Rebecca Traister Comes to Rhode Island for Women’s Fund Benefit

Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, pictured with event hosts Emily and Robin Kall Homonoff. (Photo Credit: Little Lion Communication)

With the recent news that “rage giving” — philanthropic giving to offset the shrinking of civil society resulting from the election of Donald Trump — is primarily driven by progressive women donors, the timing could not be better for Rebecca Traister’s new book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.  Particularly with the much-contested appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, progressive women’s rage appears to be reaching a new crescendo, and the resultant giving to charity and politics may set new records.

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Hamutal Gouri: Seven Steps to Growing Feminist Funding Eco-Systems

Hamutal Gouri takes her decades of experience as a feminist funding leader and outlines seven steps we can follow to grow feminist funding ecosystems.

After leading the DAFNA Fund in Israel for over 15 years, Hamutal Gouri has written an overview of how we can grow funding for feminist philanthropy and accelerate social change that is both inclusive and fair, and that engages the larger systems of government in new ways.

In the article, Gouri calls on leaders invested in Israel to do more to safeguard human rights and equality, which are under threat from growing religious and nationalist extremes. She then outlines the unequal status of women in Israel before offering her vision of the future steps needed. The article considers the particular concerns of Israel, including specific religious, security, and social justice contexts of the nation.

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#GirlsToo Launches to End Gender-Based Violence Against Girls

Girls Inc. announced the new #GirlsToo movement, which will work to prevent sexual abuse and harassment of girls.

Everyday, it seems, some new subgroup is taking ownership of the #MeToo hashtag to create a movement of their own. The latest in this growing series of movements: girls. Today, Girls Inc., one of the country’s oldest nonprofits dedicated to helping girls, announced the launch of a new campaign called #GirlsToo, which will work to address gender-based violence against girls, including sexual harassment and assault.

#GirlsToo will take an approach that challenges gender norms for youth. “Sexual harassment and violence is an epidemic facing adults, but the problem starts at a much younger age,” said Judy Vredenburgh, president and CEO of Girls Inc. “The #GirlsToo campaign will focus on building a culture of respect for girls today and generations to come.”

The #GirlsToo announcement was coupled with some sobering facts about just how prevalent sexual harassment is among high school girls.  Young girls ages 14 to 19 report report that they hear boys making sexual comments “at least several times a week,” and the majority do not feel safe most of the time in society.

Accompanying the launch is a pledge that both youth and adult can take at girlstoo.girlsinc.org in order to increase their advocacy for gender equality and working to promote the dignity of girls. The campaign also provides resources for girls, boys, parents and educators about how to discuss harassment and abuse in order to feed healthy change in communities.

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Obama Foundation Announces New Global Initiative to Educate Girls

The Obama Foundation announced the launch of The Global Girls Alliance, which will seek to increase education for girls worldwide. (Photo courtesy of Obama Foundation website.)

Today, in recognition of International Day of the Girl, the Obama Foundation has announced the launch of a new initiative that will empower adolescent girls around the world through education.

The initiative aims to support more than 1,500 grassroots organizations around the world that reduce barriers to education for girls such as early marriage, limited access, and lack of financial resources.

Michelle Obama appeared on the Today Show to make the announcement, emphasizing that “The stats show that when you educate a girl, you educate a family, a community, a country.”

The initiative will accept applications from eligible nonprofits already working to increase educational opportunities for girls. Through a collaboration with GoFundMe, the Obama Foundation has established the Global Girls Alliance Fund, which will help raise funds for grassroots organizations to make more headway with goals to educate more girls.

Michelle Obama announced the Global Girls Initiative today, encouraging the public to help make education a reality for girls worldwide. (photo courtesy of the Obama Foundation)

Eligible nonprofits must be seeking between $5,000 and $50,000 for this work, and all funds raised must go directly to programs working on education for girls, not for overhead or general operating expenses.  

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$10 Million to Train Women’s Health Leaders at UCLA Med School

UCLA
Iris Cantor will endow a chair at the David Geffen School of Medicine. Funds will also help to train new leaders in the field of women’s health.

If you are a woman who needs medical care, it often becomes crystal clear to you that the health care system doesn’t understand your problems very well. As celebrity chef and gender equality advocate Padma Lakshmi put it at the recent Social Good Summit in New York, when speaking about her own difficulties getting care for endometriosis: “I realized there was a lot of misogyny in the health care system.”

But hopefully as we progress in medicine, misogyny will be rooted out, and more doctors will learn how to attend to the full spectrum of women’s medical concerns. To aid in that process, a $10 million commitment was recently made by philanthropist Iris Cantor to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. These funds will be used to advance the medical school’s work to educate and train both clinicians and researchers in the field of women’s health care.

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WPI Study: Rage Giving is Driven by Progressive Women Donors

rage giving
A new report from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute shows that women’s giving to progressive causes outstripped men’s by six-fold after the 2016 election.

A new trend in women’s philanthropy: rage giving. According to a new study by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, giving by women to progressive causes after the election of Donald Trump took off like never before. In fact, the study shows that women’s giving to progressive causes outstripped men’s by six-fold.

These findings add significantly to the growing evidence that women are using their financial power to drive political change. More from WPI:

Key findings from Charitable Giving Around the 2016 Election: Does Gender Matter? include:

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This Social Enterprise Helps Women See Strategies for Giving Up-Close

secret sisterhood

Jacquie Love becoming a student for the day at ZOE International rescue house in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

As feminist strategies in philanthropy continue to grow, new organizations are being created to serve the needs of this sector.  Among these new organizations is the Secret Sisterhood, founded by Australian entrepreneur and philanthropist Jacquie Love. Launched in the second half of 2017, the enterprise reports already having 40,000 women in its network.

Along with creating jewelry that celebrates gender equality and women’s leadership, the Secret Sisterhood conducts “philanthropic journeys” —  travel events in the developing world that offer women an opportunity to see first-hand how philanthropy can aid in gender equality movements. The journeys have four aims — empowering female entrepreneurs in developing nations, reducing human trafficking, eliminating violence against women, and providing education for girls.

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Priming the Pump: Exploring Ways to Grow Women’s Giving

Gender Matters by Kathleen E. Loehr explores how fundraisers can widen the aperture on their lens for approaching donors in order to maximize women’s giving.

Once you study women’s philanthropy for long enough, you begin to recognize that a confluence of events relating to women and giving are changing the philanthropy landscape in significant ways. One of the scholars who has studied women’s philanthropy and done this dot-connecting is Kathleen E. Loehr. In her new book, Gender Matters: A Guide to Growing Women’s Philanthropy, Loehr addresses the important question of how fundraisers and those committed to women’s giving can take specific actions that will increase women’s philanthropy – already an area of giving scheduled for a large uptick in the near future.

“It is time to rumble with our stories about women’s philanthropy,” says Loehr in the first chapter of the book, referencing a Brené Brown concept about rumbling with the truth to find the real story. In the introduction, Loehr describes a method for asking questions called Appreciative Inquiry, which “involves the art and practice of asking unconditionally positive questions” as a way to increase potential, by maximizing imagination and innovation in the responses being elicited. Loehr has written the book with an Appreciative Inquiry framework, which informs much of what Loehr recommends in terms of a strategy for approaching women donors.

In the book, Loehr combines the ideas of Appreciative Inquiry with an approach to leadership that works to align strengths in an organization, so that weaknesses are so insignificant that they are not even worth noticing. With these approaches in mind, Loehr starts with a call to look more closely at the data about the donors you are trying to reach. With specific examples guided by fundraising campaigns of colleges like Duke and William & Mary, Loehr demonstrates how a closer look at the data yielded a decision to shift fundraising approaches in order to collect the unharvested revenue of women’s giving.

But research is, of course, not enough. Loehr then provides guidance around how to create a high-quality action plan that will increase your donor engagement with women. In part two of the book, entitled Dream, Loehr invited readers into transformative reflection where they can “create a compelling mental picture of what is possible.”

By doing so, Loehr helps drive readers toward the next big step in carrying out their plan: declaring a vision. Through the process of declaring a vision, Loehr shows how intention is amplified, resulting in a stronger approach that will pull in donors, particularly women. Loehr also calls on fundraisers to build networking and collaboration into their vision, since research shows that women are more receptive to giving when they see themselves as joining with other women on a similar mission and participating in design of the project.

What Happens When We Ask Big Questions

Loehr is particularly adept at providing questions in the book that will “prime the pump,” to so speak.  She recommends questions that help prospective women donors articulate their own experiences with giving so that fundraisers can fully engage in appreciating those experiences and use them to create that compelling mental picture that will grow women’s support. Here is a small sample of some of those positive, open-ended questions you can pose to donors about their past giving experiences:

  • What has been your most exciting experience in giving? It does not need to be related to this organization.
  • Tell me the story. What happened?
  • What enabled this gift? What role did you play? What role did the organization play? What role did the staff person play in relationship to this experience?
  • What else made this experience possible?

Loehr suggests that asking these questions help women donors contextualize their giving experience and focus their attention on remembering what that experience was like for them. While such an approach might sound obvious, it is not in the old playbook of “best practices” for development and fundraising professionals.

Loehr also highlights significant research for guiding the ongoing donor-grantee relationship, including how much to communicate with women donors. “It is unlikely that women will feel they are getting too much communication,” writes Loehr, a research-based insight that is important to keep in mind when redesigning fundraising campaigns with women more in mind.

Gender Matters is an important new resource for those who see the potential for women’s giving to influence both philanthropy and civil society as a whole.  The guide will help readers notice their own assumptions and how they might be driving their behavior, so they can imagine and explore better ways to reach women as philanthropists.

Learn more about Gender Matters here.

Related:

Funding Feminism: Unearthing the History of Women’s Philanthropy

Martha A. Taylor: On Accelerating Social Change for Women

Women’s Philanthropy News Goes Mainstream in Forbes

Kathy LeMay on Regenerating Courage as a Social Change AgentRead More

Women Funders Urge Investigation of Sexual Assault Allegations

Christine Blasey Ford testified this morning before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Women funders have come together to release a joint statement in support of Dr. Ford.

Today is a remarkable day in American history, particularly for survivors of sexual assault. Today, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, bringing to light her experiences with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his alleged attempt to rape her while they were in high school. “Brett’s assault on me drastically changed my life,” she stated, and went on to recount the many ways that her life was changed by the trauma. 

Leaders in the women’s funding community have come together collectively with a statement in support of Dr. Ford, and are calling for a full investigation of her allegations, as well as the allegations of Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, in order to ensure that the U.S. Senate does not rush through the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.

From the Statement, issued by the Women’s Funding Network:

Shortly after Dr. Ford came forward, so did the misogynistic and toxic remarks aiming to discredit, devalue, and delegitimize her.  Even after additional allegations of sexual assault were brought forward by Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, some in the U.S Senate continue to rush Kavanaugh’s nomination forward, asserting “they have no reason not to believe him.”

In response, countless survivors across the nation have taken to the streets, public forums, and social media platforms to demand that we must #BelieveWomen and #TrustSurvivors. The Women’s Funding Network (WFN) is the largest network of foundations in the world investing in gender equity.  We stand for the rights of women and girls to be heard. We stand in solidarity with the chorus of voices speaking out against sexual assault.  We believe Dr. Ford and we support the survivors who are courageously sharing their stories in order to combat gender-based violence that manifests itself as sexual assault and harassment. As we have seen with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, our power is in our ability to bring to the surface what is hidden and made invisible.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled the vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court for Friday morning, just 24 hours after Dr. Ford will give her testimony. This is unacceptable.  It is imperative that the President and his administration address the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh with serious consideration. These are not the kinds of concerns to “plow right through.”

As Dr. Ford takes a bold stance today in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, our members across the United States and beyond, want to make clear that we support her. We support calls for a thorough federal investigation. Kavanaugh should not be confirmed or considered eligible for confirmation until an investigation takes place.  We can no longer hold onto the codes of silence that for generations have allowed men to hurt women with impunity.

Signed:

Cynthia Nimmo, President and CEO, Women’s Funding Network

Surina Khan, CEO, Women’s Foundation of California

Kelly Nevins, Executive Director, Women’s Fund of Rhode Island

Kathy Andersen, Executive Director, The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade

Tanna Clews, CEO, New Hampshire Women’s Foundation

Sharon LaRue, Executive Director, Kentucky Foundation for Women

Michelle Zych, Executive Director, Women’s Fund of Omaha

Lee Roper-Batker, President & CEO, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota

Julie Castro Abrams, Founder & CEO, How Women Lead

Sarah Ghiorse, Executive Director, NewMexicoWomen.Org

Terry Hernandez, Executive Director, Chrysalis Foundation

Nicole Baran, Executive Director, Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation

Ana L. Oliveira, President & CEO, New York Women’s Foundation

Kimberly Burnett, President & CEO, Shadhika

Amanda Brock, Executive Director, Spark

Trish Tierney, Co-founder & CEO, WAKE

This letter is available online here and will be updated as new members of the women’s funding community add their signatures.

Related:

#MeToo, and Who is Funding Sexual Assault Prevention?

Kathy LeMay on Regenerating Courage as a Social Change Agent

Women’s Funds Deploy $58.4 Million in Funding in Two Years

Scaling the Mount Everest of Gender Equality in Minnesota

Funders Take Note: #MeToo is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Women’s Funds Show Philanthropy the Way to Transparency, DiversityRead More

Jacki Zehner Lets It Rip As She Exits Women Moving Millions Leadership

Jessica Houssian, Jacki Zehner, and Kathy LeMay, September 2018 Annual Women Moving Millions Summit in Seattle, sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Wow, what a read. I had to keep stopping at points to walk around the block and get my core energetics realigned. Jacki Zehner literally pours her heart out in this stunning blog post where she shares about her experiences rising to the C-Suite at Goldman Sachs, as well as her intense love for gender equality philanthropy, which has been expressed in over a decade of devotion to growing one of the most important organizations in gender equality philanthropy, Women Moving Millions.

Zehner starts by letting readers know that this writing is more or less automatic — that is, she is going for a Jacki Unfiltered here. What we learn by reading this piece is that Zehner is a complex leader with significant life experiences that inform her activism for women’s rights.

Ever-considerate of others, Jacki warns us that 14 pages have emerged from this attempt to shine a spotlight on her thinking and feeling life. She then goes on to enter into some of the most exciting (and sometimes painful) thoughts and memories. As just an example, check this out:

If there was such a thing as a ‘finance professional Olympics’, becoming a partner at Goldman, especially as a young woman, would represent a gold medal. Of course, I know that there may be someone who reads this and posts in the comments section something along the lines of “die you wall street whore” as they have in the past when I blog freely about Goldman, but so be it. To that potential person I say in advance, “I hope that has helped you feel better about yourself.” […]

Beyond unflinching glimpses like these into Zehner’s mind, the post also delves into many significant life events, including some serious traumas. Her writing is the kind of material that future (or present) movie-makers will want to read in order to gather key scene details for the inevitable biopic of Zehner’s life. For example, here is just one in a bulleted list breaking down the timeline of Zehner’s progression:

  • Finding Women Moving Millions – 2002 to 2009.  As the years from 2002 onward moved forward, I was spending more and more time with philanthropic groups focused on girls and women, and in particular women’s funds. My interest in supporting women’s leadership poured in to my work with various non-profits, and one of the main reasons I loved Women’s Funds so much. I had joined the board of the Women’s Funding Network, and it was there that I got to the know the incredible Chris Grumm. She became, and still is, a role model for me for courageous leadership. She is the one who invited me to consider joining the Women Moving Millions Campaign, as she was a co-founder of it. WMM at the time was a campaign to encourage women to make million dollar commitments to women’s funds. Again, holy shit, I could go on and on and on right here, but I won’t. The need to know piece for the rest of this story is that this moment was transformational for me. Why? Because the act of making that commitment, the moment of stepping onto a stage at the Brooklyn Museum to have a group photo taken by Annie Leibowitz to mark that moment in history where for the first time women of means came together to fund women at the million dollar level, helped me to see clearly what the next stage of my life would be about: helping to unlock the resources of high-net worth women to support other women, and more broadly, gender equality. […]

It’s quite wonderful that Zehner has the clarity to speak about these experiences and mark how these transformations happened for her. By doing so, she is increasing the chances manyfold that other women will get up their courage to do the same.

One other sentence toward the end really popped out at me for how it evoked the shared effort that Women Moving Millions summits are, and how this results in shared experiences that can refuel our courage and make us more powerful. Zehner writes:

The WMM summit 2018 could not have been more incredible
from start to finish. (My next long post will be about it all.) I am in awe of how beautiful the program was (thank you JESS), how perfectly it was executed (the WMM and TES team), how open people were (thank you attendees), how much people shared (thank you speakers), and how everyone trusted that we, WMM, had created a safe place for everyone to be their most vulnerable and by definition, their most powerful.  

I don’t want to overshare or overanalyze here. I just want to thank Jacki Zehner (as I have privately and will now publicly) for her brave years of service to the community through Women Moving Millions. And then point everyone to Jacki’s blog to read the post and let it open your heart and mind.

Related:

Big Research News: Women in Government Root Out Corruption

This Changes Everything: Early American Feminists Were Deeply Religious, Relational, and Race-Conscious

Gender Equality Research Round-Up: AI, BlackHer, Wikipedia, Sleep

Giving For Good: Your Daily Round-Up of Feminist Philanthropy News

Praising the Deeds of Women: How Gender Equity and Reconciliation Can Change the World

Potluck Power: How This Women’s Giving Circle Feeds Global Gender Equity

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