Impact

The Global Fund for Women has played a vital role in catalyzing women's rights movements around the world. And for nearly 25 years, Global Fund grantees have demonstrated the power of these movements and the impact of holistic, community-based, women-led initiatives for social change.

Kenyan women celebrate their new well
Kenyan women celebrate their new well
  • We have mobilized over $88 million dollars to support the innovative work of over 4,300 women-led civil society organizations in 172 countries.
  • We have built a broad, global network of more than 20,000 supporters, 4,300 grantee partners, and over 1,000 advisors. Each member of this network is a powerful voice for change in her or his community.
  • We support approximately 600 grantee partners each year - collectively these groups directly benefit over 125,000 women and girls annually. However, many grantees work on "root causes" of issues, working to pass new laws that may, for example, criminalize domestic violence or ensure women have a right to own property. Ultimately, these kinds of concrete changes have benefited millions.
  • Being a leading edge funder enables us to tackle complex issues early and help increase their visibility with larger donors. For example, GFW funded girls' equitable access to education years before it became a staple of mainstream philanthropy. In the mid-90s, GFW convened a donor learning and advocacy circle on sex trafficking that proved to be an early effort in US philanthropy to confront this issue. We funded the first ever hotline for women experiencing domestic violence in China, the first march for lesbian women's rights in Mexico, and some of the earliest efforts by women's groups to tackle environmental issues in Central Asia.
  • We have the networks and capacity to reach grassroots organizations and particularly marginalized populations. Over 80% of all grants reach women and girls who live in rural areas or who are especially marginalized, including women living with disabilities, adolescent girls, members of ethnic or religious minority communities, LBTQI women, and refugee women and girls.
Rural Women Welfare Organization at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a community school in Pakistan. Photo courtesy RWWO
Rural Women Welfare Organization at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a community school in Pakistan. Photo courtesy RWWO

More broadly, global women's movements have played critical roles in securing major changes in women's lives. Over the past quarter century:

The average percentage of parliament seats held by women worldwide has risen from less than 12% to over 19%.

The maternal mortality rate has fallen by more than one-third

Globally, literacy rates for girls have risen from 55% to 74%

We routinely review, evaluate, and learn from our programs and our grantee partners. We have commissioned and published several assessments and evaluations of our work in the form of impact reports, which include:

Learn about our success stories »

Check out our impact reports »

Get the latest news about our grantees and our work »

Rising Stars: Women Spark Small Business Boom

What do you get when you mix the deep knowledge and networks of Global Fund for Women with that of grantee partners and the financial expertise of MasterCard Worldwide? You get a solid business plan with probable high dividends.

In 2011, Global Fund and three grantee partners teamed up with MasterCard Worldwide to boost the potential of women business owners in the Philippines. The returns on this investment have been strong. In fact, in the first three months of the partnership, the Philippines had its first ever women-own women-run organic produce store.

Project Impact

  • 432 women accessed credit, savings, and insurance services for their micro & community enterprises
  • 108 micro-business received support in business incubation and financial literacy
  • 339 women were trained in new business skills specifically related to entrepreneurship

As we watched the network of women business owners grow, we saw the face and focus of local economies in the Philippines change for the better.

"Business is like gambling. We take a gamble and we don't really know what will happen next. But if we learn the skills, at least we have an ace,” Pen Bullo, Coordinator, Unlad Kabayan Migrant Service Foundation.

 

Seeds of Change: Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Tags:Burkina Faso, Economic & Environmental Justice, Kenya, Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda

Women are the backbone of agriculture and food production in Africa, working its arable land and feeding its population by producing 80% of its food. But African women farmers’ perspectives are excluded from conversations that determine agricultural policies and priorities, while discriminatory laws and practices deprive them of their land, their rights, and their livelihoods.

"Seeds don't care who you are, how tall, how poor or rich, or how much education you have." – Global Fund for Women grantee partner Daughters of Mumbi

The Global Fund for Women wants African women farmers front and center of debates on agriculture and food security, and we believe donors should fund their activities. So in 2011, we embarked on an initiative focused on supporting women's rights, agriculture, and advocacy training in Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Uganda. Watch the video to learn more about the initiative.

For more information on this initiative, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Project Coordinator, at 415/248-4800.

This project was funded through a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

Breaking Through: Gender Equality in Asia & the Pacific

Tags:Asia Pacific, Civic and Political Participation, Economic & Environmental Justice, Europe and Central Asia, Peace & Gender Violence

In 2008, Global Fund for Women launched the Breakthrough Project –– a three-year, $2.2 million investment to catalyze strategic, breakthrough, actions to advance gender equality in Asia and the Pacific. A new, independent evaluation of the project documents impact and captures learning.

Two Nepalese women raise their arms high in celebration of International Women's Day. Text reads: Breaking Through: A Summary of the Global Fund for Women Impact Report: Gender Equality in Asia & the Pacific

What injustices do women and girls in Asia and the Pacific face?

2.6 million

Girls and women in Asia each year who are never born due to prenatal sex selection or who die prematurely from abuse or maternal mortality.

48%

Of judges in India believe it is justifiable for a man to beat his wife. (Despite existing laws criminalizing domestic violence.)

0

The number of days off per week that most women domestic workers (i.e. live-in maids, cooks, nannies) are permitted.


How did Global Fund for Women catalyze change?

Grantmaking

  • Over $2.2 million in flexible funding
  • Long-term partnerships
  • Support for networking, knowledge sharing and collaboration
  • 58% of grants to rural communities
  • Over 1/3 of funding for adolescent girls

Outcomes

  • 125 high-impact organizations funded
  • 71% increased organizational capacity and/or sustainability
  • 71% expanded their networks
  • 66% increased public visibility and/ or media coverage of their work

Impact

  • Benefitted 554,299 girls and women, men and boys
  • New laws against domestic violence passed in 3 countries
  • Increased women’s participation in local government in Nepal and India
  • Rural women increased access to land and financial services
  • Domestic workers secured basic rights at the ILO

Read the Report

Download PDF »

Read the External Evaluation

Breakthrough Evaluation: An External Rights-Based Evaluation of Grantmaking for Gender Equality by Brooke Ackerly

Download PDF »

 

Mapping Our Movement Building

You are Here

The brighter the hot spot, the stronger the collective power. This map explores where a relationship between Global Fund for Women and grantee groups is more likely to yield a higher movement building impact.

Small version of movement-building map showing Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia

» Click to expand the map.

Map created by Nick Rabinowitz.

Completed as part of a pilot project of the Women's Funding Network with the generous support of the Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Foundation.

Learn with Us

Recently, we embarked on a project to utilize new data visualization technologies to explore our movement building impact geographically. We hope to understand the extent to which we have been successful in building strong networks and collective power in pursuit of common goals of women’s rights and social justice.

When you take a closer look, there is a high concentration of activity in conflict and post-conflict regions. The Balkans, parts of the Middle East, Colombia, and the Great Lakes region of Africa, including the eastern half of the Democratic Republic of Congo, all stand out as areas of more intense movement building activity. While relief aid is the traditional philanthropic response to conflict, Global Fund takes a different approach. By strengthening women-led civil society, including movements to protect women’s basic human rights and support women leaders, Global Fund uniquely meets a critical need in conflict regions.

We are learning that there’s a benefit to going beyond direct grant making and investing in developing networks of advisors and grantee groups. After decades of funding these networks, we now see the impact in the form of a robust, feminist movement with diverse populations and perspectives.

Learn more about movement building

Navigation Tools

Using data from the past 24 years of our grantmaking, we identified 19 indicators to measure the relationship between Global Fund’s grants, grantees partners and advisors.

Next, we weighted indicators based on the extent to which they were relevant to efforts to build strong networks and collective power in the pursuit of common goals. For example, Global Fund support to a grantee network, or to grantees that bring together a diverse population, is weighed more heavily than the length of time the Global Fund has supported a specific grantee.

Then, we pulled data toward these indicators on over 8,000 grants, 4,000 grantee organizations and 2,500 individuals in our portfolio. Working with a data visualization consultant, the data was adjusted according to the weights given to each indicator, run through an algorithm and plotted geographically.

 
 
 

DONATE NOW and support women all over the world

DONATE NOW and support women all over the world

Connect with us

facebook twitter youtube google+ pinterest