Researchers from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy issued its sixth annual Women’s & Girls Index (WGI), which found that giving to women’s and girl’s organizations exceeded $10 billion. While this marked the first time ever for philanthropic giving to organizations serving women and girls to reach this level, it still represents less than 2% of charitable giving in the United States.
The WPI noted that this giving included philanthropic support from individuals, foundations, and corporations. The researchers analyzed finalized IRS data from 54,588 organizations covering a period from 2012 to 2021 in order to highlight both gaps and growth in philanthropic support.
The WPI notes that the 2021 philanthropic support coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a disproportionated impact on women, particularly those of color and with low-wage jobs.
The researchers found that while women’s and girls’ organizations are seeing growth in charitable dollars raised, they’re also often just keeping pace with or behind fundraising for other causes such as human services and education.
WPI noted that reproductive health and family planning organizations continued to receive the highest level of philanthropic support for women’s and girls’ organizations, receiving $1.8 billion in 2021. The second largest category of giving was for human services organizations and family and gender-based violence organizations, which each received $1.6 billion in 2021. Organizations that served women’s and girls’ civil rights and advocacy had the largest growth in philanthropic support at 60.9% from 2020-2021.
The WGI, which was created in 2019 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a cornerstone project of the Equitable Giving Lab, an initiative funded by Google.org to better understand charitable giving to diverse communities and under-resourced groups.
In this vein, Melinda French Gates announced in early October that she will grant $250 million through her new organization Pivotal Ventures to support women’s health around the world. The organization is putting out an open call for nonprofits to apply for funding. This is so important since we live in a society with a gender-biased healthcare system where much of the research—and many of the treatments that are developed—are based on men’s health, as I Start Wondering Columnist Kaye Olsson noted in this column. Therefore, we at I Start Wondering applaud Melinda’s decision and commitment to women’s health.
Additionally, we also realize that most women don’t have the same level of financial resources that Melinda has. Nevertheless, we invite readers to consider supporting organizations that provide services for women and girls as you make your end-of-year charitable decisions. You can gauge a potential charity’s effectiveness through Charity Navigator.
On that note, you may want to consider giving to Women to Women International, which provides job training, business and life skills, and access to opportunities for women in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Iraq, Kosovo, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. You can read about our team’s support for this nonprofit organization in this 2022 column.
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