Event recap · How philanthropy can advance women’s rights
By Joanne Beloy
Around the globe, we are witnessing the fight to advance women’s rights: the rights to body autonomy, the right to reproductive health, the right to equal gender pay, and the battle list continues on and on. In order for the nonprofit sector to continue this momentum, we must understand how philanthropy can uphold its own fight for gender justice.
At a recent panel discussion co-hosted by Aperio Philanthropy and the George H. Heyman, Jr. Program for Philanthropy and Fundraising, we gathered to discuss the ways we can advance women’s rights within the philanthropic landscape—and how we can continue to sustain this fight for generations to come.
Moderator:
Dr. Sylvia Maier (she/her), Center for Global Affairs at NYU School of Professional Studies
Panelists:
KD Chavez (they/she) – Development Director, UltraViolet
Wendy Doyle (she/her)– President & CEO, United WE
Françoise Girard (she/her) – Chief Executive Officer, Feminism Makes Us Smarter
Rufaro Kangai (she/her) – Director of Individual Major Gifts, Global Fund for Women
This panel of leaders shared their experiences and knowledge of their current fight for women’s rights. We explored these topics:
What is the vision for gender justice?
Where are we in the fight for gender justice globally?
How would you describe the funding landscape for feminist movements?
What advice do you have for frontline fundraisers?
Zooming out: what’s the vision for gender justice?
The panelist kicked off by describing how they, and the organizations they represent, work to advance women’s rights.
Transnational feminism and bodily autonomy across the globe are core to the vision that Françoise Girard, CEO at Feminism Makes Us Smarter, works to advance. This effort, she said, “focuses on, in particular, the (legal) rights of all people that, including those who identify as women as well as trans persons, to control their body, their sexuality, to be free of violence, coercion, and abuse.” Expanding access to education about sexuality and abortion rights also fall under Françoise’s vision for a gender-just future. “It is one thing to have choice. But how can you exercise this choice in its full justice?”
“My vision and lens come from indigenous-life ways. My vision for a gender-just future renews our connections, repairs historic harms, and intergenerational trauma, revives place-based practices and knowledge and self-determination,” said KD Chavez, Development Director at UltraViolet, highlighting that their everyday work culminates towards “creating a world beyond patriarchy, where we can all live freely and thrive.”
United WE works to enable “women to fully participate in the economy and fully participate in democracy,” including increasing women’s representation in civic leadership, said Wendy Doyle President and CEO.
Global Fund for Women is “shifting power (between) those who have it and those who do not, said Rufaro Kangai, Director of Individual Major Gifts. Its mission calls forth women to come together internationally to tackle different issues together, such as climate change, access to technology, reproductive health and rights, and economic justice.
Each of these visions contributes vitally to sustaining the fight for women’s rights. So, how can philanthropy work to advance a sustainable, global movement?
Zooming in: where are we in this fight for gender justice?
Building solidarity among women’s rights movements is a work-in-progress, and one in which philanthropy plays a crucial part. “What we don’t see is the funding that is needed to support those movements,” says Françoise. “At the global level, the Association for Women's Rights and Development puts out a regular reporting that states funding that is spent by government and foundations across the world is less than 1%.”
Ensuring gender justice movements have adequate resources and support is the low-hanging fruit, but there’s more: How do we face the injustice and inequity within the overlapping systems of oppression within our cultures—including within women’s rights movements—to address the root causes of gender injustice?
We are currently “experiencing some of the greatest opposition in women's human rights, and with a country like the United States, which was the model for democracy,” said Rufaro. But as we face this strong opposition to gender justice, we are also boldly reckoning with what it truly takes to tackle these inequalities. In this encouraging moment, girls and women are standing up and speaking out—not just for themselves, but by elevating one another’s voices across the globe.
“In the past, … there was division, a lack of collaboration. But now there's more collaboration, more than ever, (in) this exchange of knowledge,” said Rufaro. “This cultural humility where you're seeing feminists in the U.S. learning from feminists from other countries like Mexico, listening to their wins and their approaches with a willingness and an openness to adopt some of those practices.” As progress is being made to increase partnerships and connections, and mutual support across continents, human dignity and equality become more centered at the core of our global movement. The increased cohesiveness among movements increases all of our potential for impact.
In order to effect lasting change, our movements and philanthropy must address the root causes within our cultural, political, and economic systems that create and reinforce gender injustice.
Wendy emphasized that “representation matters, especially when it comes to decision-making. Women are sorely underrepresented at every level of government, local, city, county, state, and federal. And when we are lacking and underrepresented, that means the issues that are important to women to advance economically like childcare, paid family and medical leave, paid equal pay for equal work, are lacking that representation.”
KD explained that profound cultural shifts need to happen—from the global scale to our interpersonal relationships—in order to correct economic gender inequities.
“A feminist economy has to go beyond policy and really aim at deep cultural change,” KD said. “Those are things like repairing historical violence and inequality within and in between countries, looking across the oceans, addressing inequalities within households, eliminating gender-based violence, reversing climate change, and ending mass incarceration.
‘We need to get to a point where our communities and members are valued and seen more than just economic production within our capitalist system. The different ways that communities can build toward a feminist economy include:
Shifting away from extractive practices like building state and social infrastructure by looking at things like childcare education, health care,
Fostering gender equity and redressing critical economic inequalities to promote women as a political category, and
Understanding [financial independence as] a basic condition for recovery and liberation from gender-based violence.”
Under the magnifying glass: How can we evolve the philanthropic landscape for feminist movements?
As we continue to do the work on the ground, it’s difficult to sustain efforts without the appropriate funding.
“To date, most of our movements have achieved success with minimal philanthropic support,” KD said, adding that the funding landscape for feminist movements is in a state of transition. “The fundraising [sector] is always in a place of examining risk—and the only risk is not investing in feminists and gender just movements,” they said.
“Those with access to wealth are only now beginning to step outside of those traditional philanthropic best practices. We need to be uncompromising, unapologetic, and deeply invest in our futures. We need to mobilize resources—and not just economic ones, like grants and donations.”
Listening to the folks on the ground is critical for funders who are increasingly looking to participatory grant-making as a pathway to social change. Taking a learning-exchange approach to build a collaborative effort between organizations and philanthropists—and co-creating strategies—can help move the needle, Rufaro said.
“Feminist movements are critical to move the needle in advancing women’s rights. If you don’t know who they are, it’s important to turn to those that DO know,” says Françoise. “If you're going to fund feminist groups, you must give them unrestricted funding—flexible funding—[which] empowers them and gives them the room to do the work that they are doing.”
When sitting down with individual donors, Wendy stresses the power of political representation as a means for philanthropists to use their voices. Although women candidates and issues are still considered a risky investment, we need to unlearn (and disprove) those assumptions to bring about change.
Reforming our strategies: How can we continue this fight for gender justice?
“It’s really an all-hands-on-deck situation. We are creating the framework that highlights the intersection of abortion rights with economic justice, with technology, with platform accountability and corporate accountability, because it's really not a single issue,” KD says. The fight for women’s rights is as complex as the intertwined systems that engender injustice. We must be able to manage change and communicate with clarity in our conversations with donors.
Françoise emphasized storytelling as a tool for communicating complex issues in a way that will stick. “People don’t remember facts, but they remember stories.” The ability to tell a story in an effective manner brings us back to the larger picture, leaning on our shared humanity to contextualize the facts and numbers we might dig into at a later stage.
“Be passionate,” said Rufaro. Our care for people must stay at the core of our fight. Whether we are going out to vote for women in power, donating unrestricted funding, or lending our time and energy to the fight for women’s equality, our panel’s advice lands in the same place: By listening to one another and learning from each other’s wins and losses, we will become ever more impactful in achieving gender justice.
Joanne Beloy
Joanne Beloy is an Associate, Client Services at Aperio Philanthropy. Prior to Aperio, Joanne worked closely with the leadership gift team at the Metropolitan Opera in supporting their annual and specific campaigns.
