News    Who We Are    What We Do    Events    Where to Get Help    Get Involved

“When women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately; families are healthier, they are better fed; their income, saving and reinvestment go up; and what is true of families is true of communities"

—Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General

In the mid-1970’s, only 0.5% percent of foundation dollars were designated for programs directly supporting women and girls. Visionary leaders, who recognized that increasing funding for women and girls could lead to profound social change, both domestically and internationally, initiated efforts to increase the amount of philanthropic dollars specifically designated for women and girls.

One of the results of their efforts was the formation of women’s funds throughout the world. Currently, there are 150 women’s funds worldwide, including at least 90 in the United States. Together, they represent combined assets of more than $630 million. Grants made for programs for women and girls now exceed $200 million. As a result, foundation dollars designated for women and girls increased to 7.3% in 2000 but dropped back to 6% in 2002.1

Women’s funds are by, for, and about women. Women raise the dollars and decide how they will be spent. By educating others about the barriers that women and children face, and by involving members of the community in the efforts to remove those barriers, women’s funds enable all women and children to reach their full potential. In Arizona, there are two women’s funds, the Arizona Foundation for Women and the Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona.

In the Phoenix area, the Arizona Foundation for Women (www.arizonafoundationforwomen.org) has four major focus areas: Promoting Women’s Philanthropy; Facilitating Community Collaboration; Influencing Public Policy; and Increasing Public Awareness. The organization conducts extensive research on existing services to identify unmet needs in the community. The Foundation then works with agencies to build upon and improve existing services and create the programs when necessary.

Although the increase in funding available for women’s and girl’s programs has begun to improve gender inequality, the facts suggest there is much more that needs to be done.2

Two-thirds of all American adults who live below the poverty line are women.
Women aged 46-64 are twice as likely as men to lack health insurance in the U.S.
While 163 countries offer guaranteed paid leave to women for childbirth, the United States is not one of them.
The U.S. ranks 59th in the number of women holding government office.
Internationally, one in three women will be a victim of violence in her life.
Eighty percent of the 40 million people displaced by armed conflict and human rights abuses are women
Women make up two-thirds of the world’s illiterate and hold less than 15% of elected government offices.

While traditionally, fairness has been the primary framework (gender discrimination against women is unfair), some experts believe that the level of commitment to funding for women and girls will inevitably diminish over time due to grantmaker fatigue. Therefore, nonprofits and funders need to develop new ways to articulate the relevance of women’s and girls’ programs. One useful lens is an effectiveness framework that can establish a clear link between results-oriented grantmaking and investments in women and girls. A human rights framework is another lens which provides advocates and funders with a way of tying general issues to other justice issues like economic, environmental and racial justice, because all people should have all of the most basic forms of civic, cultural, economic and political rights.3,4

1.The case for Better Philanthropy: The Future of Funding for Women and Girls, pg.11 (http://www.womenphil.org/educate.html)
2.Ibid, pg. 5
3.Ibid, pg. 20
4.Arizona Grantmakers Forum, Member Exchange, Vol. 2, No. 4, July 2006