Women and Girls Fund

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cause funds > women and girls fund

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The Women and Girls Fund is for donors who want to contribute specifically to interventions working on the disproportionate burden of extreme poverty that women and girls experience. Supporting charities with a focus on gender issues can help reshape gender norms worldwide, promote women’s inclusion and safety, and increase access to maternal healthcare and family planning services. When supporting women and girls, entire communities’ health, safety, and economics are enhanced.

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Key Strengths: Depth of impact, Durability

Multidimensional Poverty Index Indicators: Child mortality, Years of schooling, School attendance, Assets

Other Key Outcomes: Physical safety, Violence against women and girls, Early pregnancy rates, Healthcare utilization, Improved learning outcomes, School enrollment

Why donate to the Women and Girls Fund?

General improvements in global health and development alone are not enough to reduce the disproportionate impact of extreme poverty on women; we must focus on solutions that make the world more equitable for 50% of our world’s population. Women often lack access to healthcare services, leading to poor maternal outcomes and integration into their communities after traumatic and stigmatized birth injuries. Globally, approximately two-thirds of illiterate adults are women and women are often primarily responsible for unpaid care work, both of which limit their ability to engage in income-generating activities. Based on data from the World Economic Forum, on average, women only earn 77 cents per every dollar earned by men worldwide. Additionally, nearly one-third of women and girls aged 15 or older have experienced either physical or sexual violence. While these statistics are dire, studies show that community-led programs conducted over one to three years have been able to significantly reduce violence rates by shifting individual, interpersonal, and community-level attitudes and norms about gender. Robust evidence through randomized controlled trials have also demonstrated that such programs reduce the likelihood by one-third of women being victims of violence, with effects that can persist for many years.

Share of women who are expected to die from pregnancy-related causes, 2017

The probability that a 15 year old girl eventually dies from a pregnancy-related cause, assuming constant levels of maternal mortality and number of children per woman.

Data source: World Health Organization (via World Bank) – OurWorldInData.org/maternal-mortality | CC BY

What is the intended impact of the Women and Girls Fund?

  • Leading evidence-based programs run by community members to reduce violence against women.
  • Contributing to school curricula and mass media campaigns that address gendered violence to revert patriarchal cultural norms, increasing girls’ graduation rates and access to healthcare.
  • Identifying out-of-school girls in remote communities and helping them re-enroll in education by working with families and communities to revert deeply rooted gender bias and patriarchal cultural norms.
  • Providing effective healthcare services, such as access to contraception, which facilitates body autonomy and family planning. 
  • Administering cost-effective obstetric fistula surgeries and post-surgery reintegration programs, which help women regain their position in their families and communities after traumatic childbirth injuries.
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How do we measure impact?

Our research team works closely with our recommended nonprofits, actively monitoring their progress on key outcomes. These outcomes span across various dimensions and indicators of the Multidimensional Poverty Index. In particular, this fund focuses on outcomes that disproportionately affect women and girls such as intimate partner violence, gender norms stopping girls from going to school, and maternal and child health. We explore the sources of impact metrics, ranging from internal monitoring and evaluation data, to external impact evaluations, including randomized controlled trials. In evaluating the impact of our recommended charities and projecting their future potential, we analyze the convergence of evidence from diverse sources, including external evaluations and the broader literature on specific interventions. Additionally, we assess the impact of our grants and their ability to strengthen the ecosystem of high-impact organizations. Key questions are central to these evaluations, such as: 

  • Do our grants effectively realize their intended objectives? 
  • Are our recommended nonprofits making tangible progress towards their goals on an annual basis? 
  • Are these organizations able to secure additional funding and expand the reach of their programs? 

The successful scaling and increased financial backing of our recommended charities serve as indicators of achievement for our team.

Read more about how we measure impact

To learn more about our research and evaluation process, please refer to the following links:

How does the Women and Girls Fund work?

Our research team establishes annual funding goals for each recommended charity through our ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and understanding of funding needs across our fund of recommendations. These goals inform the percentage allocated to each charity within the fund.

We actively review funding goals and determine fund allocations every six months. You have the option of giving 100% to charities – or sending 90% of your donation to the charities and 10% towards our operations. We give this option because we do not charge donors fees, but rather raise funds for our own operations separately.

Read the current Women and Girls Fund allocations.

Who are the Women and Girls Fund recipients and what is their demonstrated impact?

Select Charity
Fistula Foundation Population Services International Educate Girls Breakthrough Trust CEDOVIP

Fistula Foundation is the global leader in treating obstetric fistula, a devastating childbirth injury that leaves women incontinent and often humiliated and shunned by their communities. In addition to covering direct surgery costs, Fistula Foundation also supports surgeon training, facilities equipment, grassroots community outreach, and holistic post-surgery reintegration. Their annual demonstrated impact includes:

  • Providing over 10,000 surgeries to repair childbirth injuries, including fistula.
  • Supporting 8 new treatment partners throughout Africa, expanding fistula repair services into Liberia and Sierra Leone. 
  • Launching a new treatment network in Tanzania.

Population Services International helps women live healthier lives and plan the families they desire through a network of locally-rooted, globally-connected organizations working to achieve consumer-powered healthcare. Their annual demonstrated impact includes:

  • Reaching 14.6 million consumers through accelerated market growth and systems change by working with governments.  
  • Reaching 5.8 million consumers through their social business model by funding shops where individuals may access basic medicines and contraceptives.

​Educate Girls aims to provide equitable access to education for all girls in India. Its primary beneficiaries are out-of-school girls in rural communities. They strive to boost school enrollment and learning with local volunteers who mobilize parents and communities and by delivering supplementary remedial learning curriculum.

Their annual demonstrated impact includes [1]:

  • Successfully enrolled 411,461 out-of-school girls (aged 5-14) back in school.
  • Provided training to 93,698 School Management Committee (SMC) members.
  • Enabled 36,931 adolescent girl leaders through Life Skills Education.
  • Improved learning outcomes for 260,083 children in foundational literacy and numeracy.
  • Enrolled 10,934 adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-29) in open schools and conducted 705 camps to facilitate grade 10 exam preparation and credentialing.

Breakthrough Trust works on culture-based change in India, focusing their programs on girls and boys aged 11 to 24. They partner with the government and help redesign school curricula to include material on gendered violence, as well as running mass media campaigns to reach a large audience. Their annual demonstrated impact includes:

  • Transforming gender norms by working in 13 districts and 4 states within India, including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Delhi/NCR. 
  • Collaborating with state governments in Punjab and Odisha and education departments to embed a gender lens into the middle school curricula and train teachers and school leaders to build gender sensitivity.

CEDOVIP is a locally-run, Uganda-based nonprofit that establishes and helps run community-led programs focused on reducing violence throughout Kampala and northern Uganda, with ambitious plans to scale their work throughout the rest of the country. Their annual demonstrated impact includes:

  • Coordinating a Learning Center to provide more than 300 activists and practitioners with practical skills to effectively mobilize communities for violence prevention in collaboration with Raising Voices. 
  • Developing a handbook with protocols for the Ugandan police force to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls.
  • Influencing parliamentary approval of the Domestic Violence Bill in Uganda.

Fund Managers

Our team works to recommend high-impact donations. Contact us if you have questions about giving to the Women and Girls Fund.

Akhil Bansal

Akhil Bansal

Research Advisor
Ilona Arih

Ilona Arih

Research Advisor
Matias Nestore

Matias Nestore

Senior Associate, Research and Evaluation

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