. Sometimes, it even forms the basis from which activists and earth-shakers build platforms to enact real social change.

connecting art to justice
Apsara DiQuinzio, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Phyllis C. Wattis Matrix Curator at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), first envisioned the Feminist Art Coalition in 2017. (Photo by Page Bertelsen Photography)

The Feminist Art Coalition (FAC) seeks to create a platform where art projects can build creative collaborations between artists and their societies, in exhibitions that give established institutions a way to give voice to their commitments to social justice and structural change. Supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, FAC connects art museums and nonprofit institutions to present a series of events beginning in Fall 2020, and continuing over the course of one year–a critical year, as we’ve mentioned, leading up to the next American presidential election.

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Texas Women’s Fdn Makes $320K in Grants for Women and Girls

Editor’s Note: The following update was provided by the Texas Women’s Foundation on their recent grantmaking.

The global health and economic crisis has brought into sharp focus the challenges faced by women and families at the margins. Now, perhaps more than ever before, we see the impact of deep systemic disparities affecting low income women and families, especially women of color. Here in our own community, we see that those who were hit first and hardest by the crisis are those who face the longest and most difficult road ahead. We are dedicated to help meet their needs, now and in the months ahead, through the Resilience Fund.

320 K in grants
The Texas Women’s Foundation has made over $320,000 in grants for women and girls in COVID, with more to come. (Image Credit: TWF)

We are deeply grateful to Texas Women’s Foundation’s dedicated friends who are contributing their support. In April, through the Resilience Fund and the generosity of our donors, we distributed $320,768 in grants aimed at relief for low income and marginalized women, girls and families.

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Influential Women Show Solidarity for DV Survivors in COVID

Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, Megan Rapinoe, Iman, Sheryl Sandberg, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amy Schumer, Awkwafina, Viola Davis, Mariska Hargitay, Patty Jenkins and More Pledge Support and Funds

dv survivors in covid
The Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), CARE, and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) launched Together For Her last month to deploy funds, address the dire need for resources, and support the global response against domestic violence amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. (Image Credit: PRNewswire)

LOS ANGELES, May 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — According to The United Nations Population Fund, six months of lockdowns could result in an additional 31 million cases of gender-based violence across the globe. The Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), CARE, and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) launched Together For Her last month to deploy funds, address the dire need for resources, and support the global response against domestic violence amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Major League Baseball Commits $3 Million for Domestic Violence

NEW YORK (AP) — Six organizations that aid survivors of domestic violence are among groups that will receive $50,000 each from Major League Baseball and the players’ association as part of a Healthy Relationships Community Grant initiative.

baseball commits $3 million
New MLB grants will go toward domestic violence prevention and education. (Image Credit: MLB Healthy Relationships)

MLB and the union committed to donating $3 million from their joint charitable fund in seven phases through 2021, they announced Thursday. Other groups receiving money advocate for positive mental health and relationship skills.

Lutheran Settlement House in Philadelphia will use its money for a bilingual domestic violence program; Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center Inc. in Newburyport, Massachusetts, for a children’s safety project; and YWCA of San Diego County for its Becky’s House domestic violence program.

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Grantmakers for Girls of Color Gives One Million for COVID-19

The Love Is Healing COVID-19 Response Fund is providing one million dollars in grants to resource organizations and efforts addressing the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls, fem(mes), and nonbinary/gender expansive youth of color. The grant-making initiative represents Grantmakers for Girls of Color’s first grantmaking effort as an independent entity.

(Photo Credit:) Credit: Grantmakers for Girls of Color

Monique W. Morris, Ed.D., newly appointed executive director of Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4CC), notes, “In this moment and beyond, philanthropy must address the lack of diversity, quality, and responsiveness of capital directed to support girls of color at the intersection of their complex identities and experiences.” Morris adds, “Even before this pandemic, girls and gender expansive youth of color have faced interlocking forms of oppression that prevent their full participation in our country’s future.”

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