Yes, it’s today. Yes, it’s now. Today is Rhode Island’s first statewide giving day, and an opportunity to support your favorite community causes. More than 90 organizations in Rhode Island are participating in this new philanthropy event.
Rhode Island is celebrating its first annual giving day. Who will you give to? Consider the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island
Here is a note from Kelly Nevins, Executive Director of Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, discussing why today is a great day to support WFRI.
Engaging Men as Allies; Women Fighting All Forms of Discrimination; Negotiation Skills Workshops; Gender Equity in the Workplace and in Sports; Public hearings on reproductive health/freedom, fair pay and increased minimum wages… these are the issues and activities that the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island (WFRI) has tackled in the first half of 2018, through the support of volunteers and donors like you.
Rachel’s Network distributes $60 million annually to address both climate change and gender equality. Its intersectional ecofeminist approach is uniquely powerful.
Funders for social progress appear to be increasingly recognizing the intersection of women’s rights and climate change. For example, the million dollar Roddenberry Prize, recently discussed on Philanthropy Women, seeks to support organizations with new solutions to both gender inequality and climate change. Additionally, substantial research, such as this recent issue of Gender and Development, highlights how environmental issues are closely related to gender equality problems. All of these organizations are recognizing how interesectional ecofeminist approaches in philanthropy can be highly strategic and impactful.
Here’s where Rachel’s Network comes in. One of the most significant funding networks in the intersectional ecofeminist space, Rachel’s Network has a mission of promoting women as the leading strategists in addressing environmental issues and climate change. Rachel’s Network is made up of female advocates for environmental justice and women’s empowerment, many of whom work in major environmental organizations across the globe. These women annually donate about $60 million to organizations and projects that are helping our planet and addressing gender inequality.
With a robust board of directors, staff members, environmental leadership liaisons, circle of advisors, and member population, this powerful funders’ network has significant reach. Their advisors include lifelong activists such as Dr. Jane Goodall and their environmental leadership liaisons include voices from the National Parks Conservation Association, U.S. Climate Action Network, Defenders of Wildlife, and Alliance for Justice. In the organization’s 2017 Annual Report, President Fern Shepard and Board Chair Kef Kasdin remark, “We often think of our namesake Rachel Carson, and the courage and tenacity she displayed during her own politically – and personally – challenging times. She inspires us to hold on to what’s true and right, and to fight every day for what matters – a healthy world for all.”
Over the past year, Rachel’s Network has been working on several projects, one being When Women Lead. Through this project, Rachel’s Network is taking an approach that recognizes the critical connections between female leadership and environmental justice. According to the League of Conservation Voters Environmental Scorecard, data shows that environmental advocacy is more often voted for by female federal legislators than male federal legislators. The 2017 Annual Report for Rachel’s Network, entitled Building Our Power, discusses how Rachel’s Network partnered with the League of Conservation Voters to host a women’s candidate training in Washington, DC, where hundreds of women learned how to run for office in their communities.
Rachel’s Network has also partnered with the Sierra Club to fight against walls and barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Other partnerships include work with the Greening Youth Foundation to improve access to jobs in conservation for minorities, and As You Sow, which works to reduce the use of antibiotics on farms. These projects are just a few examples of what Rachel’s Network has done for women through its philanthropy for environmental justice around the world.
Feminist philanthropy has a critical role to play in funding ecofeminism — continuing the work that began over 30 years ago when women leaders started to call attention to the parallels of environmental destruction and other forms of human domination and exploitation. As we approach critical mass for women in both government and business, chances are we will see more intersectional ecofeminist approaches. Funder collaboratives like Rachel’s Network are moving us forward, providing progressive leadership with a deep understanding of the connections between funding feminism and environmental justice issues.
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer takes readers into the world of feminist philanthropy, and captures powerfully the dilemmas and difficulties of the work. (Cover: Riverhead Books. Author photo: Nina Subin)
A novel about a feminist foundation is incredibly rare. A novel about a feminist foundation that is both compelling and reifying is even rarer still. I think it’s safe to say that The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer is the first of its kind: an adventure and social critique novel about feminist philanthropy.
At one point Faith Frank, the central feminist in the story, talks wearily about how saying the words “feminist foundation” usually causes most people to stop listening immediately. But as many of us know, some of the most important and fascinating work is happening in the gender equality funding sector. The Female Persuasion helps to elucidate this strange and powerful world where money and idealism collide.
The story follows the life of Greer Kadetsky, a young woman who discovers feminism through her best friend at college, Zee. Greer goes on to become so passionate about the work that she takes a job with her feminist idol, Faith Frank. Through Greer’s experience, we get to see a foundation for feminism in all its administrative imperfection and human foibles.
The book also explores the many and varied ways that people can live feminist lives. After a series of unfortunate events, Greer’s high school boyfriend, Cory, ends up living a different version of feminism, resigning himself to a life as a caretaker for his mother. And at one point, Zee reflects on her career as a trauma specialist for abused women, realizing that her feminism is the kind that doesn’t get special treatment or attention.
Meanwhile, Greer goes on to the Big Apple and takes a job with Loci, Faith Frank’s feminist foundation. Loci provides Greer with opportunities to be part of new forms of feminism, including rescuing girls from trafficking in Ecuador.
In The Female Persuasion, feminist women both empower each other and undermine each other, just like in real life. The story returns us to themes of weighing ethical compromise in the face of potential personal, and feminist movement, gains. We see story lines that show how women often end up feeling unable to lift up others, for fear of losing opportunities for themselves.
The story also reveals the moral compromises that those working in philanthropy face. The difficulties of seeing how the sausage sometimes gets made in philanthropy can be painful. In the case of Loci, the foundation featured in the book, they end up mismanaging some funds in the process of rescuing girls from trafficking in Ecuador. Loci decides to give the mentoring contract to a consultant recommended by the investment firm supporting them, and this consultant walks off with the funding for hiring mentors for the girls. Greer gets saddled with holding up the facade that a mentoring program actually happened.
Overall, the book is rich in exploring the difficulties of relationships, particularly in our current age with its new wave of feminism. I recommend it to anyone who works in feminism or gender equality giving, since it contains excellent food for thought.
A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment helps identify specific approaches to accelerate women’s representation in American politics. (Image courtesy of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
While there has been a recent rise in the number of women running for offices across the United States, the journey towards gender equality in politics is not moving fast enough. Statistics shown in a recent paper written by Saskia Brechenmacher, an associate fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program, prove that gender equality in politics is still far from reach, yet many European countries have come significantly closer to this goal. Brechenmacher’s paper provides research about the efforts of such countries and identified moves the United States can make to reach gender equality sooner.
As of right now, women make up 19.3% of the House of Representatives and 21% of the Senate. In several Western European countries, women make up over 30% of their respective parliaments. Lack of equality in any government system leads to a structure that does not reflect its population’s makeup, diminishes the voices of women, and weakens the quality of democracy. In the article, Brechenmacher clarifies that this imbalance is less affected by voter bias and more affected by the small number of female candidates. Female candidates tend to be voted into offices just as often as men, yet they are less likely to run because of four major issues.
Four Issues That Need Addressing to Get Women Representing America
Issue #1: Change America’s single-member voting system. This limits the number of candidates a party can support and shrinks the window for women to enter the political playing field. European countries have adapted systems which allow parties to nominate several candidates, bring a much wider range of people to the ballot. While it is not likely the United States would adopt this same system, 11 U.S. cities use a Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) system instead. This structure allows voters to select several nominees and rank their choices. For candidates, this system encourages a civil approach to campaigning over huge spending. Because of this, it makes it easier for women and minorities to get their name on the ballot, likely not having the same access to funding and connections as men.
Issue #2: Establish gender quotas like European countries have done. These can either be mandatory by law or established within political parties, the latter being more common in Europe. With gender quotas, European parties have established percentages of their nominees and recruits to be female, thus integrating women from the lowest levels. In the United States and Europe, proposed gender quotas have received huge pushback, but unlike the U.S., Europeans have successfully implemented several at the local and government levels. This has been accomplished by female-led campaigns, the contagion effect, self-image of parties and party elites, publicizing research promoting such quotas, and making allies. In the United States, recruitment and training of female candidates have taken the place of quotas as an effort to combat this issue. The Republican party has established Right Women, Right Now to recruit and train women for state offices and the Republican Congressional Committee launched a short-lived program GROW to shine a light on women running for house seats. The Democratic party has seen significantly more success with this, however, through EMILY’s List, Women Lead, and the Women’s Senate Network. However, the numbers do not compare to those of European parties. Other options suggested by the Carnegie report are to set numerical targets for parties to recruit women, systematically recruit and support female candidates, address misconceptions about biases held against women running for office, and prioritize internal equality within parties.
Issue #3: Deal with the problems of publicly funded elections in the United States. Often, U.S. elections require huge sums of money to get noticed, giving the advantage to wealthy candidates with a recognizable name and connections. Because women have been left out of the world of politics, they immediately face a disadvantage when fundraising and advertising. European countries have taken this into account, making reductions on campaign spending. Some countries have made percentages of government funding to parties based on the parties support for and recruitment of female candidates. EMILY’s List and the Women’s Campaign Fund have made it easier for women to receive funding, but more steps could be taken. Financial incentives for support of female candidates, specific funding for open-seat races, and overall shifts in public financing could further level the playing field for women running for office.
Issue #4: Address the Gender Issues in U.S. political institutions. European countries suffer from these internal barriers as well, but activists have continued to make moves toward equality. Internal gender equality plans, placement of women in leadership positions, improvements on childcare and parental leave rules, family-friendly working hours, and internal support structures have vastly improved the experience of women in office in Europe. In the United States, the Carnegie report by Breckenmacher suggests we should work toward improving data collection, setting internal gender benchmarks, improving childcare and parental leave rules, and combating sexual harassment. With these changes, the everyday experience of female political figures will be vastly improved. Getting these issues addressed will keep the conversation on gender equality going on the local and congressional levels.
While European countries have made greater strides than the United States, their movement toward gender equality has plateaued as well. Internal barriers and biases are still huge issues that are the most difficult to uproot. Keeping the conversation alive is the most important aspect of our battle. It will allow for incremental change to continue and will break down stigmas and misconceptions about the power of women today.
Stacey Abrams, House Minority Leader in the Georgia Legislature, successfully bested her primary opponent, and is headed for the mid-term Gubernatorial elections in November. (Image Credit: Kerri Battles, Creative Commons license 2.0)
These are exciting times we live in, as record numbers of women run for political office all over the country. And, of course, there have already been some fabulous victories in the last few weeks including, but not limited to Stacey Abrams and Jacky Rosen (from this former temple president to another, brava!) But electing women is a multi-step process of getting more exposure to more women candidates.
The familiar-name candidates are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other interesting women running in important races that don’t get as much press. For instance, Deidre DeJear is running for Secretary of State in Iowa and Veronica Escobar running for Congress in Texas. These are amazing women running in tough places for important positions.
As of this past Monday, the Women’s Funding Network (WFN) has launched its newest initiative: Wercspace.org, a free website for women entrepreneurs to build their network and their business. With this new space for women, WFN hopes to provide a community for women-owned businesses of all stripes to come together and support each other.
Wercspace.org acts as a business-oriented social networking site with a feminist approach. It provides access to a community of women-owned business that members can add as contacts, instantly building women into communities to help one another. Another section of the website is dedicated to resources and tools for business owners. These resources range from marketing to certification to self-care, and allow members to receive assistance based on the stage of their business. Furthermore, the site provides links to free and low-cost online courses in a variety of fields. These courses, along with the business stories of female entrepreneurs, emphasize the importance of learning and keeping an open mind as a business owner and a feminist. The site also includes information on funding a business, providing various links and sources of information.
Wercspace will act not only as a tool, but as a community for female entrepreneurs. Female-owned businesses often fall under the radar or fail to receive enough support to get off the ground. With this new initiative, WFN is bringing women together from across the globe, regardless of the stage of their business, their available funding, or their background in business. This will allow for women-owned businesses to grow together and build strong partnerships on one platform.
I decided to start my own Wercspace account, being an artist and film editor who wants to start making new contacts in the professional world. I can attest that the process of setting up a profile was easy, and there are resources that I am looking forward to checking out further, including the courses section, which shares educational content like Feminist Business School and Project Entrepreneur.
At the final press conference of the Features jury, Ava DuVernay thanks Cate Blanchett for her remarkable leadership of their panel.
“Compton to Cannes. Dreamy!” tweeted Ava DuVernay to her two million followers once she arrived May 8th in Cannes, the globe’s most prestigious film festival. The directors of A Wrinkle in Time, Selma, andThirteenth joined four other women on the jury of the feature competition, forming the majority of the body that selects the Palme d’Or winner, the festival’s most coveted prize. Just days earlier, Michelle Obama was on stage in Los Angeles – a short distance from Compton – at the United State of Women Summit. Tracee Ellis Ross, star of the TV series Blackish, sat across from the beloved former First Lady, leading her in a womanist conversation. The greatest portion of their 40 minute talk centered on a pointed question the actress asked: “Are girls today dreaming differently than we did?”
Rebecca Walker, Author, Activist, and one of the founders of Third Wave Feminism.
A rare and significant conversation took place recently at Union Theological Seminary, as two thought leaders in feminism — Helen LaKelly Hunt and Rebecca Walker — came together to talk about the history of feminism, and ways that feminism can heal internally and forge healthier relationships, in order to achieve the shared goal of a more just and tolerant world.
The program began with introductions from Serene Jones, President of Union Seminary, and Ana Oliveira, President and CEO of the New York Women’s Foundation.
Then came Rebecca Walker. “I am honored to share this stage with the visionary philanthropist, scholar and activist Helen LaKelly Hunt, in the shadows and on the shoulders of all those who have passed through these halls,” began Walker in her opening comments.
The Roddenberry Prize is looking for applications that will work at the intersection of girls’ education, women’s rights, and climate issues related to creating a plant-rich diet and reducing food waste.
Good news for gender equality philanthropy: another large prize is taking on gender issues this year. The 2018 Roddenberry Prize will go to four organizations ($250,000 each) that have realizable plans to address problems at the intersection of girls’ education, women’s rights, and climate change.
Not familiar with the Roddenberry Prize? It was launched in the fall of 2016 at the Smithsonian, in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, and in 2017, the first prizes were awarded. The Roddenberry Prize is sponsored by The Roddenberry Foundation, which was founded in 2010 with a mission to support “remarkable people and organizations who can disrupt existing dynamics, challenge old patterns of thought, and discover new ways to help us move towards a better future.” You can learn more about the Roddenberry Foundation here.
What’s particularly appealing about the Roddenberry Prize from a feminist philanthropy perspective is its focus on relationships — on the interconnectedness of problems. This year’s awards will focus on the interconnectedness of food waste, plant-rich diets, girls’ education, and women’s rights. These are four of the top ranked issues identified by Project Drawdown’s in its solutions research on global warming.
Another interesting aspect of the Roddenberry Prize from a feminist perspective is its use of Peer-to-Peer Review. This process is aimed at helping you and your organization get quality personalized feedback, so that you can become stronger as a nonprofit. How it works: after all first-round applications are submitted and validated, “each organization will receive instructions to score approximately five other applications within their chosen category: (1) Food preparation, consumption, and waste; or (2) Education and rights of women and girls.”
Results from Peer-to-Peer Review will be used to score applications “using an algorithm that ensures a level playing field for everyone,” according to the Prize’s website. From this process, up to 50 applicants will be invited to submit a Round Two application. Round two will then be whittled down to 30 applications that will be scored by Evaluation Panel judges.
Judges for this year’s Roddenberry Prize include Musimbi Kanyoro, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women (Musimbi Kanyoro recently wrote a tribute to the legacy of Deborah Holmes, which we published here), Yasmeen Hassan, Global ED for Equality Now, Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and Alice Albright, CEO of the Global Partnership for Education.
Last year’s inaugural Roddenberry Prize winners were focused on the environment, health, finance, energy, and communication. The contest received over 600 applications, and gave out a $400,000 Grand Prize and four $150,000 Innovation Award prizes. The Grand Prize winner last year was Opus12, developers of a method to convert industrial CO2 emissions into valuable chemicals and fuels. The Innovation Award winners were:
FarmDrive – a finance start-up working in Africa to help small farmers access credit.
FastOx – a “waste gasification system” that benefits marginalized communities in the developing world by converting trash into clean energy.
SmartStones – a “body language-based sensory tool” that helps non-verbal people, many with autism, to communicate.
Cancer Cell Map Initiative – an effort to find new therapies and diagnostic tools for cancer by mapping molecular networks.
Girls’ Education and Women’s Rights: What Exactly Does that Mean in Terms of the Roddenberry Prize’s Vision?
The Roddenberry Prize is aimed at enhancing the impact of more girls receiving a primary education around the world. Their website talks about several key strategies to improve girls’ education including helping to make school affordable, helping girls address health barriers, ending child marriage, and helping girls learn life skills necessary for adulthood. You can learn more about strategies that help girls access education on the Prize’s website.
In terms of women’s rights, the Roddenberry Prize is looking for projects that recognize that gender equality and climate change are intricately linked, both large and small ways. With women as the central link to community engagement, parenting, and the domestic realm, they are uniquely positioned to be the leaders of better environmental practices.
The Roddenberry Prize also emphasizes that women need to have reproductive care and access to family planning, education, and financial capital in order to navigate the global economy. Learn more about key strategies that increase women’s rights on the Prize’s website.
RBG opened on May 4 and has gotten rave reviews for its powerful depiction of one the most important feminists of our time. (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.)
Long before she was a meme and pop culture icon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a sober-minded jurist, a workaholic and a trail-blazing advocate for gender equality. None of that has changed, but in the last decade Ginsburg has become a celebrity whose image is plastered on t-shirts, mugs and all over the Internet. She’s celebrated as both a gritty feminist badass, and cute old lady.
It’s great that someone of Ginsburg’s intellectual heft and societal importance is famous; still, you worry that the image of the bespectacled RBG is overtaking the person. Part of RBG—which is directed and produced by Betsy West and Julie Cohen—explores the hagiography surrounding the diminutive justice: college students express awe at just glimpsing her, and we see Ginsburg sporting a “Super Diva” shirt while working out with her trainer (who, incidentally, has written a book titled The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong … and You Can Too!). The workout stuff is cute, and a testament to Ginsburg’s determination and discipline, but far more important, and interesting, is her work over nearly six decades as a lawyer, professor and judge.
Nominated by Bill Clinton in 1993, Ginsburg was not the first woman named to the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O’Connor served from 1981-2006) but she has been the most passionate defender of women’s rights, including abortion rights. And while she is considered a liberal icon, it wasn’t always the case. When Ginsburg was appointed, she was in the middle of the pack ideologically, but the changing composition of the court has moved her relative position to the left. Moreover, RBG has proven more than willing to dissent from her conservative colleagues, particularly on gender issues. She is able to do this while maintaining a reputation for collegiality, which included a long-running friendship with the boisterous conservative justice Antonin Scalia, a fellow opera lover who died in 2016.
There are plenty of well-known figures who weigh-in on Ginsburg in the film, including Gloria Steinem, Bill Clinton, NPR’s Nina Totenberg and long-time Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, an arch conservative who nevertheless recommended Ginsburg to President Clinton in 1993 to fill the open Supreme Court seat. “It was the interview that did it,” says Clinton about his choice of Ginsburg from a long list of potential nominees for the position.
Ginsburg’s daughter and son, and a granddaughter, attest to the judge’s sharp mind, prodigious work ethic and serious demeanor. So do two of her childhood friends who confirm, as does nearly everyone interviewed, that Ginsburg is no fan of idle chit-chat or time wasting.
Gender was an obstacle throughout Ginsburg’s rise in the legal ranks. “Being a woman was an impediment,” she notes dryly about her time at Harvard Law School. Ginsburg was one of only nine women in a Harvard class of over 500, and the scrutiny was intense, although professors would not engage the women in the Socratic interrogation that men received because it was felt that females were too delicate for such treatment. Ginsburg also recounts that a dean called the female students together to ask them how they thought they could justify occupying seats that would otherwise have gone to men.
RBG faced other challenges as well, including the death of her mother after a lengthy illness when Ruth was 17. RBG did her undergraduate studies at Cornell, which is where she met her husband Marty. They both went to Harvard for law school, and when Ruth started (she was a year behind Marty) she was caring for their 14-month-old daughter. Ginsburg neatly compartmentalized law time and baby time, she says, but then Marty was diagnosed with cancer, and RBG helped him keep up with his studies while he received treatment. All the while, she was rearing their child, attending classes and serving on the law review.
Ginsburg’s husband survived the bout with cancer, and he proved key to her later success. “Meeting Marty was by far the most fortunate thing that happened to me,” says RBG. Martin Ginsburg, a tax lawyer who died in 2010, was gregarious and social, an ideal counterpart to his more reserved wife. Moreover, not only did he actively campaign for Ginsburg’s nomination to the Supreme Court in the early 1990s, he gave up a high-flying career in New York when his wife was named to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Carter in 1980. The family moved to D.C., and Marty took on much of the childrearing and cooking duties (there are several mentions of RBG’s culinary deficiencies throughout the film).
When RBG graduated from Columbia Law in 1959 (she’d transferred there after her husband took a job in New York when he graduated from Harvard), she had a hard time getting a job in a law firm, even though she’d been at the top of her class. The discrimination against women in the legal profession was not exactly subtle. She became a professor at Rutgers University, and soon learned that she was being paid less than her male colleagues, a situation she quickly moved to remedy.
RBG became a gender equality crusader in the 1970s, and in several cases that she took on, men were as much the victims of gender discrimination and stereotyping as were women. In 1973, she argued a case before the Supreme Court in which a female Air Force lieutenant was not given a housing allowance for her and her husband, even though male service members with wives were automatically granted such benefits. The policy was overturned. In a 1975 case, she represented a man whose wife had died shortly after childbirth. The widower was denied a survivor’s Social Security benefit, which he needed to be able to care for his son, even though in parallel cases women receive such a benefit when their spouse dies.
Once RBG got on the court, she continued to champion women and gender equity. She wrote the majority opinion in a 1996 case in which the Virginia Military Institute was ordered to end its males-only admissions policy.
Ginsburg says her mother gave her two pieces of advice: “Be a lady, and be independent.” By lady, Ginsburg says her mother meant that “One should not be consumed by useless emotions,” like anger. RBG seems to have taken this to heart. She’s certainly passionate about her work, but her career indicates that she is always thinking two or three steps ahead, not getting embroiled in controversies of the day, or recriminations against present or past antagonists. (The lone understandable exception was her misstep as a sitting justice in making disparaging comments about President Trump).
Ginsburg has more energy than most people one-third her age. Still, she is 85 and has survived two bouts of cancer. She dodges the question about whether she should have retired during Obama’s tenure so that a liberal, or at least centrist, judge could have replaced her, as opposed to a Trump nominee should she leave the bench before 2020. It’s hard to argue that someone as vigorous as Ginsburg should step aside before she’s ready, particularly after the outrageous stunt in which the Republicans refused to vote on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court in 2016 in the wake of Scalia’s death. It’s a tough one; let’s hope the judge keeps working out, eats right and tries to get a proper night’s rest so that she can outlast the current administration.
RBG was made by a team of women, including director-producers Julie Cohen and Betsy West, and executive producers Amy Entelis (Executive VP for Talent and Content Development at CNN Worldwide, which financed the film) and Courtney Sexton (CNN Films VP). Women also occupy the archival, associate and coordinating producer roles on RBG, as well as the composer, cinematographer, and editor slots.
In November, an unrelated feature film titled On the Basis of Sex will be released. Directed by veteran producer-director Mimi Leder, it will star Felicity Jones as Ginsburg.
As of this past Monday, the Women’s Funding Network (WFN) has launched its newest initiative: 
