Standing Strong, at WomenStrong

Today our world has grown darker for women and girls, here and around the world.

For those most vulnerable — the young, the old, the indigenous, those who are LGBTQ, low-income, living with disabilities, threatened with severe climate-related events, refugees – the already membrane-thin layer of protection has just suffered a painful tear in its fabric.

Bottom line: Given the outcomes of this week’s elections in America, we can no longer count on the United States government to help ensure people’s safety, much less lift them up – and those disproportionately facing harm and exclusion will be our most vulnerable women and girls.

Whether we focus on women’s health, our public health and education, the right to live free of violence, with access to clean air and water, healthy and affordable shelter, nutrition, and greenspace, or labor rights ALL our rights will endure de-prioritization and likely defunding, if not outright destruction, as threatened by some of those just elected in the U.S.

Meanwhile, courageous women and girls on the front lines are not standing down – at WomenStrong International, we see them out there, day after day, from Cambodia to Bangladesh to Rwanda to Mali to El Salvador and in 14 other settings worldwide, our partners – all local, women-led organizations — are out there, in their communities, tirelessly meeting the needs and speaking up for the rights and wellbeing of the women and girls they serve.

We call them “resilient,” we call them “brave;” every so often, we recognize them, with awards of distinction. Yet it is neither fair nor just that these women leaders, who themselves are exposed to violence, displacement, and great privation, should have to bear the entire burden of meeting their communities’ needs. Where is the so-called Global North, when we need them? Where are the wealthy corporations, so happy to take their hard-earned income for diapers, baby formula, or medical care? Where is the richest country in the world?

At this moment when misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and sheer hate seem to have won the latest battle, it’s time for American and global philanthropy to step up, bigtime, not simply to fill the void, but to move the needle forward, for our women and girls.

We’re stepping up at WomenStrong, as we launch a new cohort of grantee partners fighting for climate and environmental justice. We are excited to support these undauntable women-led organizations with unrestricted funding, organizational capacity strengthening, and participation in our Learning Lab, where they have the opportunity to share strategies and build community with WomenStrong partners working in 16 countries across the globe on violence prevention, reproductive health, girls’ education, and workers’ rights.

Our partners come together to strengthen their advocacy, communications, and fundraising skills, their evaluation tools and capacity, their professional development, and their own feminist leadership; they trade tips and take heart from each other, confide in each other, and offer solace to each other, when times are tough.

According to the latest Women and Girls’ Index, philanthropic giving to US-based organizations serving women and girls is stuck at less than 2 percent of overall philanthropic giving; if that’s what we’re willing to give to our own communities, even with a charitable giving tax deduction, imagine how little goes out to the rest of the world, where the threats to women’s and girls’ health, wellbeing, even survival, have long been more dire.

At this raw moment, our keen disappointment, anxiety, and grieving for an America seemingly lost may seem inconsolable. Still, the anticipated failure over the next few years of the world’s most affluent country to care for those who care for us all – our women and girls – offers all those with giving capacity, from foundations to corporations to academic institutions to multilateral organizations to high net worth individuals —  a tremendous opportunity both to strengthen and to shine a light on the expertise and brilliant work of local women leaders who, by improving the lives of the women and girls in their communities, are ever more clearly our planet’s heroes, bending our global arc toward gender justice.