The Global Fund is honored to work in a supportive, trust-based partnership with women's rights organizations in nearly 200 countries. The extraordinary courage, perseverance and leadership of these groups advance the international women's movement and promote social justice worldwide.
Our grants range from $500 to a maximum annual grant of $30,000. We primarily provide flexible, general support grants that address universal issues such as reproductive health and choice, access to education, economic independence, political participation, the rights of sexual minorities and the prevention of violence against women and girls.
To help link women's rights groups outside the United States, the Global Fund also funds a limited number of small, time-sensitive grants to participants and organizers of conferences that bring together and build the capacity of women's rights activists.
The Global Fund organizes its grantmaking into five geographic regions and six themes:
Themes
Regions
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- The Americas
- Asia and Oceania
- Europe and Central Asia
- Middle East and North Africa
“With the Global Fund, we work in an atmosphere of trust that allows us to be sincere. We tell the Fund when things do not go well and when they do. We are transparent and this is the most important thing.”
--Grantee from Argentina
Women-led organizations use Global Fund grants to create change in their communities at the local, national, regional, or global levels. Groups improve women's access to resources, like demanding clean water, food, and land or ensuring girls can go to school and receive an education. They also form coalitions, conduct research, and advocate for stronger policies and laws to protect women and uphold their basic human rights, lobbying for domestic violence laws and labor laws to ensure women are safe at home and at work. Most profoundly, they transform entrenched patriarchal attitudes and behaviors, leading workshops or legal trainings to change the individual consciousness of women and men, and promoting women-positive language to change cultural values and norms.
The Process »
We accept proposals in any language and in any format. A professional staff with regional expertise reviews 2,500 proposals each year, of which the Global Fund is able to support over 600. The board of directors representing women leaders from around the world approves all final grant decisions. The Global Fund's grantmaking process is informed by the expertise of an international advisory council of over 100 women and men, and an informal advisory network of thousands. Current and former grantees play a vital role in helping to identify, refer and recommend new and emerging groups that are eligible for grants.
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Our Theory of Change »
The GFW believes it is women themselves who offer the most promising strategies for change.
- Women have creative and strategic solutions to the problems facing their communities and therefore, their voices must be included in critical decisions that affect our world.
- Open and democratic societies require active citizen participation in the form of social movements and networks that ensure a vibrant civil society.
- Social justice philanthropy acts as a catalyst by providing financial support that advances women’s participation and builds independent civil societies.
There are insufficient financial resources for women's rights. In the United States, only 7.3 percent of total private foundation dollars are given to programs that address the rights of women and girls. Committed donors help us challenge this trend by growing the resources available for women's rights worldwide.
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Building Bridges Across Movements »
The Global Fund has evolved into the world’s largest public foundation investing exclusively in women’s rights worldwide. By providing grants to local and regional women’s groups – in good times and bad – we have helped to generate and accelerate momentum, connecting and transforming them into a vibrant global movement for women’s full, universal human rights.
After 25 years, we’ve learned that women’s movements are strengthened by making connections to other human rights and social justice movements. With the increasing maturity and presence of the global women’s rights movement, women activists are building alliances across movements more than ever before.
We support these alliances because we know that mutual learning and shared effort will fortify the women’s movement. The Global Fund is especially committed to including the voices of girls, female adolescents, and young women, as we believe it is critical to prepare the next generation to be new leaders of social change.
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Why General Support? »
The Global Fund believes that the best way to support the work of women-led organizations and strengthen social justice movements overall is to provide strategic general support to a broad range of groups working at different levels of civil society. While we categorize our funding according to themes, the majority of our grants are given in general support to organizations, which allows women to make their own decisions about how to allocate funds in ways that best address the needs of women in their communities. We value local expertise and believe that women can best determine their needs and propose solutions for lasting change.
This flexible general support not only builds trust, it increases efficiency, allowing organizations to quickly allocate funds where they are most needed. In addition, our grants are more likely to bring about lasting change because they respond to the priorities groups identify themselves, rather than establishing guidelines that groups must alter their course to meet. This sense of partnership and ownership is rare in donor/grantee relationships and is a key element in the Global Fund’s success.
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Pam Rosekrans founded In Her Shoes with the Global Fund fo