Category: Large Foundations

NoVo Foundation Announces $10 Million in Life Story Grants

(Jan 28, 2020) The NoVo Foundation is honored to announce the recipients of The Life Story Grants: a $10 million, three-year investment in fifteen projects that open exit ramps and close on-ramps to commercial sexual exploitation across the U.S. 

The Life Story Grants follows the launch of The Life Story: Moments of Change, a survivor-centered examination of 13 moments that can shape — or change — the trajectory of how girls and women enter the sex trade — also referred to as “the Life”.

life story

NoVo remains committed to deepening our understanding of systemic barriers faced by survivors and lifting up the work that will be a catalyst for change. The Life Story Grants aims to support and expand the efforts of underserved leaders across the country and foster collaboration among national and community organizations that seek to address the short-term needs while supporting long-term solutions. Funding for these projects will address how systems such as foster care, healthcare, immigration, housing and law enforcement can shift and respond to survivors and their communities. 

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Survey Time: Take Our Survey to Make Us Stronger

UPDATE: Thank you to all who have responded to our survey. We are getting a lot of good ideas for how to expand and sharpen our strategy. Those who haven’t joined in, get busy! Think of it as free therapy — your chance to vent about all your hopes and fears for gender equality movements.

Below is a survey we are are asking readers to respond to. With so many advanced thinkers and leaders in our audience, Philanthropy Women wants to make sure we have your needs covered when it comes to gender equality funding news. We also want to be able to share insights and honest observations from the community about gender equality movements and strategies, particularly ideas that might not otherwise surface in public discourse. Please let us know your thoughts!

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Gates Fdn and India Ministry Sign MOC on Women, Maternal Health

New Delhi [India], Jan 8 (Asian News International): In a bid to improve the healthcare system of the country, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its ex-post-facto approval on the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) between Union Health Ministry and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Women and children receiving medical care in India (Credit: UN WOMEN on Flickr)

The Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) covers the following areas: to reduce maternal, neonatal and child morbidity and mortality, improve key nutrition outcomes by improving the reach, coverage and quality of essential primary health, immunization and nutrition services.

The memorandum will also focus on the quality of family planning methods and reaching out to younger women.

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Ascend Fund Launches with Millions for Women in U.S. Politics

Panorama Global Launches The Ascend Fund to Achieve Equal Representation for Women in U.S. Politics 

SEATTLE – Today, Panorama Global announced the formal launch of The Ascend Fund, a collaborative fund dedicated to accelerating the pace of change towards gender parity in U.S. politics. The Ascend Fund, pools philanthropic capital to support nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations that are working to ensure women have access to the resources and support they need to run for office, and that are breaking down the barriers that prevent women from running and winning. 

The Ascend Fund launched in January of 2020, and along with it, a new report was released to help philanthropists tackle representative democracy (Image Credit: Panorama Global)

The Ascend Fund received seed funding from Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company founded by Melinda Gates, which seeks to advance social progress in the U.S. for women and families. As part of the strategy to accelerate women’s power and influence, Pivotal Ventures provides catalytic support for partners to create resilient and inclusive pathways for women pursuing public office.

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WFN to Lead Gates-Funded Anti-Poverty Work Via Women’s Funds

A giant breakthrough has happened for women’s funds and feminist approaches to social change. The Women’s Funding Network, the world’s largest network of foundations investing in women and girls, has announced receiving $1.69 million in grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This funding will be used to establish “a cohort of ten women’s foundations whose collaborative efforts will be harnessed to increase women’s economic mobility in their communities,” according to a press release announcing the new funding.

women's funds
Cynthia Nimmo, CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, thanked the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their generous gift of $1.69 million, which will fund multi-state efforts led by women’s funds to create economic mobility for women and girls. (Photo Credit: WFN)

This funding could not have come at a more auspicious time. Women’s funds and gender lens grantmaking are a tiny but fast-expanding segment of philanthropy, and this historically large grant will put the peddle to the metal for accelerating feminist approaches to social change.

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Michele Moore Joins Ford Foundation Executive Team

NEW YORK — The Ford Foundation has announced the appointment of Michele Moore as vice president of Global Communications. Moore will join the foundation’s executive leadership team in New York, overseeing all aspects of strategic communications across the foundation’s 11 offices in the United States and abroad. She begins her new role in January 2020, succeeding Alfred D. Ironside who helped lead the foundation’s communications efforts over a 14-year tenure.

michelle Moore
Michelle Moore will become Vice President of Global Communications at the Ford Foundation. (Image Credit: PR Week)

Moore comes to the foundation from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she served as chief communications officer through a time of rapid expansion at the organization. The ACLU’s press coverage, social media following, and membership grew dramatically under Moore’s communications stewardship, which led to her recognition on PR Week magazine’s 2017 and 2018 Power Lists as one of the top communications professionals in the US. With more than 25 years’ experience, spanning the nonprofit, government, Fortune 500, and academic sectors, Moore brings vast expertise in delivering effective communications strategies in high-stakes media environments.

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Find Out How Giving Circles Are Gaining Ground

More is going on in the giving circle arena than ever before, it appears. As those of you know who have been following along at Philanthropy Women, giving circles have increased dramatically over the past ten years and now are poised for an even bigger impact.

giving circles
Giving Circles have captured the attention of communities across the United States with their ability to accelerate social change with collective giving. With $2 million in anchor support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, giving circles are poised for further growth in 2020.

The giving circle co-design team, which consists of leaders from Amplifier, Asian Women’s Giving Circle, Catalist, Community Investment Network, and Latino Community Foundation, recently announced that they have secured a $2 million investment from anchor funding partner, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With this support, they are working to fully launch “a suite of tools, programming, and support for networks, individual circles, host organizations, and other stakeholders,” according to an email to the community.

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How Women’s Foundation California Celebrates 40 Years of Social Change

On October 17th, 2019, the Women’s Foundation California (WFC) celebrated its fortieth anniversary with a major announcement: the organization pledged $40 million to gender justice, and began its groundbreaking campaign to raise the funds to facilitate another forty years of gender justice grantmaking.

Surina Khan, CEO of the WFoC, celebrates her 5-year anniversary as CEO alongside the Foundation’s 40th birthday. (Photo credit: Women’s Foundation of California)

Less than a month later, the WFC is more than halfway to its goal of $40 million. This stunning fundraising effort is the result of a steadfast community of donors, supporters, and activists, which the Foundation has built over forty years of campaigning for social change.

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What Can Pivotal Ventures $1 Billion Do for Gender Equality?

Much celebration and excitement accompanied Melinda Gates’s recent announcement that she will devote $1 billion in new funding to women and girls over the next ten years.

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Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company founded by Melinda Gates, will be investing $1 billion in economic activity to support gender equality in the US over the next ten years. (Image credit: Pivotal Ventures)

There is good reason to be excited. This new funding will be disbursed by Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company founded by Melinda Gates in 2015. Pivotal Ventures is going to do things differently, it seems, with the ability to come in with either philanthropic or investment capital. Perhaps Melinda chose to start a new company for this work because she realized it would be easier to start from scratch and be less confined by other Gates organizations in philanthropy or business.

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Back to School: Women Donors and Higher Education

higher education
Roberta “Bertie” Buffett Elliott, who donated $100 million to fund the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University, recently visited the campus. (Photo credit: Buffett Institute for Global Studies)

Institutions of higher learning are major recipients of philanthropic gifts, and received donations totaling nearly $47 billion in 2018 (a more than seven percent increase from the year previous). This rise is fueled in part by an increasingly wealthy, educated and philanthropically active group of women who are willing to make big ticket donations to colleges and universities.

Major female donors to higher education have included Roberta “Bertie” Buffett Elliott, who in 2015 gave her alma mater Northwestern University $100 million to fund the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies. The gift from Elliott, a member of Northwestern’s class of 1954, represents the single largest gift in the Evanston, Illinois school’s history.

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