A New Fund With Some Major Backers Plans to Direct $1 Billion Toward Global Gender Equity

The pandemic has rocked deeply entrenched systems around the world and made hidden inequities plain for all to see. The shocks continue to reverberate. At the same time, it’s interrupted an untenable status quo and presents what Melinda French Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called a “once-in-a-generation” chance to rebuild society in more inclusive and equitable ways.

So what, exactly, will it take to break down the barriers that keep women from achieving full parity as the world reboots?

The answer from the philanthropic collaborative Co-Impact is a new 10-year, $1 billion Gender Fund that works to transform the systems that stubbornly stand in the way of more just and inclusive environments. Challenging laws and social norms and rewriting the policies and processes of government are all on the table, along with a commitment to generating and sharing the research and data needed to ensure real change.

Those are ambitious goals, but the fund has already raised commitments exceeding $320 million from some of the world’s largest institutional funders, including the Gates and Rockefeller foundations, and big-name individual donors like MacKenzie Scott.

The Gender Fund plans to provide large, long-term and flexible funding to organizations that support women in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Pam Foster, COO of Co-Impact, said that translates to three to six years for most commitments, and investments that will generally range “north of a million to $20 million.” Foster said the fund will typically back projects rather than general operating support, but is open to pivoting direction as necessary and remaining flexible on budgets. The fund has announced 15 grantees so far.

As for partners, Co-Impact believes that locally rooted organizations are at a distinct advantage when it comes to achieving the “tangible actions” the fund is chasing, as are organizations led by women and people with lived experience. Ten percent of all awards are expected to back women’s rights and feminist groups and movements.

A collaborative approach

Co-Impact was created in 2017 by Olivia Leland, founding director of the Giving Pledge, as a global effort to bring about systems change that will improve “the lives of millions of people around the world.”

Itself a collaborative composed of philanthropists, foundations and private sector partners, Co-Impact embraces a collective theory of change shown by others like Blue Meridian Partners, which works to alleviate poverty in the U.S., and the Freedom Fund, which is aimed at ending modern slavery.

Co-Impact has made several rounds of grants since its founding. In 2019, the Foundational Fund totaled $80 million, and was directed at helping change-makers achieve large-scale impact in the areas of health, education and economic opportunity for people in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. This current round, announced March 17, comes from the new Gender Fund.

Co-Impact’s new fund builds on other notable gender equity alliances that have emerged recently, like the more than $48 million Equity Can’t Wait collaboration last August between Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Scott and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. Another $2.6 billion from Open Society Foundations and the Gates and Ford foundations was collectively committed to gender equity issues at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris last June.

Lived learning and transparency

Pam Foster said that Co-Impact is mindful of the other work progressing, and the importance of all women’s funds working in its focus countries. What makes the organization’s work different, she said, is a matter of mindset. Large-scale change is hard to measure, and hinges on a number of factors. Co-Impact is developing ways to measure impact and set targets based on what grantees think and do in real-world situations.

Its commitment to amplifying the work it’s showcasing also sets Co-Impact apart, as does creating shared learning across funding partners. Foster called transparency “undervalued,” and championed the potential in “looking across our portfolio so program funders can learn from each other.” As the portfolio grows, so will a repository of shared materials for learning and action.

Big name funders

Co-Impact aims to unite philanthropy, the private sector, and subject experts in its work, and so far, the Gender Fund has achieved notable cross-sector support. It has secured commitments from a dozen or more initial funding partners from across the spectrum, and is in “active conversation” with others.

They include major foundations like the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations; and corporate funders like Cartier Philanthropy, the Estee Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation, Target Foundation, and Thankyou Charitable Trust.

Individual supporters include MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett, who also separately supported Co-Impact’s Foundational Fund, making them one of the organization’s lead donors. Zimbabwe philanthropist Tsitsi Masiyiwa, Indian businesswoman Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Kate James and Hans Bishop, and co-founder of C2C Elizabeth Sheehan are also on board.

Where initial funding is headed

The first set of grants will address major barriers to gender equality like gender-based violence, maternal health, gender-inclusive education and women’s leadership. They include funding for India-based maternal health leader ARMMAN; the global human rights champion Clooney Foundation for Justice; International Association of Women Justices; Nossas Cidades, which mobilizes activism in Brazil and Latin America; research leader Partnership for Economic Policy; and Red ALAS | Universidad Torcupto de Tella.

Another notable recipient is the GQUAL Campaign, which works to change the underrepresentation of women in the legal and political arena. It models the ways Co-Impact hopes to create a “network of experts” who can drive real change based on lived experience. The campaign was started in 2015 by five friends in Uruguay, international lawyers who spent their days litigating cases in male-dominated courts.

María Noel Leoni, secretariat member of GQUAL Campaign, said they looked around and realized that the entities that promote human rights and were created around the ideas of non-discrimination had “few or no women at all” — a development with larger structural implications. Gender goals were not “reflected in reality” of the composition of courts, tribunals and other decision-making bodies.

The campaign aims to change that by making women present in decision-making spaces at all levels, from civil society to academia. It is developing guidelines and practices that both create obligations for gender parity and provide a roadmap for women seeking a seat at the table.

Leoni said the campaign is also gathering actionable data that’s not currently available, and designing tools to help candidates learn about what it takes to campaign for office or sit on the bench. Then it’s a matter of broadly sharing the information, creating mentorships, and collaborating with partners like law schools to pave the way for women judges.

Leoni sees two main entry points to change the rules of selection processes. She said there’s been some progress on the first, which is “nominating and voting for NGOs to get more information out there,” by sharing deadlines, positions and processes.

More work is needed on the second path, which involves broadening networks, with a “major focus on Latin America, where all of the campaign founders are from,” places that “severely lack ways for women” to do things like get on the bench.

Geographically, the campaign currently works in Latin America and the Caribbean — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru—places where issues of gender representation challenge legitimacy. Two African countries are next, though that may change depending on need.

The women behind the campaign worked on a voluntary basis with almost no support for five years. Leoni recently became its first full-time employee. Additional new positions are being filled, though the rest of the secretariat is “working as before.”

All are using their lived experiences to break down barriers in real world ways. Leoni said she considers the chance to dedicate herself to bringing the campaign’s work to scale on a full-time basis “a dream come true.”

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