WFN is committed to strengthening relationships, delivering resources, and providing programing that advances excellence in the sector.
WFN sees strengthening the organizational capacity and interconnectedness of women’s funds and foundations and gender equity funders as pivotal to improving the quality and effectiveness of philanthropic interventions aimed at eradicating unequal and oppressive uses and systems of power.
This work includes fostering opportunities for shared learning and professional development, spearheading the creation of collaborative funds to provide financial resources to women’s foundations, technical assistance, and guides for funding practice, supporting a women of color leadership pipeline, and live and virtual learning events.
WFN Peer Communities
The Women’s Funding Network offers opportunities to share best practices with a network of women’s philanthropic peers. Our peer communities of practice provide intimate virtual spaces that enable members to tap into one another’s expertise and knowledge for collective organizing and mutual support. Members engage with peer communities to share experiences, expertise, challenges, solutions, and resources that collectively moved us forward. Learn more.
- Advocacy & Public Policy Community
- Communications Community
- Development Community
- Executive Leaders Community
- From Margin to Center Community
- Research & Data Community
Capital Leverage
Women’s Funding Network leads the creation of capital leverage strategy to deploy funding, resources, and support directly to members to expand organizational capacity and strengthen interconnectivity of the network’s infrastructure.
Gender & Capital Leverage Strategy Design Council
The Design Council supports the development of a multi-sector capital leverage strategy to build the power & influence of women and gender-nonbinary people in the US. Comprised of two groups – national funders and local philanthropic movement leaders, like women’s funds – the Design Council will commit to applying an intersectional lens while learning and working to create co-investment vehicles with the goal of deepening and diversifying investment in women’s economic mobility and gender-intentional strategies across a range of portfolio focuses, including reproductive justice.
Technical Assistance and Toolkits
Whole Family Approaches to Economic Mobility
Over the past five years, women’s funds have embraced whole family approaches to breaking the cycle of poverty for women and their families, also known as two-generation. In partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Women’s Funding Network designed a learning community and an advocacy cohort of our members to support whole family work. Most recently, we partnered with Ascend at the Aspen Institute to develop, “Whole Family Approaches to Economic Mobility: A Funder’s Guide to Supporting Multigenerational Policy and Practice,” a toolkit for funders offering: templates and checklists to assess fit, information and tools to support strategy development, operationalization and evaluation; and strategies to engage parents, grantees and policymakers directly.
Learn more
Girls Grantmaking
Through girls grantmaking programs, young women shape the future of our network. That’s why we helped launch GirlsGive, a toolkit on engaging younger generations for funds and foundations to start their own girls-as-grantmakers programs.
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Live and Virtual Learning Events
Members can increase the effectiveness of their community leadership with the latest research and learnings from the field through Women’s Funding Network-hosted convenings, peer learning events, membership speaker opportunities, and annual conferences and summits. These gatherings, featuring expert presentations sharing the latest trends, learnings and strategies, and group discussions, are professional development resources for members, offering practical knowledge and tools to deepen the impact of their work.
