$11M to Grantees: How CFF Will Take Down Gender-Based Violence

The Collective Future Fund has chosen 25 organizations to start its first multi-year grantmaking effort, pledging a total of $11 million.

In this grantmaking effort, the Collective Future Fund has chosen organizations dedicated to ending gender-based violence in all its various forms. (Image credit: CFF)

On March 31st, 2021, the Collective Future Fund (CFF) awarded grants to 25 organizations in its first multi-year grantmaking effort, totaling $11 million over the next three years. The grant recipients are working at the forefront of movements to end gender-based violence in all its forms, and are all led by BIPOC women, queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary and im/migrant survivors of color. 

Since March 2020, the Collective Future Fund has disbursed rapid response grants to groups addressing the immediate safety needs of survivors of violence and communities of color during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent economic crisis, and racial justice uprisings. The multi-year funding announced today will help sustain this work and provide reliable and flexible support to grantee partners as they lead and create community-driven solutions and shape policy through building power, strengthening the voices of survivors, and work in solidarity across communities. $8 million in payments of this funding will be dispersed in 2021, in response to the pressing needs facing organizations in the wake of 2020. Despite a long history of women of color, im/migrant, transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people of color driving social change as movement leaders and visionaries, funding for these groups is scarce, with less than 0.5% of philanthropic dollars being directed to women and girls of color annually, with even less directed to transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities. 

“2020 exemplified the resilience and dedication of BIPOC- and survivor-led organizations, with our communities facing cascading, interconnected, and ongoing pandemics — from escalating patriarchal violence, to economic uncertainty, to COVID-19. Our grantee partners faced these challenges head-on, proving again the importance of leadership rooted in lived experience and collective power,” said Aleyamma Mathew, Director of the Collective Future Fund. “It is critical that our support of these powerful movements does not stop with rapid response grants. We want to help sustain and grow the transformational work of building a world free from violence, and implore other funders to follow suit and provide the stable flow of resources that survivor- and women-of-color-led organizations need to make lasting change.”

“Our movement – to build safety and healing for our community – is so often asked to make magic happen with really limited resources. Knowing that support is guaranteed for a few years gives us the space to develop a more expansive vision of our work and to invest in longer term strategies that really address the root causes of violence and oppression,” said Toni-Michelle Williams, Executive Director of Solutions Not Punishment, a Black trans and queer led Atlanta-area organization that builds safety, collective embodied leadership, and political power.

“Too often, movements that center the leadership and experiences of survivors, women of color, transgender, and non-binary people of color are under-resourced and underestimated,” said Dr. Connie Wun, Co-Founder and Executive Director of AAPI Women Lead, an organization working to strengthen the progressive political and social platforms of Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the US through the leadership of self-identified AAPI women and girls in solidarity with other communities of color. “This underinvestment is rooted in white supremacist, patriarchal expectations of what a leader looks like – and we see over and over the violence that this ideology and viewpoint perpetuates. We must push back against these falsehoods and invest abundantly and enthusiastically in the work of those most impacted by race and gendered violence, including sexual violence.”

A graphic from Collective Future Fund’s Facebook page celebrates the various facets of giving that occurred in 2020 from the fund, which was selected as a recipient from MacKenzie Scott. (Image Credit: Collective Future Fund)

CFF’s grantee partners work across sectors and disciplines towards a violence-free future while uplifting long-ignored voices, utilizing a range of strategies domestically and transnationally –– from mutual aid and healing supports, to organizing campaigns and shifting narratives, to policy and legal advocacy. Among the recipients of Collective Future Fund’s multi-year grants is A Long Walk Home, an organization supporting Black girls to use their voices through art, organizing, and campaigning. Another, the Sovereign Bodies Institute, generates new knowledge and understandings of how Indigenous nations and communities are impacted by gender and sexual violence, and how they may continue to work towards healing and freedom from such violence. Other multi-year grant awardees focus on community-wide movement building, such as EveryBlackGirl, a national campaign and program working to create a world where every Black girl thrives. 

CFF hosted an open call for proposal submissions from December 2020 to February 2021 and prioritized strategies that build power, amplify survivors’ voices, and work in solidarity across movements and borders. Recipients include: 

A Long Walk Home

AAPI Women Lead

African American Policy Forum

Black LGBTQIA + Migrant Project

Black Women’s Blueprint

Center for Women’s Global Leadership

Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women

Creative Interventions

EveryBlackGirl, Inc.

Freedom Inc

Fund for Trans Generations

Girls for Gender Equity, Inc.

In Our Names Network

Justice for Migrant Women 

National Women’s Law Center

Me Too International Inc.

Miami Workers Center

One Fair Wage

Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative 

Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaP Co)

SOUL Sisters Leadership Collective, Inc.

Sovereign Bodies Institute 

Tahirih Justice Center

Transforming Generations

“To achieve meaningful progress on issues of safety and gender justice, the philanthropic community must commit to resourcing groups at the scale they deserve and that this work requires,” said Ada Williams Prince of Pivotal Ventures, a Collective Future Fund Collaborative Donor. “Supporting CFF means grantee partners bring rich experiences and strategies to the collective work of building a future of safety, power, and voice for survivors everywhere. It’s up to us in philanthropy to invest in organizations/intermediaries such as the Collective Future Fund who make sure there is support for BIPOC women, queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary and im/migrant survivors of color who are leading this incredible work.”

“The grantee partners chosen for these multi-year grants have gender and racial justice at their core, actively building a future of safety and liberation for all of us,” said Holly Bartling of the General Service Foundation, a Collective Future Fund Collaborative Donor. “The approach CFF has taken in this grantmaking – with a priority to build the voice and power of communities most impacted by injustice – has resulted in a diverse slate of partners who are creatively approaching issues of violence in their communities. These partners are taking an intersectional approach to both the work and the communities they support. We are thrilled that CFF can provide multi-year general operating support and we firmly believe that this support will contribute to the sustainability and growth of this critical movement ecosystem.”

View a list of Collective Future Fund’s Collaborative Donor Partners here

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Collective Future Fund works with philanthropy and visionary changemakers to build a collective future where all women, girls, trans, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people and survivors of color are not only safe from state, workplace and interpersonal violence, but live in shared abundance, joy, and power.

Related:

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

We’re Back, and Better than Ever! The Future of Philanthropy Women

How Donors Can Support DV Survivors in COVID-19

Author: Gender Equality Funding News

Philanthropy Women aggregates the most important gender equality funding news.

One thought on “$11M to Grantees: How CFF Will Take Down Gender-Based Violence”

  1. I am a a white female cis survivor with PTSD as a major disability, and I lead a small non-profit organization. I have been in the field of child sexual violence prevention for many years, always with a social justice frame, working to change culture, policies and structures in institutional settings (churches, YSOs,) and in communities. Our team is multi-racial and we work to include a racial justice lens. I support and understand the need to center POC/LGBTQ folks in grant making and leadership. But I am concerned about the field becoming more and more siloed. I hope that future grantmaking becomes inclusive of all survivors to build the interconnections between various communities to unite us as one movement. As an elder survivor (65+) I also would like to see more focus on engaging elders of all ethnicities and identities. Intergenerational, and multi-racial/ gendered work is where I believe we need to be.

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