Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate

by Ms. Foundation for Women
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Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate
Supporting Women & Girls of Color to Innovate

Project Report | Jan 7, 2021
Safety for Women and Girls of Color

By Tamara Vasan | Director, Institutional Partnerships

The Ms. Foundation for Women strengthened grassroots leadership and infrastructure of 21 organizations across the country that are fighting for freedom and liberation, and building power for women and girls of color.  Our spring cycle of strategic core grantmaking totaled $1,945,500 across 21 general operating grants; 20 of which were two-year grants. 

Our plan for the new southern grantmaking strategy is complete and we are currently drafting a Request for Proposals with updated criteria and rationale, which includes a new initial Letter of Inquiry stage. We anticipate a launch in early 2021 with the hope of funds out the door by mid-March. We anticipate awarding $1 million to a diverse pool of new southern grantee partners in FY21 through our trust-based grantmaking approach of flexible, multiyear general operating support. In the spring, we also plan to award a final round of multiyear transition aka legacy grants from our previous grantmaking strategy.

We are also excited to report that in collaboration (and with a grant from) the Collaborative on Gender and Reproductive Equity, the Ms. Foundation is conducting a Indigenous Women’s Reproductive Justice Planning Assessment over the next nine months. Lead staff for this project, Program Officer Coya White Hat-Artichoker, will conduct information gathering sessions with various indigenous leaders to determine opportunities and best practices for making a significant investment in reproductive justice organizing in indigenous communities. This effort is historic in its possibilities, and would support some of the core work of the Ms. Foundation as an early and consistent funder of the reproductive justice movement, as well as the Collaborative on Gender and Reproductive Equity’s interest in galvanizing other funders to invest in indigenous reproductive justice work.

Through our redesigned Capacity Building Program, the Ms. Foundation launched the Activist Collaboration Fund in January 2020 to strengthen collaboration in and across social justice movements for women and girls of color, including Transgender women and girls of color, and Indigenous women and girls. The goal of the fund is to deepen movement-building collaborations and support the often unfunded relationship and trust building work that is crucial for transformational work that leads to social change for women and girls of color.  Our ACF grantmaking process spanned the months of January to April, an intense period of time when Covid19 emerged in full force exacerbating all of the existing structural inequalities that women and girls of color face in our country.

In this pilot round of funding, we prioritized organizations led by and for women and girls of color, Transgender women and girls of color, and Indigenous women and girls with budgets at $1M or under. The ACF received over 160 nominations from organizations by and for women and girls of color across 33 states in the US and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam and made grants totaling $275,000 to support 15 organizations across the country including Puerto Rico, that are led by and for women and girls of color, trans women and girls of color, and indigenous women and girls. Grants ranged from $15,000 - $25,000. This is the first time in eight years that the Ms. Foundation has brought on new grantee partners.

Our Girls Fund Initiative has focused on continued learning, engagement and relationship building with the field. We embarked on a rigorous landscape study in partnership with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research earlier this summer and we are continuing to build the internal infrastructure to support the program and grantmaking strategy we are developing.  Most importantly, we are beginning to engage with girls of color and the organizations that support them.

This fall (2020), the bulk of our engagement with girls of color and organizations is happening through our national advisory approach. Newly formed national advisory bodies for the initiative include an advisory council of experts including: representatives from organizations that serve girls, philanthropic partners and academics. There is also a separate advisory council composed of youth leaders. This approach is critical for a variety of reasons. First, it allows us access to the language and lived experiences that will inform our investments in girls of color. Secondly, it also allows us to experiment, and to troubleshoot challenges in close to real time. Above all, it shifts power to girls of color, and makes sure their voices are centered from beginning to end. 

Our engagement with advisory bodies supports our project landscaping and framework design by providing a pool of research participants for focus groups and interviews, as well as providing connections to girl leaders and emerging work in the field.  It supports the Ms. Foundation in finding and understanding the best mechanisms to move resources to girl leaders and girl-led organizations. Additionally, our engagement with the advisory bodies helps us move resources to the field to support critical existing work through partnership grants of $10K each to support their work with Girls of Color.

National partners include organizations working across the country in all of the major geographical regions, including Hawaii and Puerto Rico. These organizations work across age, race, gender, sexuality and most of the sociopolitical issue areas we are interested in interrogating including: racial justice, criminalization, gender based violence and sexual health, immigration, LGBTQ justice, disability justice and environmental justice.

Capacity building and learning activities included a two-part virtual learning workshop with 24 grantees on Financial Resilience in a Time of Uncertainty.  Given the ongoing financial challenges during the COVID pandemic and the economic downturn, we are collaborating with Financial Management Associates, a long-time partner to Ms. Foundation grantee leaders on strengthening nonprofit financial management skills, to offer capacity building and technical assistance. Through the interactive workshops, grantees have the opportunity to learn to assess their financial health, build scenarios for contingency planning over the next year, and connect with their peers. Follow up one-on-one coaching with FMA is available to grantees after the workshops to support their financial resiliency goals.

Recent media highlights include:

  • Placing a critical op-ed, We Need To Fund Women And Girls Of Color On The Front Lines, with Essence.com. Penned by our CEO and President, this piece was released in conjunction with a suite of articles on philanthropic giving to the Black community and reached 824,317 unique views upon its initial run.

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Organization Information

Ms. Foundation for Women

Location: Brooklyn, NY - USA
Website:
Facebook: Facebook Page
Twitter: @msfoundation
Project Leader:
Tamara Vasan
Brooklyn , NY United States

Funded Project!

Combined with other sources of funding, this project raised enough money to fund the outlined activities and is no longer accepting donations.
   

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