Category: Feminist Funding

Natasha Brown’s Powerful Debut Novel + Feminist Philanthropy News

Well, hello my donor activist friends! Welcome to another week of exciting feminist philanthropy news, as well as my weekly discussion of happenings related to gender equality at large.

Natasha Brown is the author of Assembly, a fascinating novel about working in the c-suite of financial services in London. (Image credit: Elise Brown)

This week I took a deep excursion into literary culture and read Assembly by Natasha Brown. This novel caught my eye because it was by an author who had a background in financial services and math, yet when I picked up the book and read a few lines, I felt a deep sense of kinship with the words.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers about this book because it’s really a wonderful process to absorb the story without any preconceptions in mind. The story takes a narrative path that I can only describe as an anti-romance, and yet it felt strangely rich and satisfying to me as a reader.

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Why We Were So Easily Fooled by Hugh Hefner + Feminist Giving News

Hello there, my philanthro-friends. Welcome to another week of feminist giving updates, as well as other revelations in the world of gender equality news.

playboy feminist giving
Holly Madison, former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner and creator and star of Girls Next Door, discusses her diagnosis of Aspergers in Secrets of Playboy, and how she was drawn to living at the Playboy mansion early on because it gave her a sense of community. (Image credit: Secrets of Playboy)

This week, I did it. I binge-watched the first six episodes of Secrets of Playboy on A&E.

I did it for a lot of reasons. First, because I care about women, especially women who have survived trauma and are trying to make peace with that trauma and with the world that allowed it to happen.

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What Philanthropy is Doing About the World’s Lack of Feminism

Well hello, my philanthro-lovelies! I hope you are doing well, and are ready to dive into some more feminist giving news!

Happy Black History Month! This painting is entitled “Biddy Mason, 1852, Los Angeles” and features one of the first Black women to own property in Los Angeles, Biddy Mason. The year is 1852 in this depiction. Biddy Mason is age 34 and not yet freed. She would go on to petition for her freedom in California in 1856, and received her certificate of emancipation in 1860. Before and after her emancipation, Biddy Mason practiced as a nurse and mid-wife. (Image credit: Kiersten Marek)

Today I’d like to start with a quote from MacKenzie Scott, who has outstripped her ex-husband’s lifetime of giving in just two years. Here are her words from when she made her promise to fulfill The Giving Pledge:

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Prioritizing Gender Equality: A Response to the Gates Annual Letter

Editor’s Note: I originally wrote this post on February 17, 2020, and it is an interesting study in how questions from the past about the Gates Foundation are now being answered as the couple finalizes their divorce and their two paths diverge.

When one of the richest women in the world decides that gender equality should be more of a priority, what impact does that have? Should we cheer, or fear, this development?

more gender equality
Melinda Gates devotes much of her part of the Gates Annual letter to discussing her agenda for bringing gender equality to the fore as a social issue. (Image Credit: Gates Foundation website)

For two decades, Bill and Melinda have spent $53.8 billion on philanthropy, all for the purpose of making the world a better place. Now, for the first time in that twenty years, Melinda Gates has planted a stake in the ground and declared gender to be a topic of high priority for the foundation’s work, and for her own work happening separately through Pivotal Ventures. From the letter:

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2% of 2% is Not Much: Why Feminism Grows At Snail’s Pace (And Updates)

Greetings, Friends! Hope you are all well and enjoying life as best you can. We continue to watch the scene on feminist giving news, and I still receive tons of emails pitching stories for PW. It pains me that I do not have the time to do more writing. I have had to increase my therapy caseload to cover the downsizing of PW, so my time for research and writing is more limited now.

Google and other corporations fund initiatives for women and girls and release publicity suggesting that they are big champions of the cause. At the same time, these corporations continue to fund anti-feminist legislators through the Republican State Leadership Committee. See details in the feminist happenings listed at the end of this post. (Image credit: Google on Twitter)

When I get time to come back to PW, one of the things I like to do just to cheer myself up is to take a random stroll through the PW Funder Database. It just makes me feel better about the world to know that funders exist that are putting real dollars into gender equality strategies every day.

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PW Update: Research and Focus Changes in January 2022

Well my friends, welcome to 2022! January is a time of research and development here at Philanthropy Women, as we refine our strategy going forward. After much consideration, we have decided not to rebrand or change the name of the website. Because it so accurately fits the content, it needs to stand. And because the gender equality issues in philanthropy still need so much attention, we will be keeping the name.

focus

Beyond that, the future is much less clear. It turns out that by doubling up on niches, philanthropy being one niche and gender equality being (sadly) another niche, we have struggled to find a solid foundation. However, this does not mean that gender equality philanthropy does not need and deserve more media attention. In fact, our struggle is kind of like a real-time example of the entrenched marginalization of women, and feminist ideas, in the charitable realm.

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Find Funds Now: 355 Funders for International Gender Equality


The Philanthropy Women Gender Equality Funder Database is a unique data hub that aggregates over 700 listings of foundations, funds, and grantmakers. Our database provides contact and querying information as well as real-time news from the funders (when available) via live Twitter feed. All grantmakers in the PW Funder Database are doing gender equality work. The funders are listed across four categories: U.S., International, Corporate, and Family Foundations. The database is also searchable by keyword. Today, we are sharing a snapshot of 45 funders on our International Funders list.

International Funders for Gender Equality

  1. Bumble
  2. Bushrod H. Campbell and Adah F. Hall Charity Fund
  3. Cadence
  4. Calala Fondo de Mujeres
  5. C. Moore Media
  6. Catapult Foundation
  7. Caterpillar Foundation
  8. Central American Women’s Fund / Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres (FCAM)
  9. Fondation CHANEL
  10. Channel Foundation
  11. Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
  12. Chrest Foundation
  13. Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation
  14. The Circle NGO
  15. Circle of Sisterhood Foundation
  16. Clara Lionel Foundation
  17. Prince Claus Foundation
  18. Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA)
  19. Clif Bar Family Foundation
  20. CODE Research Grants
  21. Co-Impact
  22. Comic Relief
  23. COMO Foundation
  24. Compton Foundation
  25. Cordes Foundation
  26. Evan Cornish Foundation
  27. Cultural Survival
  28. DAFNA Fund
  29. Dames Making Games
  30. Aliko Dangote Foundation
  31. Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK)
  32. Ecumenical Women’s Initiative
  33. EdelGive Foundation
  34. The Edge Fund
  35. EEA / Norway Grants
  36. Elsevier Foundation
  37. EMpower (Emerging Markets Foundation)
  38. End FGM Grassroots Fund
  39. Equality Fund
  40. EQUALS Digital Skills Foundation
  41. European Journalism Centre (EJC)
  42. Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND)
  43. Faraway Foundation
  44. Feminist Review Trust
  45. The Freedom Fund

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Funder Database: 413 Funders for Gender Equality in the US

The Philanthropy Women Gender Equality Funder Database is a unique data hub that aggregates over 700 listings of foundations, funds, and grantmakers. Our database provides contact and querying information as well as real-time news from the funders (when available) via live Twitter feed. All grantmakers in the PW Funder Database are doing gender equality work. The funders are listed across four categories: U.S., International, Corporate, and Family Foundations. The database is also searchable by keyword. Today, we are sharing the first 20 funders on our Gender Equality Funders for the U.S list.

funder database
The PW Gender Equality Funder Database has 413 listings, many with live Twitter feed to catch you up to date on each funder’s work.

Funders for Gender Equality in the U.S.

  1. A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO)
  2. Accenture
  3. Adidas
  4. Adobe Foundation
  5. AEC Trust
  6. Agua Fund
  7. The AHA Foundation
  8. AIAS Foundation
  9. AIG
  10. Akamai
  11. AKC Humane Fund
  12. Alexia Foundation
  13. Rita Allen Foundation
  14. AnitaB. Org
  15. Isabel Allende Foundation
  16. Alliance for Girls
  17. Allyn Family Foundation
  18. Alternatives for Girls
  19. Amazon
  20. American Eagle Outfitters Foundation

Like what you see? Why not subscribe and support this one-of-a-kind resource on gender equality funding?

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When Women’s Leadership Has Market Value, the World Changes

It seems, in the feminist philanthropy community, everyone is waiting for that tipping point to come, when women’s leadership finally establishes its value to the world. COVID, it seems, is helping to accelerate our awareness of the added value of women’s leadership. By showing that countries led by women having strikingly better COVID survival and containment rates, we should finally be at that point where you could practically pour the product of women’s leadership into a bottle and sell it on the open market.

And now a few words from our Editor in Chief, Kiersten.

Well, think again. I have been on my own quest to establish the value of women’s leadership, particularly women’s leadership in philanthropy, over the past five years. I went in with the theory that feminist strategies are more powerful strategies, and once people get to know more about them, lots of folks would flock to our website and build up our subscriber base to the point where, eventually, it might even turn into a for-profit market product. Though fiscally sponsored by the Women’s Funding Network, our budget and strategy is built around the idea that only a small portion of our funding should come from grants, and that as our subscriber base grows, eventually, we could become attractive to a regular small business publication or larger progressive media platform.

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Share the Joy and Unique Promise of Giving for Gender Equality

Editor’s Note: I wrote this post a year ago, but I 100% endorse it again as the best use of your Giving Tuesday resources.

Since starting Philanthropy Women, we have chosen to embrace Giving Tuesday each year in different ways, but always as a great opportunity to give back to women. This year we are celebrating Giving Tuesday by naming our Top 10 Picks for feminist giving for the day. We hope you enjoy the list and relish the experience of making an intentional gift to one or all of them on Giving Tuesday.

giving tuesday 2020
Did you know that research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute showed that in 2018, women gave the majority, 64.9%, of dollars donated on Giving Tuesday? Perhaps that’s because women generally look for opportunities to give, and when a new holiday is established where the sole purpose is to give to charity, women are all over it.

#1 Women’s Fund of Rhode Island or Your State’s Women’s Fund

There is really no better bang for your charity buck than your own local women’s fund. Ours here in Rhode Island does a fantastic job of gender equality education and training, civic engagement, and grantmaking. Imagine if every adult in Rhode Island (roughly 800,000 people) gave just $1 to the Women’s Foundation of Rhode Island? That would mean $800,000 in resources that would exponentially increase the education, engagement, and grantmaking for one of the most influential women’s organizations in the state. Then we could really see what WFRI is capable of in terms of helping our state move toward gender equality. If you don’t live in Rhode Island, you can find your local women’s fund by visiting the Women’s Funding Network where most state and regional women’s funds are members.

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