The Responsibility of Philanthropy to the Women's Rights Space

A month ago, White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) - a global girl and women's rights organisation announced its decision to sunset in 2024 and “support next-generation organizing.” In their statement and FAQs, they note that: “WRA remains committed to advancing gender equality and health worldwide and that their decision to sunset, “...embodies their desire to make space for new leaders, new organizers, new perspectives and make new ways to make change”. 

As a former executive director of a global women’s rights organisation, witnessing yet another women’s rights organisation shut its doors is heartbreaking, especially given the continuing critical need for women’s movements and organising globally. Yet the sunsetting of WRA feels different than the closure I have witnessed of other women’s rights collectives. 

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In WRA’s FAQs on why the organisation is sunsetting, WRA lists “...COVID-19, an upsurge of anti-oppression activism, and a rollback of hard-won rights and health indicators, including a troubling stagnation on progress towards reducing global maternal mortality,” and that “...these developments prompted critical reflections on how best to foster genuine and lasting change.” Initially, in hearing the decision of WRA to sunset I was hit with a familiar disappointment and sadness I know all too well. The difficulty of running a global women's rights movement in the face of so many never-ending challenges is something we constantly experienced at Women's March Global (WMG). It’s one of the reasons Women's March Global folded into WRA. This was not a process that I was a part of or had any oversight over, as I had resigned from my position as executive director and board member well before this transition took place. 

When I resigned as executive director of WMG, it was my hope (which I explained in my resignation letter) that Women's March Global would find a new home, as I did not believe that shutting down an organisation that represented women worldwide fighting on the frontlines of change would be in service to them. To see the doors of WRA closing is profoundly disappointing and frustrating. The situations around the closure of both Women's March Global and WRA may appear similar, however, that is not the case. 

After the historic gathering of women and gender-diverse people globally in Jan 2017, Women's March Global faced one fundraising challenge after another. I have publicly shared the numerous challenges that I faced as an executive director and a brown woman in the global development sector and the hurdles, violence, and gatekeeping I had to navigate in trying to fundraise in the women’s rights space. 

The purpose and importance of a global collective such as Women's March Global or WRA cannot be understated. There is continued talk of how movements on the right continue to organise against key human rights issues effectively and how their organisation and synchronicity are felt worldwide. Yet the progressive movement and women’s rights space still struggles to break down violent and barricaded spaces of access and funding so that movements can truly organise in ways the urgent challenges they are facing require.

Global collectives such as WMG and those that are led by women of color and Black women remain historically underfunded (read here, here, here, and here) and yet are the most critically important movement spaces that exist within the global women’s rights space. The global development sector, donors, and foundations continue to devalue and discredit the work of Black women and women of color and our ability, tenacity, and capacity to gather, organise, advocate for, and mobilise women activists and supporters globally across key issues. The underfunding of Black and brown women’s rights collectives and organisations provides a continual marker to the lack of commitment of philanthropy in actively dismantling white supremacy from within and committing to decolonisation.

During my time at Women's March Global, despite all of the tremendous work that our small and nimble team accomplished, we heard “no” again and again when it came to fundraising conversations. I was told by one prominent funder in the women’s rights space that if we could get one funder, specifically the Gates Foundation, and one person in the Gates Foundation (a white woman) to say yes, other funders may follow. That never came. 

But the situation with Women’s March Global and why we folded, is very different than what is taking place with White Ribbon Alliance. To ensure that I wasn't transferring my skepticism or my assumptions about why WRA is sunsetting, I explored the available information on WRA’s website and its 990s:

• 2021: White Ribbon Alliance’s contributions and grants are noted as 2.8 million USD
• 2020: WRA’s contributions and grants are noted as 3 million USD.
• 2019: WRA’s contributions and grants are noted as 4.5 million USD.
• 2018: WRA’s contributions and grants are noted as 7.5 million USD.
• 2017: WRA’s contributions and grants are noted as 1.5 million USD.

What is evident is that WRA has had significant funding invested in the organisation - the most considerable amount being 7.54 million USD in 2018. The salary of the executive team during the year that WRA received 7.54 million in contributions are salaries I've never seen before as a woman of color and a former executive director (CEO - 178,100 USD, CFO - 171,056 USD). It is unclear on the website of WRA, their annual reports, and via their 990s where WRAs institutional funding comes from. Given my own knowledge and work within the women's rights space, it is clear that WRA is/has been part of the traditional funding flows in the women's rights space and has had access to some of the more conventional funders - funders that demonstrably are and continue to be gatekeepers in the sector. 

Bearing witness to all of this and given my own personal experiences, the sunsetting announcement from WRA prompts numerous questions about why an organisation like White Ribbon Alliance that has historically been well-funded, white-led, and headquartered in the United States (all elements that have traditionally seen white-led women’s rights organisations receive much more funding than Black and people of color-led organisations) is closing its doors. Questions that include:

• What is the response from funders who have granted money to WRA on the sunsetting of WRA and what is the responsibility of funders to acknowledge that WRA is not the first nor the last women’s rights organisation that will shut its doors? 
• What does the sunsetting of WRA signal to the broader women’s rights movement about the importance of women’s networks? 
• What responsibility does WRA have to its numerous activists around the world to ensure that their legitimacy and access to the funders that WRA has access to is promoted and maintained?

We know that less than 1% of funding goes to women's and girls’ organisations and yet less than that goes to organisations led by women of color and even less than that goes to Black-led organisations. In their open letter, The Black Feminist Fund notes: “Globally, out of nearly $70 billion in foundation giving in 2018, less than half of one percent went to Black feminist social movements.” Organisations such as WRA that are white-led, that have had access to institutional funders, that have been in the same room as some of the major gatekeepers in the women's rights space - when they shut down and make a decision to sunset it means all of the funding that they received and held, that they were granting to their communities across the world, may no longer be accessible to those communities. 

The closure of White Ribbon Alliance provides yet another signal of the numerous and intersecting challenges of organising and funding in the women’s rights space. But it should also prompt concern and introspection by donors around what the closure of White Ribbon Alliance truly means for the women’s rights movement at large and what the responsibility is now of philanthropy to the women’s rights space - specifically to Black and women of color led movements.

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