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WOMEN'S FUNDS MEETING Katmandu, Nepal, January 31-February 1, 2000 How does a women's cooperative in rural Ghana support its activities to strengthen women's economic independence? How does a disabled women's group in Brazil fund a conference for women with disabilities? How do women counselors at a rape crisis center raise funds to support a hotline for battered women? These questions were among many that stimulated a lively debate at a two-day meeting of international women's funds held in Katmandu, Nepal and co-sponsored by Tewa, the Nepali women's fund. Mama Cash, a women's fund in the Netherlands; and the Global Fund for Women. Representatives from these and six other emerging women's funds from South Africa (two funds), Ghana, Mexico, Brazil and India, engaged in a spirited and candid dialogue about the nature of providing stable sources of flexible funding to diverse and dynamic women's rights organizations around the globe. Our conversations provided a chance for the more experienced women's funds to offer lessons they have learned in the areas of fundraising, grantmaking, and administration of financial resources. Emerging funds contrasted their own multi-dimensional challenges to each other's, and explored the difficulties of raising money in diverse cultural contexts and economic realities. Participants spent the first day reviewing how women's funds find seed money, gain access to technical assistance and training, and develop the infrastructure and capacity to meet the needs of women's organizations in their own countries or regions. The second day focused on how best to provide emerging women's funds with access to ongoing peer exchanges and learning opportunities. The energetic brainstorming resulted in a decision to establish an active network of international women's funds. This network will be a membership organization open to the current funds, to new and emerging women's funds based outside the US and Europe, and those within the West who serve women in other countries. The network will meet on an annual basis and function as a peer support group. The Brazilian women's fund, the Angela Borba Fund for Financial Resources for Women, agreed to establish a listserve to ensure easy communications among the funds. Semillas, the Mexican women's fund, agreed to host the next annual meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico in January 2001. Kavita N. Ramdas President, Global
Fund for Women
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