Beyond Our Borders Fund

Beyond Our Borders Fund

OVERVIEW: The Beyond Our Borders Fund, a group-advised fund at the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, supports women’s equity and economic security globally.

IP TAKE: The Beyond Our Borders Fund conducts its own research to identify organizations that effectively nurture women’s economic security in developing countries. Grants have mainly gone to U.S.-based organizations doing international work. The fund does not accept proposals, but those who wish to inquire about the grantmaking process may email the fund’s vice president of development, Renee Ferrufino, at reneef@wfco.org.

PROFILE: The Women’s Foundation of Colorado (WFCO) created the group-advised fund Beyond Our Borders in 2000. The fund aims to “help women and girls across the globe reach economic security.” This is a group-advised fund that works from the belief that “to strengthen families and communities, we must advance and amplify opportunities for women to be empowered to reach economic self-sufficiency.” In addition to its annual grantmaking, the fund occasionally hosts seminars and workshops relating to its philanthropic work.

Grants for Women, Girls and Global Development

While the main focus of Beyond Our Borders’ grantmaking is women’s economic development, the fund considers issues of equity and social justice to be integral to its work, which supports “educational, economic, and social opportunities for women and girls in global settings who have few resources or agency to enable them to participate fully in society.” Other grantmaking priorities include diversity, innovation, collaboration and evidence of program impact. This funder tends to support organizations that “[h]ave local women in management and decision-making positions” and that “[e]mploy local people in all areas of management and fieldwork and purchase local goods and materials from the host country.” Most of the foundation’s grantees are based in the U.S., “with ties to the international setting.”

A recent grantee of this fund, Bean Voyage, provides financial, material and technical support to smallholder women coffee farmers. Other past grantees include the African Development Promise, Global Greengrants, Planet Women and Amigos de Santa Cruz, a U.S.-based organization that works in Guatemala to improve the lives of Indigenous people through education and sustainable development.

Important Grant Details:

This fund makes between five and ten grants each year. Grants range from $5,000 to $45,000.

  • This funder tends to support large- to medium-sized organizations based in the U.S. with global purview.

  • Members of this group-advised fund meet each spring to “establish granting priority areas.”

  • Over several months, the group researchers and nominates organizations for grants, with final decisions announced by the end of the year.

The fund does not accept grant proposals, but interested parties may the fund’s vice president of development, Renee Ferrufino, at reneef@wfco.org.

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