Grantmakers Without Borders

Mission:

For over a decade, Grantmakers Without Borders was a philanthropic network dedicated to increasing funding for international social justice and environmental sustainability. In 2013 it merged with the Funders Network on Trade and Globalization to become a new funder affinity group, the Engaged Donors for Global Equity (EDGE) Funders Alliance.

Channel Grants:

2007: Channel made a grant to Grantmakers Without Borders (through the fiscal sponsorship of the Tides Center) to support the Gender and Global Grantmaking Initiative.  With this initiative Grantmakers Without Borders (Gw/oB) and the International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF) (now called Prospera) aimed to create and disseminate a capacity-building program aimed at strengthening grantmaker’s competencies in addressing issues of gender equity and women’s rights in their work.

After an extensive literature review and interviews with Gw/oB members and gender experts from around the world, Gw/oB and INWF hosted the first workshop on Gender and Global Grantmaking on June 6-8, 2009 prior to the Gw/oB Annual Conference in Washington DC.

The Gender and Global Grantmaking Workshop, created through a partnership between Gw/oB and INWF, was a unique peer learning event that helped grantmakers create effective and innovative ways to integrate gender equality into their grantmaking and to use it as tool to strengthen social justice goals. Using a framework developed specially for Gw/oB by gender experts, workshop participants dug deep into the meaning and practice of gender equality. Through small group discussion and role play, they shared experiences and strategies for engaging colleagues and grantees in gender equality issues, and they left the workshop with a plan for introducing or strengthening a gender perspective within their grantmaking. Following the workshop, participants joined a learning community of gender experts and past workshop alum whose members continue to learn and support one another in this critical but often challenging work. For grantmakers committed to promoting deep justice through their work, the Gender and Global Grantmaking Workshop offered a unique opportunity.

Outcome:

The Gender and Global Grantmaking Initiative led three workshops in 2010: in San Francisco at the Gw/oB Tenth Anniversary Conference, in New York at the International Human Rights Funders Group (now called Human Rights Funders Network) Semi-Annual Conference, and in Seattle with Pangea Giving, a Seattle-based global giving circle that gives its members and donors direct, thoughtful, and effective ways to support grassroots organizations in developing countries to improve quality of life in their community.

The Gender and Global Grantmaking Initiative was featured in “Beyond the Status Quo,” an article in the Sept. 2012 Issue of Alliance magazine, the leading magazine for philanthropy and social investment worldwide.