Philanthropy Women

April 2: GFW Hosting Webinar on Feminist Funding for COVID

As we head into the deepening crisis of COVID-19, now is the time for women funders and their allies to gather and strategize. This Thursday, April 2nd at 8amPT/11am ET. Please RSVP here and they will send you a link to join the webinar. Below is the invitation in full from Ammarah Maqsood, Development Officer for Global Fund for Women:

As most of us are watching the news and learning about the impact of COVID-19 here in the states, at Global Fund for Women, we are hearing from the women around the world about their creative solutions and pressing needs caused by the pandemic crisis.

Where water isn’t readily available in homes, women have created inventive hand washing stations. In refugee camps in the Middle East, women are finding inventive ways to use WhatsApp and keep young kids learning.

Plan Int’l CA Raises Alarm about COVID’s Impact on Children, Girls

TORONTO, March 23, 2020 – As the world faces the worst health crisis of a generation, Plan International Canada is extremely concerned about vulnerable populations around the world – particularly children. Plan International Canada welcome’s the Government of Canada’s recent funding announcement to support humanitarian actors responding to COVID-19 and calls on governments and all responders to consider the unique needs of children, especially girls.

Disease outbreaks affect girls and boys, women and men differently. Policies and interventions must be equitable, protective of human rights, inclusive of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, and responsive to the different needs and risks faced by individuals. It is especially important to apply a gender lens at all times across all actions. Girls, especially those from marginalized communities and with disabilities, may be particularly affected by the secondary impacts of the outbreak due to their age, gender and other exclusion factors.

NY Women’s Foundation Gives Responsive Grants to Women in COVID

(March 26, 2020) The New York Women’s Foundation is launching the 2020 Resilience-NYC: COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to provide organizations funding to solve critical issues facing vulnerable and marginalized communities in New York City

NEW YORK, March 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The New York Women’s Foundation (The Foundation) announced the launch of 2020 Resilience-NYC: COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, providing $1,000,000 in grants to organizations helping women, transgender, gender nonconforming, non-binary (TGNCNB) individuals, and their families most impacted by COVID-19. Marginalized populations are among the most vulnerable during times of crisis, along with the local organizations that know how to best support them. The COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund will provide vital resources to organizations on the front lines for some of the hardest hit communities to address immediate and long-term needs.

Lesbians Who Tech Launches Online Series in Response to COVID

Lesbians Who Tech & Allies Announce: Your (Not IRL) Squad Series

(March 25, 2020) — Lesbians Who Tech & Allies announces its “ (Not IRL) Squad Series,” bringing its community the content it loves in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. The Squad Series will bring together Lesbians Who Tech & Allies’ favorite speakers for intimate conversations, workshops and sessions focused on technology trends, career growth, and personal wellness. This comes weeks after Lesbians Who Tech & Allies made the difficult decision to postpone its flagship San Francisco Summit.

Lesbians Who Tech is launching a new streaming series after the difficult decision to cancel its annual San Francisco Summit. (Image credit: Lesbians Who Tech)

“It’s important that LGBTQ people have a direct connection to the larger queer community, and we are helping make that happen with our Squad Series. It’s never been more vital,” said Leanne Pittsford, Founder and CEO of Lesbians Who Tech & Allies. “We made the difficult decision to postpone our San Francisco Summit and immediately got to work on how we can bring our community the programming and connection they need right now in this difficult time.”

W20 Calls for Gender Equality In COVID Crisis

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Mar. 23 /CSRwire/ – Women 20 (W20), the Women’s Engagement Group, welcomes the extraordinary G20 Summit and strongly agrees that a coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic – and its human and economic implications – is urgently needed. We appreciate the effort of G20 Leaders to reduce the COVID-19 pandemic, to propose policies to protect people and safeguard the global economy, and their recognition that collaboration among G20 countries is needed. We, W20, are willing to contribute.

W20 Saudi Arabia has released a statement urging G20 leaders to act on gender equality efforts in addressing COVID-19 crisis. (Image Credit: W20 Saudi Arabia)

We urge that policies and public health efforts address the gendered impacts of disease outbreaks. Experts find that pandemics make existing gender inequalities for women and girls worse, and can impact their treatment and care. Women and girls face a variety of risk factors that must urgently be addressed. Given their predominant roles as caregivers within families and as front-line health-care workers, women are more likely to be exposed to the virus. Women also make up a disproportionate percentage of workers in sectors and roles that are impacted harder in economic downturns and offer less social protection.

Eve Ensler: Nurses Told to Work Even if They Have COVID Symptoms

Last evening, Kimberlé Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum hosted a Zoom session called Under the Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that COVID Lays Bare. It featured an array of progressive leaders including Eve Ensler, Laura Flanders, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Ai-jen Poo, Dorothy Roberts and Alvin Starks.

Kimberlé Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum hosted a Zoom session called **Under the Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that COVID Lays Bare**. (Image Credit: AAPF)

There were many great points discussed in the meeting, but as a health care provider, I want to bring one point right to the surface. Eve Ensler, when discussing her work supporting nurses in the COVID crisis, said that many nurses are reporting that they are being told that they need to show up for work even though they have COVID symptoms such as cough, congestion, and exhaustion, or the beginnings of symptoms which can sometimes look like nausea and vomiting, sleeplessness, and “just not feeling right.”

Dominika Kulczyk Commits $5 Mil to COVID Response in Poland

Dominika Kulczyk commits millions for COVID-19 response in Poland

Dominika Kulczyk, a Polish philanthropist, journalist and entrepreneur, has today announced an approximately $5 million commitment (PLN 20 million) in support of Polish doctors and health workers working in response to the global coronavirus public health emergency.

Funding will be made available through the Doctors for Doctors Foundation (Fundacja Lekarze Lekarzom), created by the official trade body – the Chief Medical Council – representing doctors in Poland.

This vital financial support will promote further testing, and build capabilities and capacity to identify and mitigate the spread of the disease in the country, ultimately helping the global health community to minimise the effects of the pandemic.

Rihanna’s Foundation Donates $5 Million to Fight COVID-19

Editor’s Note: The following announcement is from the Clara Lionel Foundation, founded by singer/songwriter Rihanna.

When we first began this year, never could we have imagined how COVID-19 would so dramatically alter our lives. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, this pandemic will affect us all. And for the world’s most vulnerable, the worst may be yet to come.

The Clara Lionel Foundation, started by Rihanna in 2012 and named after her grandparents, Clara and Lionel Braithwaite, is giving $5 million to an array of global organizations to address the COVID-19 crisis. (Image Credit: CLF)

Over the past five years CLF has been one of the first organizations to respond to some of the world’s most devastating natural disasters, and we’ve seen firsthand the profound and unintended consequences of not being prepared.

Twitter Donates $1 Million for COVID Journalism, IWMF Receives $500 K

Editor’s Note: The following is from Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead at Twitter.

(March 24, 2020) All around the world, we’ve seen our service connecting people with the authoritative health information they need to protect themselves and their loved ones. That work can only be successful if people have access to the news and information they need.

Right now, every journalist is a COVID-19 journalist. From the stories of healthcare workers on the frontlines, to analysis of the real human and economic cost of the pandemic, reporters around the world are still writing, still exposing themselves to harm, still giving us the facts. Journalism is core to our service and we have a deep and enduring responsibility to protect that work. This week we’re contributing to two critical organizations that are working tirelessly to uphold the fundamental values of a free press during this pandemic.

How Canada is Pushing for Better Mental Health Care for Women

Editor’s Note: This edition of our Feminist Giving IRL (in real life) series features Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos, Clinician Scientist and Physician-in-Chief at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada’s largest mental health hospital and a global research leader. She is the clinical lead of CAMH womenmind, a new effort from CAMH to close the gender gap in mental health. She is also a Professor and Vice Chair Clinical and Innovation in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

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