Funding Empowerment: Reducing Barriers to Fund Organizations for Women

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Written by Perla Vasquez Caldera

“Having the word women or girls in the name of an organization seeking foundation funding was the kiss of death.”

Mary Capek, 1992, Executive Director, National Council for Research on Women “The structures that support women, has been chronically underfunded, and so has been the women’s movement”

Phumzile Mlambo­Ngcuka, 2015, Executive Director, UN Women

Organizations for women are considered the roots1 of women’s development and primary forces addressing women issues around the world. However, this type of organization faces great inequality when it comes to access to funds. Short term funding in small amounts is the norm, and this leaves many women organizations functioning without being able to cover rent, salaries and the most basic operations. In fact, the vast majority are incapable of driving innovation or scaling up their long term capacities. This situation has been recognized and addressed by many groups advocating to solve the problem of underfunded women organizations.

In the last 20 years, there has been an increase in support for grassroots and advocacy organizations, but generally speaking, women’s rights organizations receive less attention from funders compared to other socially driven organization. In 2001, less than 6% of funding coming from foundations went to women organizations2 . The average income of women’s rights organizations is the lowest amount all socially driven organizations. According to the AWID global surveys, in 2005, the average annual budget of more than 1,000 women’s rights organizations was $10,000. At present the average is only $20,000 a year. In 2010, AWID reported that the median budget for 740 women organization across the globe was $20,000. For reference we have the income of Save the Children International and World Vision International: $1.442 billion and $2.611 billion respectively. In 2011, 48% of organization that participate in a poll made by the AWID, stated to had never received core funding and 52% had never benefited from multi­year funding3.

This overwhelming underfunding has not significantly change since 2011. Although the role of women organizations in community empowerment and poverty alleviation has been widely exposed by many individuals and advocacy groups. There is an intrinsic relations between women’s health, education, financial independency and the development of human capital. This organization are supporting direct and indirect employment, health, education, child care and providing representation female informal workers and underserved minorities in the developing world.

Reports by the Foundation Center and Women’s Funding Network4 indicate that funders are becoming more aware about the positive social outcomes of investing in women organizations. Currently there is an increasing number of organizations that are actually committed to fund women organization, one example is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that focuses on global health of vulnerable populations.

Slowly the public and foundation are making the connections as the evidence of the the impact of investing in organizations for women at larger scale. As a well known example, we have the outcomes of Dutch MDG3 fund that acted in 165 countries, investing over EU80 million over the course of 4 years to raise

1 http://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/WTL_Starving_Roots.pdf
2 http://www.chambersfund.org/documents/gender­matters.pdf 3http://www.awid.org/news­and­analysis/20­years­shamefully­scarce­funding­feminists­and­womens­rights­ movements
4 http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/womensfunds2009_highlights.pdf

Perla begins each day in New York with a simple goal in mind – To grow and positively impacts others. Through her work as a consultant, marketer and communications professional, her experience in business development, community outreach and international negotiation, Perla aims to assist businesses, and organizations in their development, presentation and search for partnerships to create social impact.

Perla is a Venezuelan National working in the US, she has extensive experience working with minority rights, doing research and managing communication for social causes. She was born at a poor rural area and grew up witnessing many social disparities and injustice towards indigenous people, women entrepreneurs and farmers. This experiences influenced her career path and created a socially driven professional committed to women’s rights. Throughout her life she have assisted in the foundation of gender intelligence and women in leadership clubs, taught business skills to women, worked to build homes and bring electricity and water to poor families, fundraised to help victims of disasters and participated in many events to raise awareness on gender equality and women’s issues.

She holds a bachelor’s in Political Science and a Master in Social Entrepreneurship. She has a publishing thesis on Resource Diplomacy and is one of the co-authors of book on indigenous issues.

References http://www.womankind.org.uk/2013/03/why­support­womens­rights­organisations/ http://chargedup.globalfundforwomen.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RWLOrrrHEs

http://www.chambersfund.org/documents/gender­matters.pdf

http://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Women%20Moving%20Mountains.pdf

http://www.cmsimpact.org

http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/advice­services/topic/social­impact

http://westminster.impacthub.net/2013/10/14/do­we­do­good­how­do­we­measure­and­communicate­social­i mpact/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/171296

http://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Women%20Moving%20Mountains.pdf

http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/about/mission­history/

http://www.awid.org/news­and­analysis/20­years­shamefully­scarce­funding­feminists­and­womens­rights­movements

http://www.centerforunreform.org/sites/default/files/SG_SWCFundingWorkingPaper_05May09.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0LnI3UIuq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W1RBeQHeuo

http://www.womensfundingnetwork.org/wp­content/uploads/2014/03/TheRoleofWomensFunds.pdf

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