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
Grants
The Women’s Funding Network leads the creation of collaborative funds to deploy funding, resources and support directly to members to expand organizational capacity and strengthen interconnectivity of the network’s infrastructure.
Response, Recovery, and Resilience Collaborative Fund
WFN has created a multi-million-dollar Response, Recovery, and Resilience Collaborative Fund (RRRCF) that will allow institutional funders and donors to join forces for a multi-phase COVID-19 effort that has immediate and long-term impact.
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Women’s Economic Mobility Hubs
In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WFN has supported the creation of regional Women’s Economic Mobility Hubs to increase support and resources necessary to advance economic mobility among women and girls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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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.
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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
Summits
In alternating years to our conference, the Women’s Funding Network hosts two summits that provide deep immersion for members into the barriers they’re dismantling through policy advocacy and grantmaking. Attendees discover initiatives that are working, explore the current funding landscape, leverage opportunities for cross-sector collaboration and leave with concrete action plans across sectors to further their work.
Webinars
Women’s Funding Network webinars are professional development resources for members, offering practical knowledge and tools to deepen the impact of your work. Usually running from 30 mins to one hour, webinars feature expert presentations sharing the latest trends, learnings and strategies, followed by a Q&A discussion. Visit the Webinar Library to check out recent topics and presentations.
