Network News: November 2009

Welcome to the November Newsletter. The theme for this month is strategic grantmaking. Join us for our Wake Up Wednesday Call on November 4 to learn from program directors about effective grantmaking that ensures the greatest impact in the lives of women and girls.

Making Grants for Maximum Social Change Impact

Are you funding sustainable social change? How does your fund impact the lives of women and girls in your community through grantmaking? Do you have questions about your strategies or do you want to share your latest program initiatives with other women’s funds?

Join fellow program directors and officers and share insight and experiences around making and evaluating strategic grants during our Wednesday Wake-Up Call next Wednesday, November 4. This is a great opportunity to connect with other funds and to familiarize yourself with the women’s funding movement’s social change theory.

At the 2009 Women’s Funding Network conference, we hosted a workshop on Grantmaking: Using a Social Change Lens to Invest in Broad-Based Impact.  Download session materials and resources online!

Member Spotlight: The Women's Foundation of Greater Kansas City's Girls Grant Project

The Women's Foundation of Greater Kansas City is celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Girls Grant Project. The project brings together high school girls from the area to learn about philanthropy, grant guidelines, budgeting, and measuring outcomes. Over the past ten years, the participants have made 46 grants on behalf of the Women's Foundation totaling over $117,000. Projects funded by the 2008-2009 participants include college planning assistance for the daughters of migrant workers, cultural arts and community programs for homeless teen mothers, and a girls night out program that pairs developmentally challenged and typically developing girls together for guided activities and field trips. Read more about the Girls Grant Project and be sure to check out Women's Funding Network's FAQ on launching and building an effective girls grantmaking program.

WESC Launch Advocates for Women in the Green Economy

The Women's Economic Security Campaign officially launched on October 21 with an online policy forum for over 250 registrants featuring experts on creating opportunity for low-income women in the green economy. Speakers included Megan Uzzell, acting assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Green for All, and members of the WESC leadership team. The launch was covered by the New Haven Register, change.org, and Spotlight on Poverty. For more information and to read WESC's first major policy briefing on women and the green economy click here. Sign on to join the campaign by e-mailing info@womenseconomicsecurity.org.

Unified Voices Spotlight Poverty

Women's Funds used the power of their unified voices and collective action to draw attention to poverty throughout the month of October. Several funds had great success using components of the Women's Funding Network's poverty toolkit to raise the visibility of this crucial issue and of the fantastic work they are doing to improve the economic security of women and girls in their communities. Congratulations to the Women's Fund of Montana, Vermont Women's Fund, Women's Funding Alliance, The Women's Fund of Greater Birmingham,Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona, Women's Fund of Greater Milwaukee and WNY Women's Fund for garnering such wonderful press coverage around World Poverty Day! Be sure to take advantage of the toolkit and its continually updated statistics and reports year round.

Grantmaking Tips From a Member Fund

Adriana Dobrzycka, the Program Officer with the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania recently shared her best practices for effective grantmaking with Women's Funding Network. For more information on strategic grantmaking, join us for this month's Wake-Up Wednesday Call on November 4.

• Provide strategy-oriented funding: Instead of identifying areas of focus for our grantmaking, WGF prioritizes investing in policy change and advocacy strategies that will help achieving gender equity in Southwest PA. This approach is effective because it empowers stakeholders (agencies, community and nonprofit leaders), who are on the frontlines, to articulate specific legislative/policy change or enforcement goals that will increase rights for women and girls in the region. WGF then provides technical assistance and financial support to help move these community-generated advocacy efforts forward.
• Stay informed on issues in the community: Grantees and community partners offer great insights and help us stay abreast of what is happening in their communities. WGF is also part of several coalitions that address gender-specific needs of women and girls (i.e., Girls Coalition of Southwest PA, Pittsburghers Against Domestic Violence) as well as issue-specific coalitions where we learn of needs in the community and can highlight issues that are impact women and girls (i.e., Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, Housing Alliance, Green Jobs Advisory Board).
• Define systemic change: organizations use many different definitions of social and systemic change (and often use the two terms interchangeably). To create a broad-based understanding of what systemic change is, and what it looks like, we consistently share its definition and WFN's indicators of systemic change which have helped us ground the concept of successful, long-term, systems-level change.
• Provide technical assistance for advocacy efforts: some of our grantees are very experienced in conducting effective advocacy efforts while other community partners may be newer to this kind of initiatives. To strengthen local advocacy initiatives, we share ideas, relevant research, and help identify appropriate advocacy tools and strategies. We also help engage our legislators, sector representatives, and community leaders. Our Top 10 Tips for Local Advocacy was created as a result of many mobilizing efforts we have participated in throughout the years.
• Encourage partnerships: WGF encourages grantees to utilize local resources and form new collaborations, when needed, to strengthen the effectiveness of their advocacy efforts. Mobilizing diverse stakeholders and empowering women and girls to directly participate in advocacy effort has also proven to be incredibly powerful, particularly with public policy efforts.
• Share the seat at the table: Whenever possible, we reach out to grantees and community partners to encourage them to attend at meetings with legislators, public officials and sector and community leaders to encourage new connections and strengthen women's voices, and their presence, at the table.

Opportunity to Participate in Women, Faith and Poverty Initiative

As part of our 10-year commitment to dismantling poverty and building economic security for women and their families, Women's Funding Network is convening the 1st Annual Conference of the Women, Faith and Poverty Interfaith Collaborative January 26-27, 2010 at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas Texas.

"United by Faith: Building a Better Future for Women and Girls," will engage participants in discussions around economic security and freedom from violence for women and their families and create a shared policy agenda and action plan that will harness our collective assets to address the needs of women and their families. The convening will include presentations by inspirational experts in the field, discourse among leaders in the faith community and women's funding movement and identification of specific strategies to effectively impact public policy.

There is an exciting opportunity for 10 member funds who are currently engaged in or interested in forming a faith partnership to increase economic security and/or freedom from violence to participate in this exciting event with a partner from your local faith community. Registration fees will be waived and a travel stipend will be provided for the 10 member funds selected to participate in the convening.

If you would like to attend with a current or potential faith partner, please complete this brief online survey by October 30:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2Cm7nWvgcGaWZRPHLggHyQ_3d_3d.

For more information on the convening and collaborative, go to http://www.womensfundingnetwork.org/Women-Faith-and-Poverty-Initiative.

International Museum of Women Launches Economica: Women and the Global Economy

The latest online exhibit from the International Museum of Women focuses on women's experiences and contributions to the global economy. The Women's Funding Network and several of our member funds and donor leaders contributed their expertise on women and philanthropy including Emilienne de Leon of Semillas, Helen LaKelly Hunt of the Women Moving Millions Campaign and The Sister Fund, and Zainab Salbi of Women for Women International. Read Women's Funding Network's piece on the history of the women's funding movement and visit the Economica exhibit.

Receive a Free Copy of an Upcoming Guide to Funder Collaboratives

GrantCraft is offering a free copy of their December 2009 guide Funder Collaboratives: Why and How Funders Work Together to anyone who completes a short online survey. They are especially interested in gathering advice from funders, advisors, or grantees who have been involved with a funder collaborative. To take the survey, click here.