May 14 Webinar: Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models

What can feminist giving do to help alleviate the COVID-19 crisis? 
 
We’re seeking to answer this question in “Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models,” the first ever webinar event from Philanthropy Women. Join Editor-in-Chief Kiersten Marek and special guests Marianne Schnall, Surina Khan, and Emily Nielsen Jones to discuss key strategies to support women and girls through COVID. 

feminist giving for covid

COVID 19 is presenting humanity with extreme challenges and hardships, and particularly for women and girls, the impacts are, and will be, profound. This 45 minute session will feature expert insights on how to apply a gender lens not only to your funding, but also to your everyday life in COVID, in order to improve our collective response to this unprecedented health crisis.

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New Report Shows How Comfortable Harvard Made Jeffrey Epstein

Time for a break from COVID and a return to a discussion that was a big deal in the land before pandemics: Jeffrey Epstein, and the way he simply glided through high society as if there was nothing wrong with being a convicted sex offender.

Harvard University’s General Counsel, in consultation with an outside law firm, has produced a 27 page report on Epstein’s involvement with the university. (Image Credit: Boston Globe) Read the full report here.

A new report from Harvard discussed in today’s Boston Globe tells of how Epstein “had his own office in a Harvard University department and visited there more than 40 times after he was released from jail in 2010 up until 2018.”

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Collective Future Fund Announces $2 Mil Fund for Survivors in COVID

COVID-19 is exposing long-standing disparities and inequities created by unjust policies and systems that have left communities vulnerable, in spite of powerful mobilizations by grassroots movements. Millions of people who work in essential care and service industries including homecare workers and house cleaners, restaurant, grocery, and delivery workers, and health and child care providers, are facing risks to their own health, emotional stress, and the economic insecurity that comes with the evolving landscape of managing the coronavirus outbreak. 

collective futures fund
The Collective Future Fund has announced the launch of a 2 million fund for survivors during COVID. (Image Credit: Collective Future Fund)

Queer, trans, and cis women of color, Indigenous, and immigrant women and girls in particular make up a significant proportion of the essential workers in our communities showing up day after day to mitigate the transmission and impact of the virus. Even prior to this crisis, they faced widespread discrimination, harassment, and violence in the workplace and have been further marginalized by lack of health benefits or paid sick days, low wages, and job insecurity. 

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Addressing COVID DV Surge: NNEDV Teams with Donors, Shelters

Cindy Southworth knows how it feels to be at the center of the fire. As the Executive Vice President for the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), Southworth has found herself, like many nonprofit and crisis aid workers, pivoting almost daily to meet the needs of victims of domestic violence around the country.

covid DV surge
Cindy Southworth, Executive Vice President, National Network to End Domestic Violence (Photo Credit: Cindy Southworth, Twitter)

Speaking to Women Moving Millions during a webinar session in early April, Southworth laid out the organization’s mission, as well as the deep plea for help from domestic violence organizations around the country.

“We want to get the message out that domestic violence shelters are still open,” she says. “What we’re all working to do is create a world where the idea of domestic violence no longer exists, where it doesn’t even seem fathomable that somebody would use violence and control to harm their partner. And in the meantime, we want to make sure that, until we create that new world with different gender norms and different social and cultural expectations, that we are serving every single survivor who needs and wants to reach out for help.”

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How Donors Can Support Survivors of DV During COVID

 The COVID-19 pandemic and current isolation at home of the majority of people across the globe has led domestic violence incidents to skyrocket. In Australia, Google reports a 75% increase in online searches for help with domestic violence. In China, the number of calls to helplines has tripled, according to the U.N., and here in the US, police departments and hotlines are reporting a 20%-35% increase in cases. Couple this data with the fact that many shelters nationwide are currently closed or not accepting new clients in order to protect the health and safety of staff and current residents, and the picture of this crisis quickly becomes much bleaker. 

support survivors
Sonya Passi, founder and CEO of FreeFrom (www.freefrom.org), a national organization in the US working with and for survivors, shares her advice for how feminist givers can support survivors during COVID. (Image credit: Glen Carrie at Unsplash)

However, COVID-19 itself is not the problem. The number one reason survivors in the US stay in or go back to abusive situations is financial insecurity. The Center for Disease Control estimates that domestic violence will cost a female survivor almost $104,000 in medical bills, legal fees, property damages, and other related costs. This six-figure debt is exacerbated by the fact that economic abuse (which can take many forms such as not being allowed to work, having little or no access to cash, and being forced to take on debt through physical threats) occurs in 99% of domestic violence cases. Survivors are trapped in violence because it is overwhelmingly expensive to overcome both the cost of being harmed and the devastatingly intricate impact of being financially abused. 

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Teen Sexual Assault Education Summit Moves Online

In Honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, SafeBAE (and partners*) Moves Annual Teen Summit on Sexual Assault and Consent Education Online from April 28-May 2nd

April 21, 2020 – SafeBAE, a survivor-founded, student-led national organization whose mission is to end sexual violence and teach healthy relationships among middle and high school students, is taking their originally scheduled school-based Virginia and Maine Summits online from April 28 through May 2nd, due to COVID-19 school closures. Every session is free and will be hosted over a secure Telehealth Zoom platform, with moderators and counselors overseeing all of the attendees. The Summit is being made possible by the commitment of our youth planning committees (comprised of 14-18 year olds) and partners from both of our original locations in Arlington, VA and Portland, ME, but is open to all. 

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Stop the Spread: Donors Going Above and Beyond

In the face of global crises, the poor and vulnerable always suffer the most. Globally, the majority of the poor and vulnerable are women and children. Women face rape, perpetual abuse, and violence in the face of war, political instability, and global pandemics like COVID-19. I am seeing this first-hand through our field training centers in rural India, where most villagers rely on daily wages to meet their basic needs.

stop the spread
Diana Mao, President and Co-Founder of Nomi Network, shares her perspective on how COVID is impacting women in India, and how donors are stepping up to help. (Photo credit: Nomi Network)

We also work in states such as Bihar, where there is extensive corruption, lack of rule of law, and systemic violence against women. Through many disheartening calls and reports from our field staff, these are some of the ways that we are witnessing our trainees and villagers suffering the most:

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The Entrenched Pandemic of Gender-Based Violence

We have a problem. 

We have known about gender injustice for centuries, yet only over the past one hundred years have we been more publicly working to end this vast inequality. The rights women have claimed, from voting rights to reproductive rights, have been hard fought and hard won. Undergirding all of those public battles, there has been the ongoing battle for a woman’s right to safety at home. Gender-based violence has plagued people for as long as we have written history, yet even during our current health pandemic, this social problem continues to be defined as a private issue.

pandemic of gender-based violence
Indrani Goradia shares her expertise on gender based violence during COVID. (Image credit: Sharon McCutcheon, Unsplash)

One reason for this is that governments and those who create policy insist on spreading false narratives, such as the one recently sent out by the Malaysian government: Don’t nag your husbands during quarantine and social distancing. This form of misinformation does nothing to help women be safe. It allows violence against women to be blamed on women. Home is the most dangerous place for a woman, and violence against women is about power and control.

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In a Pandemic, Gender Equality More Important Than Ever

Announced in June 2019 with a historic contribution of $300 million CAD from Global Affairs Canada, the Equality Fund is an innovative model delivering unprecedented resources to feminist movements. Our goal is ambitious: Mobilize $1 billion for gender equality in philanthropic and investment capital in Canada and around the world.

equality fund
Canada’s Minister for International Development and Minister of Women and Gender Equality announced Canada’s $300 million contribution to the Equality Fund on June 2, 2019. Members of the Equality Fund Collective from left to right:  Sharon Avery (Toronto Foundation), Keely Tongate (PAWHR), Lindsay Patrick (RBC Capital Markets), Theo Sowa (African Women’s Development Fund), Jess Tomlin (Equality Fund), Jessica Houssian (Equality Fund), Paulette Senior (Canadian Women’s Foundation), Andrea Dicks (Community Foundations of Canada), Nadine St. Louis and The Honourable Maryam Monsef.

We are shifting power and resources to organizations and leaders on the frontlines. Why? Because this is the most effective way to fight inequality. 

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Women Will Be Impacted by COVID. Here’s How Donors Can Help

One small piece of good news about the COVID crisis is that there seems to be more awareness than ever about its gendered impacts. This piece in the New York Times, for example, discusses how women make up the majority of health care workers, and how, on top of that, they are more likely to take on the caregiving of sick people in their own families, and the care of children.

donors help
Texas Women’s Foundation has started a Resilience Fund to help address the COVID crisis for women in Texas. (Image credit: TWF)

There are lots of things we can do to mitigate these impacts, but it will take conscious effort to resist the pull toward harmful gender norms. More than ever, we need to defend women’s rightful place in leadership and decision-making to end the COVID crisis. Think about it: if we had more women’s leadership at the table right now, say, for example, if Hillary Clinton had become President, we might be taking a much different approach to addressing this crisis, one that recognizes the validity of science and the need for preventative measures in health care.

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