Gender Equality Brazil Project #38025

Catalyzing Next Generation Women's Leadership

by Global Fund for Women

Project Report | May 28, 2020
Advancing Young Women's Leadership

By Sara Ferree | Director of Philanthropic Partnerships

Young Women Leaders in Mexico

We thank all of you, our friends and supporters and Gucci CHIME FOR CHANGE, for your generous partnership over the past year. With your funding, we worked with three sister funds—ELAS Fund in Brazil, HER Fund in Hong Kong, and Sociedad Mexicana Pro Derechos de la Mujer, A.C. (Fondo Semillas) in Mexico—to advance locally-led mobilization and growth of young women’s leadership in their countries. Global Fund for Women envisions a world where movements for gender justice have transformed power and privilege for a few into equity and equality for all. And we believe that building a pipeline of young feminist leaders is critical to the sustainability of gender justice movements—and lasting social transformation.

In particular, your partnership enabled us to combine our core programmatic priorities of building young women’s leadership and strengthening the work of women’s funds. Women’s funds play a unique movement building role for gender justice: (i) they are able to reach small and emerging groups that do not have the ability to access larger sources of funding; (ii) they provide direct, hands-on capacity strengthening support for gender justice through trainings, mentoring, and convening; and (iii) they strengthen and build local philanthropy and focus on incorporating a gender lens into local conversations around philanthropy.

We are pleased to share key project accomplishments below.

Global Fund for Women received and reviewed proposals from the three local funds, which organize women across generations to empower the leadership of young women and gender non-conforming youth. We assessed their proposals per our established due diligence criteria, processed and completed grants management documentation, and made one-year grant payments to the three funds. Throughout the year, we conducted monitoring and received reports in line with our evaluation process.

Key activities achieved by partners include:

Fondo Semillas strengthened the “Marea Verde,” or “green seawave” campaign, to establish a large community, especially inclusive of young women and men, in support of legalizing abortion in every state across Mexico.

ELAS Fund provided grants to 20 young leaders under age 30 to attend its third convening for the program, “Building Movements—Women in Movement” and form intergenerational networks; 106 women and lesbian, bi-sexual, and trans (LBT) leaders and 13 donors from Latin America and the UK attended the convening.

As part of the HER hub platform, feminist transformative leadership initiative, HER Fund strengthened the skills and capacity 16 women and girl leaders from grantee partners that represent marginalized communities.

One of our partner funds, Fondo Semillas, participated in a Global Fund for Women led effort, funded by Prospera, to co-design a database package in Salesforce for women’s funds. The overall objective of the effort is to strengthen grantmaking, fundraising, and monitoring and evaluation capacities of our sister funds. As part of the project, we hosted a three-day, in-person deep dive (from 29 October – 31 October 2019) into the processes, needs, and design of database with the participating women’s funds in San Francisco.

(For additional information on activities by our sister funds, please see our January 2020 report.)

We deeply appreciate our partnership with you to advance the leadership of young women and girls for lasting social transformation—particularly in this global moment of uncertainty and anxiety due the COVID-19 pandemic. While we’re still learning about the novel coronavirus and its effects, it’s clear that women, girls, and marginalized communities will be particularly hard-hit. We are already seeing reports of increased domestic violence, restricted access to reproductive healthcare and rights, and a heightened care-giving burden. Now more than ever, we appreciate your support for feminist solidarity, and gender justice, and invite you to continue this partnership by supporting our 2020 project with feminist funds addressing COVID-19 and gender-based violence. Thank you.

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Jan 30, 2020
Organizing and Elevating Young Feminist Leadership

By Sara Ferree | Director of Philanthropic Partnerships

Young Mothers Convene for Change at HER Fund

Global Fund for Women is excited to step into a new decade with a bold, ambitious and expansive agenda for gender justice in partnership with you, our friends and supporters. Thank you for your steadfast solidarity, and for your investments in locally-informed feminist organizing. In particular, we appreciate your support over the past year to our Gucci CHIME FOR CHANGE partners—HER Fund in Hong Kong, ELAS Fund in Brazil, and Fondo Semillas in Mexico. With your funding, our partners advanced a critical strategic priority for social transformation: to mobilize, energize, and consolidate young feminist leadership—and thereby seed intergenerational movements for social change.

Our three partner funds advanced important initiatives to foster the leadership of young women, girls, and gender non-conforming people since our last project update three months ago. Global Fund for Women appreciates how each one of them sought to mainstream the voices and priorities of marginalized groups of youth through their efforts, and we highlight key activities in this update:

HER Fund launched a new grant cycle to prevent violence against young women (aged 25 years and younger) and girls, including marginalized groups such as lesbians and women and girls from ethnic minority groups. HER Fund is also looking to scale its support to projects against cyber violence, which disproportionately impacts young women and girls.
ELAS Fund intentionally scaled its “Building Movements—Women in Movement” program to amplify the leadership of young women, girls, and gender non-conforming individuals. It funded groups that promoted self-care and the mental health of lesbian, bi-sexual, and trans (LBT) women and girls; helped prevent violence in relationships with LBT people; and is supporting a platform for young black women communicators to exchange experiences with each other and receive trainings through webinars.
With funding from Fondo Semillas, Mexican grassroots organizations facilitated safe shelters, legal advice, and psychological and emotional support to migrant girls and adolescents from Central American countries. It also advanced its policy advocacy on obtaining legal gender identities for trans children in Mexico; supported trainings on feminist empowerment through dance and soccer sessions; and continued efforts to strengthen sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) for young women and girls.

Global Fund for Women believes that when empowered young feminists rise up together, they break isolation, build solidarity, and strengthen movements that challenge social, economic, and political barriers to their voice and agency. And, as we get ready to take stock of the roads we have travelled together in the 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in1995 as well as the challenging miles that still remain, we are doubling down on our investments in intergenerational movements. Mobilizing the leadership and partnership of young women and girls will ensure that Global Fund for Women's vision for gender justice results in change that transforms power and privilege for a few into equity and equality for all.

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Nov 7, 2019
Advancing the Leadership of Girls and Young Women

By Sara Ferree | Director of Philanthropic Partnerships

Two Young Women Meet to Lead at Semillas, Mexico

Thank you for your generous investment in locally-led organizing by women’s funds and young women and girl leaders. The run-up to the International Day of the Girl Child was a busy time for us at Global Fund for Women. We’re excited to share updates about our new adolescent girls’ initiative and Adolescent Girls Advisory Council alongside activities by Global Fund for Women’s partners under the CHIME FOR CHANGE initiative—HER Fund in Hong Kong, ELAS Fund in Brazil, and Fondo Semillas in Brazil—to energize intergenerational coalitions in feminist movements.

Global Fund for Women believes that as leaders of the next generation, young women and girls are key to achieving systemic transformation that will build a world grounded in justice, fairness, and equity. On the International Day of the Girl Child this year, we launched an important new Council as part of Global Fund for Women’s Adolescent Girls Initiative—the Adolescent Girls Advisory Council. An exciting opportunity for youth to engage in participatory grantmaking, the Council of nine adolescent girls will play a critical role in helping to find, fund, nurture, and amplify the leadership, feminist activism, and movement building of adolescent girl-led groups (including those who identify as cis, transgender, and gender nonconforming). We’re accepting applications for the Council until November 25, 2019 from young leaders located in the Global South and the Global East.

Our partners under Gucci’s CHIME FOR CHANGE initiative have been busy over the last three months! HER Fund continues to support efforts to counter dating violence among secondary school girls in Hong Kong and hosted a fundraising luncheon on International Day of the Girl Child to raise awareness around the voices of girls and young women. Semillas just completed its first learning workshop offered by Global Fund for Women to co-design and pilot a Salesforce package that will make its fundraising, grantmaking, and monitoring and evaluation functions more efficient—thereby increasing its capacity for feminist impact. ELAS Fund convened 120 women—including from Brazil and other Latin American countries—for “Women in Movement” dialogues that aimed to strengthen global partnerships and collective actions for the rights of women and girls.

The current global moment calls for new models that disrupt generational silos and create mechanisms for intergenerational collaborations so that movements can remain dynamic and thriving. That is why Global Fund for Women invests in the leadership of young women and girls—so that their collective voices, innovation, and power can fuel the leadership pipeline of movements for gender justice globally. We are uplifted by your partnership and belief in our work.

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