SPEAKER_00 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast with Rodri Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rod Davis. And this week we are in conversation with Elizabeth Barajas Roman. Now, Elizabeth is the president and CEO of the Women's Funding Network, which is the largest uh philanthropic network in the world devoted to gender equity and justice. Before that, she was uh CEO of the Solidargo Foundation, and she's also been the CEO of the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts. Um I sat down fairly recently with Elizabeth to talk about her work at WFN, uh, and also more broadly about what it means to be a feminist funder, how prevalent the ideas of feminist funding are within philanthropy, and whether that's spreading, uh, and some wider issues about kind of uh funding gender equity issues and also social movements. So, yeah, we talked about uh a lot of things in a broad-ranging conversation. As I say, we talked about kind of what it means to be a feminist funder and whether that was something that only applied to organizations that are funding gender equity and feminist issues, or whether there are principles that could be applied uh more broadly, and and how WFN was trying to do that in in their work. Um we talked about intersectionality and whether um when funding uh women's issues and gender issues, how necessary it is to take an intersectional approach and kind of recognize multiple different um senses that people have, identities individuals, and and whether that sometimes presents uh challenges in terms of targeting the funding uh versus kind of making it universal, or whether that's actually uh a false uh dichotomy. Um we talked about Roe v. Wade and the the rollback on uh Roe v. Wade and abortion rights uh and reproductive rights in the US and what what impact that was having on philanthropy in the US, but also outside the US on organisations that are working around issues of gender equity, whether they were seeing uh knock on effects, uh and also what the lessons are from uh the the rollback of Roe v. Wade for uh philanthropy more broadly in terms of what it should be doing now, what it perhaps hasn't been doing enough of in the past. Um we also talked about social movements and some of the uh opportunities around foundations funding social movements, but also some of the challenges when uh well-resourced funders come to the table with small, often resource-poor organizations, and whether those power imbalances can create challenges. Um we also talked about participatory methods of grant making, which is something that has probably been around for a long time within uh the feminist movement and and kind of gender movements more broadly, uh and what the potential was for those, how much of that we're seeing, and and kind of how uh how much we will see uh that grow, I think, as kind of mainstream funders come on board. Um so without further ado, let's get into the conversation. Um, you know, it was a really interesting one. I hope you really enjoy it. I certainly did. Um, and I will be back at the end just for the usual uh a couple of bits of notes and housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Elizabeth Barakas Roman. Hi, Elizabeth.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Hi, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Uh I'm good, thank you. It's great to have you on the show. So uh for those listening, Elizabeth is the president and CEO of the Women's Funding Network. Maybe the best place to start before we go into what I'm sure will be a kind of much more detailed conversation is just for you to say a bit about what the women's funding network is and what you do there and how the organization came about.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Sure. Uh so the Women's Funding Network is the largest association, the largest alliance of gender justice funders uh and women's funds uh globally. So we are an alliance that brings together the thought leadership, the research, and the influence and power of found funders who are working specifically, uh thinking about uh intersectional uh feminism and thinking about how funding moves to uh to communities through a gender lens.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah, and I'd just I'd love to pick up on some of that and sort of unpack some of the differences between what it means to be uh a sort of gender justice uh focused funder and also what it means to be a feminist funder. I mean, maybe we could start there, and I know you've something you've sort of spoken and written about before. What for you does it mean to be a feminist funder and kind of what are the principles involved in that that can be applied even beyond organizations that maybe don't have gender as their core focus?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Uh well, maybe that goes a little bit to your previous question around how we were founded and started. We are about a 40-year-old organization, and we started right around the same time as many other feminist grantmaking was starting. Uh, it was also around the same time as a movement around affinity funding was starting in the philanthropic sector. Uh, it was a response to the kind of moment where the idea around philanthropy and how money was moving in spaces was very top-down. And it was uh that those in leadership were not representative of those who were uh kind of being impacted by those by those resources. Uh so there was a movement in among in philanthropy at the time to really think about what are some affinity spaces. Um, they were sometimes called alternative funds, and they, you know, either focused on geographic, they focused on uh racial or ethnic uh makeup. And the idea around what it was to specifically focus on women and girls and funding women and girls was something that was coming up uh around that time as well. Uh and the idea around it's takes more than just kind of funding issues around women and girls, but that feminist funding is a fundamental idea around redistributing money as a mechanism for just redistributing power. So it wasn't, it was kind of moving beyond charity and thinking about uh resource movements as a way to actually shift systems and shift uh the uh influence of different agendas so that they can be controlled by activists, by communities, um, by people who are most impacted around uh around this uh kind of resource redistribution. Uh so I want to say so feminist funding or feminist principles are about, you know, the kind of laying out of them are around about 40 years old in the philanthropic sector. And it's it's it's uh again this fundamental idea that money and the movement of money needs to be centered uh in community and that it uh it is a mechanism for redistributing power. It's also uh an invitation, I want to say, to funders to be really thoughtful about how power it moves in purposeful grant making. And so it is goes beyond kind of people's portfolios to say that they are doing, you know, working with in a gender uh gender portfolio or that they're or that their dollars are moving towards um with specifically named women and girls. What it is is an invitation to think about power.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

No, I was I was going to pick up on that point because one thing I wanted to ask is the how much of your work is kind of specifically with organizations that have as their cause funding uh kind of gender issues or women's issues, uh, how much of it was with groups that are kind of affinity or identity based that are that comprised of women? And and how much of it is with other funders who maybe, you know, neither of those things apply, but they're interested in applying a gender lens or the principles of kind of feminist funding to their work? And have you seen that change over time?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

The majority of our network are US-based women's funds. And these are women's funds that kind of sit in a special place in philanthropy in that they are they're they're activist-based, they're usually they're they're community-based, um, they're they raise dollars and and grant dollars, and they are uh usually started in community by by activists and active who are who are interested in moving dollars to uh you know to to address the specific issues that are important to their community around women and families. So the majority of our of our network is uh comprised of women's funds. And but the, I want to say probably about 20% are uh and and growing are a group of funders who cover a wide variety of issues, who are starting to see the importance of thinking about gender lens at the intersection of the work that they do. A good portion of that 20% are large global foundations that maybe have an interest in thinking about how gender lens might be important to their strategies on economic mobility, on poverty, on climate change. And what we see part of our work in this uh ecosystem is doing is bringing about kind of, you know, making making sure that that percentage grows. The people, the, the organizations, the funders who are maybe not thinking specifically on moving dollars towards women and girls per se, but bring a gender lens to their existing strategies and find it important to think about and and talk to and be in community with other funders who are expanding that uh that frame as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, just really interesting to hear. Um and you mentioned before that sort of the majority of the network is US-based funding organizations. How how much of the work either on the the sort of the funding side or on the recipient side that you do has an international um flavor to it as well?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, so I would say it's it's about it's about 60% are based in the US and fund in the US. And the other portion are global. They fund partially uh in the US and um outside of the US. And a um a smaller portion, I would say probably about 5% are exclusively outside of the US based funding, based funders, I should say. And what we do is uh is we partner really closely with other networks who are who are global networks and working outside the US so that we can um really have that cross-issue, cross-regional, cross-global, cross-cross-country support.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

And and when you do that, um to what extent do you find that the sort of issues around uh gender equity and women's rights and things that you're working on are common across those different areas? And and and to what extent are there kind of differences? Do they do they apply fairly universally, or do you see quite significant um differences of context?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So I think number one, the issue around gender uh disparity exists all over the world. I mean, there's not a single place in the world that uh where women are are are are doing as well as or you know, or doing better than their male counterparts. So it exists every single place in the world. There are places that are doing much better. And we see that through other, there's there's research and and data around where those countries are. So there are there are countries that are doing better in a lot of the different metrics that that are important around women and families and and gender equity. And again, we're we want to make sure to point out that this is we talk when we talk about gender equity, we're not specifically just talking about women and men. We're talking about how gender plays a role in just uh disparate outcomes for people in in their in their communities. So yeah, so there are countries that are doing better, there are locations that are doing better. There are policies uh that we that uh we are part of a coalition that is working around feminist foreign policy, for example, where there's countries that are taking on a policy lens to to gender equity and th and and thinking about how feminist principles play out even in the foreign policy realm. However, but in the places where I think they're doing, there's other places where are doing better, there's some there's some there's some surprises as well. Even where we see some progressive policies in the philanthropy sector, I find it surprising where there's some areas where there where gender is barely mentioned, even though some of the outcomes, you know, on the on the surface do you know, doing you know better than maybe US context or some other context. I find that in philanthropy, even after you know the onset of uh feminist funding principles 40 years ago, you know, in different uh global contexts, it's talking about gender, even saying the word gender, is still quite controversial, which I find somewhat surprising. So I think you know, the universal thing here is that there women are um, you know, and gender uh equ inequities exist all over the world. There does seem to be a cross-cutting adversion. Um there still seems to be kind of a bit of a third rail about talking about gender, uh, especially in the philanthropic uh sector. So I find that surprising and also concerning. And I think there's again, it's a there's a there's some there's some easy answers here on how we can change that.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

And one thing I wanted to ask actually is you you mentioned before um that you know an important element of your work in in working on these issues is around taking an intersectional uh approach. What can you say a bit about what that means in the context of your work to um to adopt an approach like that?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Well, I think one of the things that's super important to, and I've been in philanthropy for 20 years, you know, um in in um both uh private philanthropy and uh large international uh foundations. And one of the things that we're always talking about, I know we were talking about uh being at some similar uh uh uh spaces uh earlier in the year, you know, data is always kind of held up as king, you know, whereas uh you know, look at the data, know about the problem, understand the complete, the completeness of the problem in order to be able to build strategies that are effective, right? That's one of the kind of, I want to say, you know, uh almost biblical kind of uh statements that people want to talk about when we were talking about philanthropy or in philanthropy. But what's interesting to me again is the sidestepping of the understanding around intersectional lenses, right? So there's an adversion to saying, yes, we want data, yes, we want to know the completeness of a problem, but we don't want to look at it from all of those different sections, right? We don't want to think about climate and also think about how gender plays a role. We don't want to think about poverty um or uh uh you know economic mobility and think about how women's leadership or uh the the oppression of women and gender non-binary people is impacting the ability to move forward and to be to live healthy and complete lives. So I think that that's uh that's an interesting place for for philanthropy to think about because what when we say intersectional, we're not trying to overcomplicate. We're really trying to look at the completeness of the problem. Both um women and men and across the gender spectrum, no one lives single issue lives. And what we're saying is to have a strategy that is effective to really think about shifting systems, we need to take a lens that incorporates the completeness of human lives and break down those silos that are artificial silos.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, absolutely. And do you ever find in the work that you're doing that that you know obviously brings um huge kind of benefits in terms of being far more uh kind of relevant and responsive to the needs of those particular intersectional communities? But are there ever sort of challenges where you find that people's particular experience within one intersectional community elements of that are specific to their experience and don't necessarily relate as much to the experience of other people kind of within the wider community that you're trying to work with? And and how do you sort of balance the need to focus specifically on the needs of that one potentially relatively small community against some of those more universal issues and kind of deploy your resources accordingly?

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I think that's one of the what you're describing, I think is one of the uh kind of greatest false kind of kind of logic we we apply in philanthropy. You know, we think about we're always talking about scale, we're always talking about how are we approaching a strategy that is um the broadest strategy to impact the largest group of people. And we think about that from a lens of, well, I guess it has to, we we can't focus on the most marginalized group within within certain, if we're talking, for example, poverty. We can't talk about the what the impact of a of a of a trans mother, you know, who is unable to work because of biases and is uh you know uh not housed. You know, we can't look at something that specific because we're trying to broad, we're trying to we're trying to impact broadly, right? And what we try to challenge in feminist philanthropy is to say it is in it is in fact looking at the challenges um to mobility, to uh again, living a full and complete and thriving life uh for those most marginalized, that allows us to find solutions to the broadest number of people. Um, what we're saying is you find that solution that is able to say, this you know, um family that composes of um uh you know a trans mother who is you know now able to go back to school, is able to get housed, is able to now um you know find uh permanent uh support around childcare, you know, you find you find the solutions there. And you are you are absolutely going to find solutions to what might be considered more uh mainstream um and or uh a broader group of uh of individuals within that particular target group. And that theory around that and and how that's happening is there's data behind that. There is it's proven to be true. Everywhere there has been deep systemic shift um around some of the most intractable issues in our in our in our society. When we see actual shifts there, we actually see the application of this of this of this of this uh framing, right? Of this intersectional framing, of this um look at the most marginalized and the most impacted by gender oppression. And you will find the solutions for everyone, right? We see that across the world where this has been applied. Um we see this in the global south, where we're talking about reproductive health and rights. Uh the way that funding has been moved there from a feminist lens has made broad social impact for uh for everyone in those communities. So yeah, we we we do think that it is um in fact looking at the most marginalized that that then um has an impact to the broadest whole.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah, that's that's really interesting. So it's sort of challenging it as almost a sort of false dichotomy to say that you know that you need to but to think about uh a trade-off between the specific and and the broader, and actually it's by being willing to focus properly on addressing the specific needs of the most marginalized that you learn the things that then allow you to address needs more broadly. Um, I think that's yeah, really, really fascinating. Um I wanted to ask in terms of the actual kind of work that you do as a network, is your role um largely to kind of bring together members who are doing their own funding and to allow kind of knowledge exchange and peer learning, or are you also helping them to kind of administer uh funds and what sort of role do you play in doing that?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, so we we we we cover a let's see, it's five different uh uh kind of pillars of work. Uh number one is principles and practice. Uh, we believe it's important to, in a lot of the questions you're talking asking now around what is feminist funding? What does it look like? How do you practice it? There are modern movements in philanthropy that started within women's funds and in this uh gender funding, feminist funding movement that are now very mainstream, but are rarely pulled back to where they started, which was in the feminist movement, things like participatory grant-making, grassroots grant making, things like that, which are now again more mainstream, but are often not kind of uh uh identified as having started and birthed within the women's and the feminist funding movements. Um, we believe it's our role to make sure that those not only are the principles continue to evolve, continue to have a rigorous kind of uh examination of how what their what their impact is, but we believe it's our role to also expand the practice of those, of those principles and make sure that people are understanding that it's that is in fact uh you know feminist funds that are kind of the uh the incubator of some of these practices and um are supporting that that that uh incubation. Uh so that's one of our pieces around principles and practice. The other piece is capacity building. We know that feminist funds, as I mentioned, they're both kind of, they're both kind of activists and and doing the work on the ground as well as helping resource the work on the ground. And they're incubating new new ways of philanthropic practice. We know that there's not a really great way for them to match up and intersectional work that they do. It's not a really great way to match up with a lot of philanthropy out there, existing philanthropy. So what we do is we make sure that our alliance is supported through capacity building and that sometimes looks like direct grants to the field. An example is during uh during COVID, there were a lot of our feminist funds that were in in in in in danger of of closing things that some funds that took 40 years to to build up were in danger of not existing. And sometimes they were the only funders that were funding these grassroots groups within their communities. So our role was to make sure that they kept their kept their doors open so to speak and continue to evolve during an unprecedented time in our history. So capacity building is the other piece. We also do capacity building around as those as those feminist funders grow, as they learn, as all of that we we make sure that there's learning and pieces there. But a big part of that is is is moving moving some dollars to help support that. Strategy development is our third kind of pillar uh we work as an alliance so we're not just kind of a membership organization per se where people just kind of come and a loose kind of a network of folks we really believe that the power behind our alliance is is around co-developing strategy for the field. And that looks like specific projects that looks like partnerships that looks like strategic partnerships with you know across the field, cross-sector partnerships. So that strategy development is an important third pillar. The fourth pillar is the influence and amplification. It's things like this it's talking to folks who are not sure what this looks like, not sure of the impact that feminist funding does, making sure that the the data that our our members are collecting and building and learning, that that learning is is is pulled back into our sector to have to do more and better grants to the field. And the last one is that knowledge and research we've we've done quite a bit around working with existing very large kind of repositories repositories of knowledge of either at universities or at large institutions like in the US Candid, which is one of the largest institutions kind of gathering data we work with them to make sure that the data they're collecting is coded correctly has has some ability to be able to be disaggregated. We work with governments and the type of census pieces they're pulling together. So knowledge and research is not just about our research it's really about thinking about the field and making sure that we are truly measuring what's important and able to report that out. So those are the five big pieces.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Yeah really interesting to hear um one thing I wanted to ask actually because obviously a lot of your work I would imagine um certainly on the side of the recipient organizations focuses around um uh social movements and sort of grassroots organizations rather than necessarily very large nonprofits. And obviously those organizations need and want um more resources but I know there are kind of concerns historically and now that when that happens there are dangers that come even when sort of well-intentioned funders uh step into these fields without understanding some of the power dynamics and the issues and you get dangers of movement capture or um funders kind of funding things but stipulating that you know you need to soften the edges or not take such confrontational approaches. Have you seen any issues around that or what kind of work have you done to try and educate funders but also to make sure that those situations don't happen from the point of view of the the movements?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

That's a really good question. And it's one we've been facing both with uh here I mean specifically here in the US around reproductive health and and abortion uh access we uh 17 of our of our members sit in states that are where abortion is criminalized and and their lives are threatened for even speaking about it. So you know they are they look to WFN plays that role where we are both helping support capacity around digital security and other types of security also by I want to say helping to transform and bridge to funding to those organizations that might be impossible to have been done in the setting that they're in now. And I want to say I want to give a shout out to our sister organization Prospera which is which is a very similar organization in terms of their alliance of of gender funds and and um feminist funds. The I believe that between the two of our networks big role is is is again transforming and bridging philanthropic dollars to the grassroots through these um through our through our members right um and being able to you know deal with very in conflict zones, things really dangerous situations where kind of standing up and saying this is what we're doing or this is how we're moving dollars to to movement would put them in in danger so to speak right so in in real danger. So there's kind of a range between that and being able to be that intermediary um between between um getting resources there as well as kind of best practice um uh you know advice bringing you know experts and legal experts you know security experts bringing all of those kind of uh capacities that are necessary for the for the as things are dynamic and changing being able to get that to to our members um uh as as the world is changing and on fire in different places we're able to to move that quickly to so that they can stay um nimble which is what's what's needed on the ground for for for dollars to stay nimble and and flexible which is allows them to focus on that um while we kind of take the big hits I want to say you know on that. And I think that's one of our key roles in the ecosystem. And I want to say it's also one of the key roles I I know that our our sister fund our sister organization Prospera does um and they focus on uh funders that are in the global south and global east. Um so it's it's uh it's a big it's a big role there. So um yeah I I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah absolutely and and you mentioned there I mean the current uh situation in in the US around um uh kind of abortion rights and and birth control and the the overturning of Roe v. Wade and I kind of um partial overturning I mean I asked this as as someone who is not based in the US and has you know the the knowledge of a of an outsider about it. But from the the point of view of philanthropy and particularly kind of um uh gender focused philanthropy in the US do you think there's a sense in which that has come as a a a real sort of shock to the system that that shows both uh that maybe there's an element of sort of uh complacency in the mainstream non-profit world that so social change and social progress is something that sort of once won that we can kind of move on to the next thing and that actually that that isn't always the case. And also does does it suggest that there is a fundamental tension maybe between the sort of the natural incrementalism of a lot of mainstream funding and and nonprofit work and the the sort of the urgency and radicalism of grassroots movements that are sort of saying actually you know we need to do this faster and we need to take you know much more fundamental steps to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

So it's a it's a big question and one that it is uh well one of the things that we know is that as I mentioned before the reason why WFN even exists the reason why you know feminist funds exist and and continue where gender is still kind of not you know not brought up you can look around a room and see that the people who are leading different grassroots movements that are leading um and innovating at it this at the at the pace and at the impact that funders want to see are women of color led organizations, are are are are people who are taking this this tact but what we know is that the funding that has gone to these organizations has basically been unchanged for the since 1970, right? So it's been less than 1% of the of the dollars that have moved um from in in in global philanthropy when you look at uh the way governments even move in in the terms of their the dollars to gender, it's been unchanged. So when we talk about what's the complacency here, it is the gender um and the role that the gender inequity and gender oppression plays in the movement of society forward and the healing of the ills that philanthropy is looking to to solve for has never been taken seriously and continues not to be taken seriously. So was there a surprise that because it's never been it's not taken seriously has never the the the the the investment has not changed since in fact you know women's funds are kind of they're they're raising dollars and moving dollars because there is no broad philanthropic investment in in gender and in the in the work that and the issues that take a gender lens, right? It tells you that there's something deeply wrong. And it's in there the evidence is we've lost right this is the evidence of how the if you're not funding it and the people who were funding work against uh women's rights here in the US were actively and increasingly funding that work. And so when you look at the data you look at where where the investments were going, it's it's not it should not be a surprise that the rollback of individual rights and bodily autonomy is happening very real here in the U very very concretely here in the US because that is where the money is going. And so when I taking from that philanthropic lens, not it's not always true that what we fund is you know is successful, but what certainly what you don't fund will not will will be very hard will be very difficult to to to move forward into and to hold ground. And so I think if there's a a lesson here it's that the gender inequity and gender oppression needs to be taken seriously by those who value a just and thriving society, right? And the impact of of the rollback of Roe v. Wade here in the US, we're we're seeing that is almost a permissiveness in our global uh partners as well where people are kind of taking another look at how they're thinking about talking about bodily autonomy. And I'm thinking about that broadly because we know that the same funders who are funding who funded the rollback of of bodily autonomy here in the US for for women for for um ability to determine whether or not you have a child um is are the same funders who are also funding anti anti-gender work um and anti-trans work and around the around the world. So again it's not a we shouldn't be surprised that this is that this is the case and I don't necessarily see that same sort of kind of we solved it now we're done sort of thing happening in other aspects of philanthropy. So I I and I so I don't I just think there's it's a general sense that there wasn't taken seriously that gender hasn't been taken seriously. And it's just really time for that to change. Yeah I'll stop there.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

No it's I mean it's really interesting I mean and obvious interesting but also concerning to hear what you're saying there about the uh the way in which it's potentially having ramifications internationally because that was certainly something I was going to ask about whether the I mean just the sort of awareness of what's gone on in the US context was having an impact on your work elsewhere. But it you know it sounds like it's almost potentially presenting new challenges if some of those funders that have been um behind uh pushing back on on those sort of hard won rights are are seeking to do the same elsewhere as well. I just uh a few other things I wanted to ask because I'm aware I'm in sort of in danger of taking up too much of your time. I mean one one was I know you um wrote uh something recently um for Alliance I think about um uh collective models of giving and giving circles and um something I've talked recently on the podcast to a few other people about so I'd be really uh interested in your sense of uh whether the kind of the the focus on on gender issues and women and particularly sort of uh solidarity and identity based funding whether um that kind of lends itself particularly well to those kind of collective models and whether those models themselves are kind of better at uh at putting forward a an idea of philanthropy that is more focused on justice or that can move resources in a way that genuinely sort of shifts power as well as just money.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yeah absolutely I think there's a democratization that comes with the collective giving that I believe is really really important for on unlocking kind of where we talk about our feminist principles are really about how how are we thinking about power. And when we are able to broaden the definition of who's a philanthropist, I believe that fundamentally shifts power in in people's minds. I think there is something that is truly remarkable that happens in a person when they see themselves as someone who is able to use resources and time and their and their thought leadership to help shape the society they live in, right? And we do that in a variety of ways. It's why we feel so great about voting when we vote and but I think that the other piece is is is philanthropy right um in helping to do that and doing that alongside other uh people who are have that same vision of change in the world uh again is also very very powerful it's you're not alone out there right you're able to combine your resources to be able to have a uh uh have an impact uh we know that if you combine all the private philanthropy uh in the world it really doesn't doesn't uh really even have a hill of beans really to the uh to what to what governments move and and it just it's just there's it's actually really really small compared to what the and also the scope of the problem right uh or the scope of the problems and when we talk about collective giving we're talking about energizing the public we're talking about energizing everyone anyone who is interested in change to say that collectively that's not only the it's not only those resources it's the attention it's the understanding it's the getting it's the relationship building that happens with within those collective giving circles with with activists with the issues that are impacting their community again those are those are spaces that tend to also be very local and tend to be uh and that also is a is a world that's generally untouched by larger philanthropy um they just not they're not interested in they just don't know it right and so being able to have that kind of proximity is is really really important is it better than kind of uh large philanthropy the large foundation you know that I think that there's a role and we we believe there's a role for every kind of every kind of uh uh you know dot of light you know in this in this world of of moving dollars in in to uh for for change you know there is it doesn't mean that there's not a role for experts right and and when we talk about experts we we know that there's the kind of expertise that comes from being having proximity and being close to those those communities but there's also a role for the you know Harvard educated economist right there's there's a role there and we're not saying that the one is better than the other it's saying let's let's be in relationship right let's be in relationship to the greater good that we're looking for and let's let's give uh make sure that there is a platform for those also who have expertise in terms of proximity and that platform includes the collective giving raising additional awareness moving dollars together and being able to collectively have a voice at the table when it comes to global strategies and and how resources are moving.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yeah I think I mean that's it's really interesting and it I mean it touches I guess on what you mentioned earlier about sort of um participatory models of grant making and maybe the fact that you know historically they a lot of them have their roots in uh in kind of feminist and women's movements and maybe they come more naturally to some of those those groups and and now the wider philanthropy world is is starting to to perhaps get excited about them. I mean on on that sort of uh point about participatory methods um how how much have you have you seen kind of what the those groups that have maybe been doing that sort of thing for a long time how much of of what they know and what they've learned through doing it have you seen filter out into some kind of more mainstream or larger funders?

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I love that I've been seeing this this interest and growth and I want to say rigorous evolution of what participatory grant making looks like and how it can be incorporated. I I love that if there's been there's been additional and also real infrastructure popping up to to support it. I think that that's fantastic. I I I still think it's I still think we're a long way though I think it's I think there's uh when I look at where I'm seeing it in kind of the larger larger philanthropies I'm seeing it as very very tiny portion very tiny portion of the investments are are kind of being um modeled under participatory right and there's a lot of different examples as to why you know they'll talk about you know it it takes longer it takes longer it's more time intensive but I don't know if you know from my experience when I'm uh the these large institutions are taking two years to develop a strategy, you know, I think I don't know that it's that that's faster, right? Than kind of um pulling together a a set of uh movement leaders or people who are closest to an issue that's that they're looking to move a strategy around and empowering them to iterate the strategy, to be in a decision-making role, to lift up organizations that are that are most effective in that within that strategy. I again I I think it's um there's still some room to challenge where some of those assumptions are I love that there's additional interest. I think it could be I think there needs to be more a little more investment in that where that interest is to really start to be able to see how it might transform sectors some of our our our larger institutions. So I I think they're just just it's I guess it's a that's a push and a call to just add additional dollars where they're where they're where the interest is following uh to really see what it what it looks like being incorporated into a larger institution. But again I'm happy to see the interest there and uh that's that's a start.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yeah likewise and I think you know that's a great call call to action. On which note I think before um I we wrap things up and and I'll let you go I just wanted to ask if you have anything particular coming up that you wanted to kind of alert people's attention to or just generally give people a sense of what's coming up next for for WFN.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah you know so I would just invite invite people to again think if they haven't heard about a women's fund before or what women's foundations are doing, um there's probably one in their area, anywhere anywhere in the world. So I would just encourage people to be curious about what they do. They are again sitting in that in-between activists and philanthropic world they're a great bridge to to both doing work and funding work. So I would encourage people to to reach out and to and to learn more about them and also know that they're doing they're doing amazing innovative work under duress right now. They're doing it under duress they're doing it under funding that has has not grown since the 70s and if there's an opportunity to um additionally resource those those organizations to lift up the work that they're doing in within your own philanthropic practice uh that that that that would play an essential role in um in helping uh helping the field grow and that uh if they're concerned about the the fight for gender equity and justice um and and how that plays into all of the different intersections again that would encourage them to look into that encourage them to to look into to our organization and how they might get involved with a wide variety of uh women's funds around the world and again just stay curious about it and ask more questions.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Yeah absolutely I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find some of that that information um just remains to say thanks ever so much for finding the time to come on the podcast it's great to have a chance to talk and to hear about the work you're doing um and I wish you all the best for the future.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Thank you so much Roger it's really great to see you and talk with you.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Great great well my thanks again to Elizabeth for finding the time to come on the podcast uh really grateful to have a chance to talk to her about all of her work at WFN and the kind of wider issues around uh feminist funding and gender equity. Um I'll put links in the show notes to some of the specific things we mentioned and also some other uh articles that might be of interest um touching on topics that we talked about in the podcast or if you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society um definitely do check out uh the website at uh whyphilanthropymatters dot com. Um you can find all kinds of articles, um old issues of uh episodes of this podcast, um news updates and and lots more on there. Um you can also find contact details where you can get hold of me if you've got suggestions for things that you would like to see on this podcast in the future, either in terms of topics you would like us to cover or people uh that you think it would be interesting for me to talk to uh you can follow me on social media as well uh I'm still just about on Twitter at Rodri underscore h underscore davis on more and more on LinkedIn so you can find me there. I'm also on Threads and Blue Sky and Mastodon uh look for me there although I'm not doing a huge amount with those at the moment. You can also leave us a nice review on iTunes or wherever it is that you get your podcasts um because that really helps to kind of spread the word and if you want to spread the word yourself directly do tell anybody that you think might be interested in this podcast about it and get them to try out an episode and see if it's for them. And other than that I will see you next time. Okay bye