Grants for Women & Girls

From other sources, we know that donations to abortion providers, including abortion funds that help pregnant people in poverty access abortion, has also radically increased. Corporate funders tend to shy away from controversial issues such as reproductive health and instead focus on STEM Education, economic inclusion, and entrepreneurship.

History of feminist philanthropy

Women have been involved in charitable giving since America’s founding, often through religious or domestic-sphere organizations focused on aid for the needy. Philanthropy for women’s and girls’ empowerment has paralleled, or followed, U.S. feminist movements. The suffragist movement, for example, received critical support from wealthy major donors. In subsequent decades, there was a relative lack of funding focused on women and girls until a significant increase in feminist philanthropy was prompted by the second-wave women’s movement of the 1970s.

Today’s philanthropy for women and girls is increasingly intersectional, recognizing the ways gender equality and justice are interconnected with all aspects of identity and all systems of oppression. What was historically called giving for “women and girls” is also expanding to be inclusive of other marginalized genders, including trans and nonbinary people.

Feminist philanthropy works to meet the needs of women, girls and non-binary people- around the world. Ms. Magazine, in an article aptly titled “Feminist Philanthropy Can Do More to Save Democracy—Here’s How,” defines feminist philanthropy as women-led, locally rooted, long-term and flexible, and focused on systemic change. That said, not all funding for women and girls is feminist funding.

Women’s funds and foundations

A special aspect of this area of philanthropy is the existence of dedicated women’s funds and foundations. These private foundations, public foundations, funds at community foundations, and giving circles are led by women and nonbinary people and primarily make grants to nonprofits led by and focused on the empowerment of women and nonbinary people. There are about 200 dedicated women’s funds and foundations in the United States, the WPI found.

The nation’s oldest still-operating public women’s foundation, the Ms. Foundation for Women, was established in 1973. The vast majority of the women’s funds and foundations that exist today were founded between 1990 and 2010, WPI reports. More than 120 women-focused funders based in 13 different countries are members of the Women’s Funding Network. More than half of WFN member funds are place-based, supporting women and girls in specific local communities; 1 in 4 WFN members fund globally.

Gaps in funding for women

Women and girls of color are especially underresourced by philanthropy, receiving only 0.5% of foundation funding in 2017, according to a 2020 report by the Ms. Foundation for Women. Of the scant funding dedicated to organizations led by and for women and girls of color, about 0.8% went to organizations benefiting Asian and Pacific Islander women and girls, 4.2% to Black women and girls, 2.6% to Indigenous women and girls, and 2.4% to Latina or Hispanic women and girls. To put this in context of these groups’ representation in the U.S. population, including all genders and multiracial people, Asian and Pacific Islanders make up about 7.7% of the U.S. population; Black Americans about 14.2%; American Indians and Alaska Natives about 2.9%; and Hispanics/Latinos about 19%.

There are also regional gaps in funding. The same Ms. Foundation report found that organizations in California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New York and Washington receive the most grant money for women and girls of color, and “particularly low-resource regions include the Appalachian South and Midwest … and the Mountain West.”

There is a gap in government funding for women’s health, with diseases and health issues that specifically affect women, such as PCOS and menopause, underfunded and understudied compared to other health issues. Women’s philanthropy tries to help fill this gap, but even within philanthropy dedicated to women and girls, general health ranks lower than reproductive health, human services and gender-based violence as a funder focus area, per the 2024 WGI.   Further gaps in funding exist for organizations led by and centering trans women. In 2022, foundations allocated less than 4.6 cents per $100 of total giving to trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming communities and issues in the United States, according to research from Funders for LGBTQ Issues.