Philanthropy Women

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.

“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.

As NoVo Downsizes, What Next for Women and Girls?

A bombshell was dropped today on feminist funding: Marc Gunther reports from the Chronicle of Philanthropy that NoVo Foundation has laid off half its staff, backed out of the Women’s Building project, and is otherwise downsizing its operations in the gender equality funding arena. “It’s about time other people ponied up,” said Peter Buffett in the Chronicle interview.

Yes, it is about time for others to pony up. If only there were tons of donors standing in line to pony up for women and girls. As it turns out, that’s not quite the case. And certainly no one knows that better than Peter Buffett.

The fact is, most male donors don’t share Peter Buffett’s former sense of enlightenment about the need to fund with a gender lens — not even close. So for one of the few men who truly gets it to be walking away from the table at this particular moment in history, all I can say is, wow. Just wow. Some leaders have a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver. Apparently, Peter Buffett is one of them.

Frances Sykes: Women in Nonprofit Leadership Deserve Equal Pay

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Frances Sykes, President of the Pascale Sykes Foundation. The Foundation partners with nonprofits that serve working, low income families to increase their stability — financially, in relationships and in well-being.

Frances P. Sykes is the President of the Pascale Sykes Foundation, which serves working, low-income families. (Image Credit: Pascale Sykes Foundation)

“Hope is setting a goal and moving toward that goal, taking steps toward the future. That’s what gets families and individuals through challenges of daily life and makes a difference in the community.” – Frances Sykes, President and CEO, Pascale Sykes Foundation

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.

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:

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?

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.

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.

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.

Ms. Foundation Hosts May 20 Feminist Block Party

On May 20th, get ready for a one-of-a-kind online event honoring female movers and shakers with some moving and shaking of your own. The first-ever Feminist Block Party is an online dance party and fundraiser for critical nonprofits and community organizations run by women of color, supporting those organizations in the nation’s communities most heavily impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

The Ms. Foundation for Women will host Roar for Women: A Feminist Block Party, the first online event of its kind, on May 20, 2020. (**Image Credit:** Ms. Foundation for Women)

Hosted by the Ms. Foundation for Women, Roar for Women: A Feminist Dance Party will include notes from guest speakers, leaders from the Ms. Foundation, influencers, and organization spokespeople from across the country, including the 2020 Women of Vision Honorees.

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.

Greengrants’ Laura García on the Gift Feminism Gave Her

Editor’s Note: This interview in the Feminist Giving IRL series features Laura García, President and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund. Greengrants connects grassroots activists in under-served and under-funded communities with the resources and mentorship they need to fight for environmental justice, water rights, healthy ecosystems, and economic empowerment for women and families.

laura garcia — Laura García, President and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund. (Photo Credit: Global Greengrants Fund)

1. What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

When we are young, many of us begin our careers feeling insecure and that we are not valuable professionals in our workplaces. This insecurity has a lot to do with an organizational culture that exploits people who are young and inexperienced, without recognizing their value.