Site Admin, Author at Co-Impact

Photo by Yagazie Emezi/Getty Images/Images of Empowerment

In a nutshell:

Program Partners see Co-Impact as a trusted, open, and flexible thought partner in helping them work toward long-lasting impact at scale, with the design phase seen as a unique, valuable form of support.
At the same time, they suggest more simplicity in our approach, streamlined processes, access to tailored support for systems change efforts, and more connection to their peers and funding partners.
In 2024, we will simplify our language and key concepts, review how we conduct sourcing and due diligence, identify contextually-relevant actors who can offer specialist systems change support to program partners, and scope how platforms such as communities of practice can provide a trusted space for connection and problem solving. We will also foster deeper collaboration between our program partners and our wider funding community.

One of our core values at Co-Impact is to exercise a beginner’s mind.

We interpret this as staying humble, recognizing there is much we do not know, and always striving to learn in order to improve. One of the best ways to practice this beginner’s mind is to seek out, really listen to, and then act upon, candid feedback from the organizations we support. So in 2023 we commissioned the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to carry out a confidential survey and in-depth interviews with our program partners and applicants. This was the third time we partnered with CEP (here are our reflections from the 2021 survey).

We invited all our program partners to participate. Some partners we have supported for a number of years, while others are just starting their relationship with Co-Impact. The CEP team fielded an online survey and conducted in-depth interviews, both of which achieved response rates that exceed CEP targets. This is important as it means the insights are representative of our partners. For language equity, the CEP team conducted interviews in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Bahasa. We are deeply grateful to all partners for their time and insights.

Below we share a short summary of the main findings from this report, as well as our commitments to taking the recommendations forward. You can access the full CEP report here.

Overall, we are very pleased to note that this report is an improvement as compared to the 2021 survey. In areas comparable to other funders, our partners rate Co-Impact mostly as good as or slightly above as the comparison group. The partners who have been with us for a number of years commend us on positive changes they have observed over time. Most partners see Co-Impact as a funder deeply and substantively committed to systems change and gender equality, and experience us as supportive and trusting. Specifically, here are a few key areas which program partners considered our strengths:

Our approach to helping partners work towards long-lasting impact on a large scale. Partners see Co-Impact as a thought leader in applying a systems change approach to creating impact, appreciate the focus on gender and intersectionality, and regard our organizational strengthening focus as a distinctive value.
As a key part of our approach, the design phase is experienced as a unique and distinctive offering by Co-Impact and as necessary for building and strengthening partner initiatives. Design workshops are highly appreciated for clarifying concepts and processes, although partners would like to have more opportunities to exchange and learn from each other. For a brief write-up of the design phase, see here.
Partners were very positive about the relationship with Co-Impact, which was characterized by flexibility, openness and responsiveness to feedback. Staff are seen as highly knowledgeable facilitators and thought partners. Partners were also positive about our improved processes and less micromanagement, including reduced burden of calls and reports.
The creation of regional teams is perceived very positively. This helps Co-Impact be more connected to and aware of the nuances of a particular context, which means we can better support our program partners to adapt the systems change and gender equity approach to their own context.

Just as – if not more – important is to consider the areas where we can improve our funding practice. We are thankful to our program partners for their candor, as this is essential for our learning. The recommendations and our current thoughts on how we can improve our practice can be clustered in four main categories:

1. We will be driven by achieving more simplicity in our approach.

This includes more hands-on tools and more examples, particularly around our approach to learning, measurement and evaluation, which is new to many partners.

In response, we are committed to further simplifying our language and key concepts across our materials, and to make these widely available in a range of languages and in the public domain for our program partners and other interested parties. This includes our approach to systems and institutional change, and our approach to learning, measurement and evaluation suited to this kind of work. We heard very clear feedback that many people learn by example – so we also commit to making available a range of concrete examples from our current program partners of essential materials, such as dashboards, systems change vision documents, measurement plans, and more.

2. We will work towards streamlining our processes.

Including in sourcing and providing simple templates that help with clarity (e.g. for budgets and reports). In particular, declined applicants gave feedback that the pace and clarity of our process could be improved. In fact, declined applicants as a group rated us lower than the comparable funder cohort. This is an important insight for us to take forward.

In response, we are reviewing how we conduct sourcing and due diligence. We aim to make these lighter, clearer, and also to act in the spirit of “deeper understanding” (less on conducting diligence on the partner). While we cannot erase the power dynamic that exists between a funder and the partner receiving the funds, we want to be aware of this and minimize its effects. For example, we are making it easier for partners to defer a payment or change the amount requested, to give more autonomy to partners who need to take care of organizational health within complex funding arrangements as well as challenging political landscapes.

3. We will offer more access to varied and tailored support.

One of our areas of focus will be on offering more access to varied and tailored support to develop system-change strategies and a range of specific areas – from organizational strengthening to managing coalitions to developing measurement capacities. In particular, our partners who are working on women in leadership as well as our research partners have asked for increased support in how to measure the contribution of their work to improved institutions and systems.

In response, we will identify and collaborate with a range of different, contextually- relevant actors (from think tanks to consultancies to individuals) who can offer deep support to program partners, and who are not the funder. Another promising approach is to connect program partners to each other, for support and learning and possibly for collaboration, in ways which are concretely useful as well as light on effort. We understand that for many of our partners time is a precious commodity – and so we are exploring various ways in which platforms such as communities of practice can be curated and managed so that they are not a burden, but do provide a trusted and generative space for connection and problem-solving.

4. We will endeavor to increase connection to peer organizations and funders.

We will increase connection between peer organizations doing similar work, as well as to other funders who are interested in supporting systems change and gender equity efforts.

In response, we commit to connecting program partners more deeply with the wider funding community which we are proud to be part of, as well as to step up our own engagement across the philanthropic field. Yes it’s in part about facilitating more philanthropic funds to reach more partners, but it goes beyond the transactional. In order to make deep, lasting change in the systemic problems we are committed to, we need to help foster more deep collaboration among actors who may be quite different in many ways, but who share the goals of transforming systems to be more just and equitable.

Our hope is that these and other concrete changes we are making will help to make us better funding partners and collaborators. We invite our program and funding partners and other members of our community to help hold us to account for our commitments.

By Varja Lipovsek and Olivia Leland

Nov 3, 2023

Co-Impact has awarded $4.3M USD in grants to 13 initiatives in Africa that are working to create positive changes for millions of people across a range of issues including maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, access to education and healthcare, and improved economic and leadership opportunities for women.

This includes one research grant to generate evidence for meaningful changes in the care economy and childcare services ecosystem and 12 design grants to support the organizations in sharpening and refining their strategies for scalable and sustainable systems change.

We recognize that organizations that are working on the complex work of shifting systems to be more just and gender equitable do not often have sufficient space or resources to do the deep thinking needed to develop concrete strategies for their work. Our Design Phase aims to provide program partners with the time, resources, ideas, tools, community, and support necessary for them to engage in deep strategic thinking and organizational strengthening work. Through the design process, these partners will be able to clearly articulate how they can scale their initiatives and work through the key systems their initiatives focus on.

Learn more about the work of these new initiatives here.

What do you get when you put together 30 individuals from incredible organizations working on systems change and gender justice, mix with a few superb facilitators and coaches, stir over 4 days with hard questions, conceptual nuggets, intense group work, and time for genuine human connections?

Co-Impact’s Design Workshop! This workshop is the kick-off event to Co-Impact’s design phase, which lasts for 8-12 months, and either precedes or is folded into a multi-year grant tackling complex systemic and institutional change. We were privileged to host 20 new initiatives under our Gender Fund, plus a handful of selected coaches, over two workshops in Naivasha, Kenya, in February 2023.

Why the design phase?

Many organizations rooted in the Global South spend much of their time responding to donor requests and requirements, implementing short-term projects, and raising further resources to keep afloat. This often crowds out what organizations say they need most: time and resources to distill the core of their model and strategic approach. This is critical for all organizations, but especially for those working on complex systems and institutional change.

Co-Impact’s Design Phase strives to dedicate the time, resources, ideas, tools, community, and other support necessary for program partners to engage in this critical strategic thinking, planning, and organizational strengthening work. The result of the design phase is a multi-year strategy developed by the program partner that speaks to their vision and core, and not to the push-and-pull of different funders’ priorities, including those of Co-Impact.

The design phase and design phase workshop in a nutshell:

The workshop is a 4-day “mini tour” of the entire design phase. Five interactive and practical modules take program partners through how to develop a plan for systems change.

First, it begins with unpacking the problem the partner seeks to address, examining how it manifests in people’s lives, and how the design, structure, incentives, and mindsets of the existing system or institution (“the system of today”) result in this problem.

The second module is about envisioning a better future – outlining in realistic, concrete terms what an improved system would look like and how it would perform (“the system of the future”). The critical question is not what the partner can directly deliver to people, but what needs to change in the system for it to perform better for everyone. Respectively, these two steps provide the starting point, or baseline, as well as the destination, or outcomes, of the systems change journey.

The third area of focus is designing a strategy or plan to sustainably shift the system in the ways needed for it to serve all people equitably (“the systems change strategy”). Systems change is never the work of a single organization. The overall strategy therefore cannot rely on the work of only one organization, it must consider a coalition of actors. This coalition is not necessarily a single, formal partnership in which everyone agrees, coordinates, and works on everything together. It is often a pragmatic collection of partnerships (formal or informal), each one focusing on a certain piece of the bigger body of work that is required. The key question is, who is best placed to do what parts of the work to bring about the desired systems change?

In the fourth module, the program partner articulates their own role within the strategy. That is, what of the work that is required are they best placed to do, how they will do this work, and in what ways they need to strengthen their organization in order to best succeed at it.

Finally, the fifth and final module (“learning, measurement and evaluation”) is for the program partner to develop a “map” for this journey. This includes clear and measurable definitions of the outcomes (for people, the system, and a stronger organization) as well as the starting point (baseline), milestones to understand progress, measurement approaches to track progress and guide learning and adaptation along the way, and a clear plan to test critical questions, assumptions, and hypotheses that form the foundation of the strategy and vision for change.

Who delivers the Design Workshop?

Designed and delivered by the Co-Impact team, and supported by a new cohort of systems change coaches.

As part of our broader effort to build Global South capacity for systems change, to broaden and diversify where the knowledge (and what it takes) to shift systems sit, we trained a group of 17 coaches who are deeply rooted in the countries where our program partners work, in Co-Impact’s approach to systems change and scale. A number of these coaches participated in the design workshop alongside our program partners in Naivasha. During the design phase, the coaches will collaborate with the Co-Impact team and where needed (and requested by program partners), will support with systems change plans. Building such coaching capacity is a first step towards our goal of supporting our program partners with proximal and relevant expertise, and building the field for systems change. We will continue to experiment with ways of providing this support, and hope the coaches will also use their systems change knowledge and outlook for the benefit of not only our program partners but also others.

What did we learn?

There were many highlights during the workshops, but three areas emerged as the most consistently significant “aha moments” for our program partners.

More than three-quarters of workshop participants singled out working on a systems-change analysis and approach through concrete, hands-on exercises centered around their own initiatives as the primary positive take-away. Within that, the idea of working at the scale of the problem resonated with many participants.

“We thought we were working at systems scale, but we actually were not. We did not see ourselves as a part of the system and that there were other moving parts as well. After working for 20 years, we work with 2000 villages in Indonesia today – but how do we reach the 76,000 villages in Indonesia? This week has really changed my perspective on systems change and scale.”

Program partner from Indonesia

“The biggest shift for us this week has been the realization that we have looked at the problem and our work from an initiative point of view. We haven’t considered the problem from a systems perspective and haven’t considered all the other actors that are a part of the system; some of whom can become partners in our work on the ground.”

Program partner from India

Many program partners found very useful the systematic analysis of how gender and intersectionality manifest in the systems they seek to change. So for example, rather than thinking how to tackle big root causes such as patriarchy or racism “head on”, the questions became around how patriarchy shows up concretely in how systems function, and how it influences the way key actors in the system behave.

“We know gender pretty well and we do good work on gender. But we have not really thought about intersectionality in the way that was discussed yesterday. We haven’t considered how identity, beyond gender, changes the way that the problem might show up for our constituents. We need to go back and understand that better.”

Program partner from South Africa

“It was eye opening for us that the gender and intersectionality focus was also explained as an internal lens for organizations to develop.”

Program partner from Mexico

Program partners found the concrete articulation of outcomes across three levels very helpful – for the people whose lives they wish to improve, for the systems which they seek to change so that they function better, and for themselves, to become an even stronger system-level actor. Together with this, partners very much appreciated the emphasis that any measurement and evaluation activities they will conduct need to first and foremost be useful to them, for their own learning and adaptation.

“After this workshop, we realize that we have large goals and ambitions, but we have spread ourselves too thin. This is because our impact at the different levels, does not align to the larger vision we want to see in our country in the next 20 years. Doing the exercise of thinking about people level outcomes and system level outcomes was useful, because it helped us tie the impact together.”

Program partner from Nigeria

“The LME session was actually your secret sauce. Despite being so short, it helped demystify what funders mean by learning and measurement, and provided an interesting perspective on how we can weave these concepts through our entire work.”

Program partner from Sri Lanka

Each time we hold these workshops, Co-Impact also continues to learn about how to continue to improve their design to best support our Program Partners. In this iteration, two topics came up consistently:

1. Partners shared a concern of how to take their entire team back home along a similar systems change journey. We invited several participants from each organization, but it is true that taking best advantage of the design phase requires the engagement of the entire organization because it asks fundamental questions about the core, the focus, and the main strategy for change going forward. For many organizations, this could become an exercise in “change management” – which sounds daunting. We agree, and we are committed to support this cohort through this period, as well as thinking ahead how to better prepare the next cohort.

“While we understand that we will need to implement change and strengthen our organizations, we are not sure on the how of these aspects. How do we make our entire organization go through this exercise?”

Program partner from Kenya

“In one of the last sessions, you spoke about organizational strengthening and change management. But, we did not go into detail. I wish there was more discussion around this. Change management is such a loaded word, it can mean anything, and it’s important to not think of it just as hiring consultants and some HR improvements. Some guidance on the mindset shifts and leadership through this period would have been very useful.”

Program partner from India

2. Partners really engaged with the importance of building and managing a winning coalition, strategizing who they could get on board, given that changing systems cannot be done by any individual organization. That said, many acknowledged they had not necessarily done so before, and were eager for more concrete examples and support on how to go about this.

“Would it be possible to have mentors from organizations that have done this design phase before? We would love to learn about how they managed partnerships and coalitions and took everyone along on this systems change journey.”

Program partner from Brazil

What next?

A month after the workshops, program partners are well on their way into the design phase. Over the next 8 months, our partners will conduct political economy analyses, review legal and policy frameworks, strengthen partnerships with key government stakeholders and other allies, test critical assumptions, hold community dialogues and focus group discussions, undertake organizational capacity assessments, hold workshops with potential coalition members and much more! Each partner has devised a plan for what they want to accomplish during this phase to set themselves up with a strong, plausible systems change strategy they believe in.

As for Co-Impact, we will host virtual refresher sessions with the program partners, and our regional teams will support each partner as needed. The most important thing is that program partners feel they are in the driver’s seat, that this process is managed by them and is for their benefit. We are incredibly excited and honored to walk this journey with our program partners and can’t wait for all the learnings and what comes next!

By Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO of AVPN and Olivia Leland, Founder and CEO of Co-Impact.

The just concluded B20 Summit in Bali – the business engagement of Indonesia G20 presidency – provided delegates and world leaders the opportunity to deliberate on gender and bring it to the forefront of business leaders’ and policy makers’ agendas. As participants in this forum, we know that these discussions are timely and urgent and must be met with action. We are painfully aware of what is at stake.

Women bear the brunt of war, pandemics, and climate change. Globally, women are 14 times more likely to die in climate events and four times more likely to be displaced because of climate.¹ The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has widened gender gaps in food insecurity, malnutrition, and energy poverty, and increased gender-based violence around the world.² Not to forget the long-tail of COVID-19 which has yet to dissipate, having forced millions of women out of jobs, slashing salaries and increasing domestic work amongst numerous other consequences.

These unprecedented times have revealed deep cracks in the system that maintain, and in many cases, widen gender inequality. The World Economic Forum projects that it will take 132 years to achieve gender equality while UN Women paints an even grimmer outlook of another 300 years.³ We cannot wait three more generations for women and men, boys and girls to live in an inclusive and equitable society that grants equal rights for all without discrimination. We must act now and act decisively to close the gap in gender equality.

It is this shared belief and commitment to tackling gender injustice and improving women’s economic outcomes with urgency that motivated AVPN to launch its Asia Gender Equality Fund at the B20 summit. This launch triggered engaging conversations around the importance of integrating gender principles in philanthropy and impact investing. With Co-Impact having also launched its second fund, the Gender Fund, in March this year, our two organisations – in solidarity as collaboratives for change – celebrate both our shared vision and diversity in approach to realising a more gender equal world.

We believe that because gender inequality is a cross-cutting issue, it demands multi-pronged and conscientious approaches by an ecosystem of actors. We thus see our contributions through these funds as a small part of a larger whole of existing and needed contributions to the space – and work in solidarity with others working towards similar goals everywhere.

If we want to achieve meaningful progress in any area, we cannot leave half of the world’s population behind. Adopting inclusive solutions and collectively investing in addressing barriers to progress for women and girls is an imperative for our generation. We must collectively develop solutions, at all levels, that are responsive to the specific needs of women and girls. In doing so, we are laying the foundation for them to not only survive, but thrive, even in the face of unexpected, unavoidable disruptions like we’ve seen in this past decade alone.

The AVPN and Co-Impact gender funds, though distinct, share a common goal: to transform key systems while applying a strong gender lens that will make these systems more inclusive and equitable. The AVPN’s Asia Gender Equality Fund is a USD 25 million fund which focuses on strengthening organisations that implement and/or anchor interventions addressing the specific and urgent needs around women’s economic empowerment in Asia. By providing unrestricted funding to small and medium organisations, the fund will empower founders to define the most effective usage of funding received to improve their service delivery and improve outcomes for women and girls in Asia. Co-Impact’s Gender Fund, aims to raise US $1billion over the next ten years and direct it towards locally rooted initiatives in Africa, Asia⁴ and Latin America working to advance gender equality and to improve outcomes in health, education and economic opportunity for at least 100 million people. It also aims to advance women’s leadership at all levels, increase women’s representation in the critical domains of law and economics, shift discriminatory gender norms, and generate evidence to inform practice.

How can philanthropic leaders, funders and the broader social impact ecosystem be more intentional about securing a promising future for women and girls to benefit all humanity? Here are three key insights about what we are learning.

Invest more in evidence – and follow the data

Robust evidence is key to driving impactful interventions. Yet when it comes to gender equality, gaps in data and a pervasive lack of disaggregation by sex and other demographic characteristics point to the chronic lack of investment in this area. While there are numerous efforts to improve women’s rights, opportunities, and participation, there remains a dearth of information around what strategies work best, and how funders and those implementing interventions can develop relationships grounded in trust, honesty, and co-dependence.

Moreover, even where data on gender equality exists, funding is often slow to follow the evidence. For example, while research indicates that funding women’s economic empowerment can result in 12% economic growth, less than 2% of development funding goes into this area of work.⁵ Although women’s rights organisations play catalytic roles in driving systemic change, they remain underfunded and underrepresented, receiving less than 1% of total foundation giving.⁶ This indicates a lack of true appreciation of the value of data that reflects how certain issues impact men, women, and all gender-diverse people differently. Data production can only be as valuable as the analysis it undergoes and how it is translated into accessible outputs that can be trusted and used by policymakers, social change agents and civil society.

For both AVPN and Co-Impact Gender Funds, data underpins our approach to funds design; informing how we define outputs, outcomes and objectives. Both our gender funds also seek to contribute to the body of evidence through our own work and that of our partners by generating data and identifying gaps in existing data. AVPN’s approach focuses on fostering relationships that expand opportunities for evidence generation by convening sharing circles, creating safe spaces for funders and grantees to share learnings, challenges and expectations. Adopting trust-based philanthropy in its Asia Gender Equality Fund, AVPN uses streamlined learning and data collection to build trustworthy relationships between funders and impact organisations to address existing power imbalances between funders and grantees. This allows these organisations to focus more on creating impact instead of drowning in administrative work. Co-impact focuses on generating and sharing research and learnings to benefit partners and other social change makers, and all grants have a strong focus on learning that is partner led. The entire design of Co-Impact’s Gender Fund was based on broad consultations and evidence reviews, and the fund also provides practitioner-oriented research grants to inform and improve practice across intervention areas.

Deploy funding to where it has the most impact

What and how we fund matters. To maximise the value of invested resources, funders and philanthropic leaders should support the most impactful ideas and actors who are best placed to cultivate real change on the ground. First, interventions that adopt a systems focused rather than a single-issue approach most effectively and sustainably address the root causes of challenges faced within systems. Second, locally-rooted organisations and social change makers have the local expertise, contextual knowledge and relationships needed to make lasting changes in their communities and beyond.

Unfortunately, local and small organisations, particularly those led by women, are largely underfunded. Only 2.1% of humanitarian aid flows directly to local and national actors in the Global South and in 2018,⁷ only 1 percent of gender-focused international aid was directed to women’s rights organisations.⁸ These organisations need more funding and fewer barriers to accessing this funding, so they are able to strengthen their core capabilities and scale their impact. No individual fund or funder can address the diversity, depth, geography, and focus areas needed to ensure a just and inclusive society for all. Our gender funds are seeking to address this by bringing together funding partners, pooling funds and ensuring that partners proximal to and leading proven initiatives have access to larger and long-term funding as well as the flexibility to direct the funding to their most urgent needs whether that be operational or programmatic. It takes flexible, trust-based approaches like this to meaningfully and sustainably tackle systemic problems at scale.

Change the Game by collaborating and influencing the public and private sector’s approach

To change the game, how we do funding also needs to be catalytic and demonstrate the potential of the change we seek. Funders and philanthropic leaders have a critical role in shaping new approaches that will influence how the public and private sectors can champion gender equality. First, funders need to come together to support collaborative solutions to create needed transformation at scale. We are encouraged and excited to see a growing movement of philanthropists globally and regionally, collaborating and demonstrating inclusive and equitable giving – exemplified by AVPN and Co-Impact’s Gender Funds. Coming together to pool resources makes long-term thinking possible, it creates opportunities for resources invested to have outsized impact and address intersecting causes of inequalities.

By maintaining a systems focus, funders’ resources are better utilised and can catalyse systemic changes sustainably by building on and strengthening existing government and market mechanisms that serve millions of people rather than building parallel efforts. This would not only remarkably increase the value of every dollar investment but has also proven to have the powerful potential to attract increased financial and non-financial investments from other funders and the private sector that increases the overall pie of resources for gender transformative change in key systems.

It’s the imperative of our generation

Finally, in funding there can be nothing for women without women. Interventions seeking to advance women’s power and agency must reflect representation of women, girls and other gendered minorities, and go beyond tokenistic approaches to truly inclusive ways of integrating women’s voices and needs. Instead of merely building individual women’s capacities, for example, funding should invest in creating pathways for women to enter and thrive in leadership positions; promoting women’s leadership at a more impactful scale through changes in institutional policies and practices. To this end, philanthropists have a critical role in funding the transformation of laws, cultural norms, and institutional practices to create pathways to intersectional leadership for women collectively,

We at AVPN and Co-Impact recognize that we are living in a momentous time with immense opportunity to leave a more gender equal inheritance to the next generation. The time to collaborate and act for true gender equality is now. No single fund can address the scale of the challenge alone. We call on philanthropic leaders to adopt an abundance mindset and invest more and better in advancing gender equality to transform our systems and create a just world that benefits everyone.

AVPN is Asia’s #1 social investment network, and an ecosystem builder that works to increase the flow of capital towards impact in Asia, ensuring that resources are most effectively deployed.

Co-impact is a global philanthropic collaborative focused on improving the lives of millions of people through just and inclusive systems.

An edited version of this piece was recently published on Nikkei Asia here.

^[1] fortune.com/2022/07/25/why-climate-change-disproportionally-impacts-women

^[2] unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2022/09/press-release-new-un-policy-paper-shows-the-devasting-impacts-of-the-ukraine-war-on-women-and-girls

^[3] unwomen.org/en/news-stories/speech/2022/09/speech-taking-stronger-action-to-keep-the-promises-of-generation-equality

^[4] For Asia, Co-Impact’s is funding initiatives in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka

^[5] oecd.org/development/gender-development/How-does-aid-support-womens-economic-empowerment-2021.pdf

^[6] bridgespan.org/bridgespan/Images/articles/philanthropy-and-feminist-movements/full-report-philanthropy-and-feminist-movements.pdf

^[7] devinit.org/resources/global-humanitarian-assistance-report-2020/funding-effectiveness-and-efficiency

^[8] bridgespan.org/bridgespan/Images/articles/philanthropy-and-feminist-movements/full-report-philanthropy-and-feminist-movements.pdf

Co-Impact, a philanthropic collaborative, is pleased to announce over US $161 million in grants for 34 initiatives across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to help make systems more just and inclusive whilst advancing gender equality and women’s leadership.
Changing systems means thinking about who has power and who makes decisions. Across all of our grants, Co-Impact focuses on laying the pathways for millions of women to have the opportunity to exercise power, agency, and leadership at all levels – from household and community, to institutions and governments. We also focus on women in leadership within law and economics because of the inordinate influence these sectors have on policy and decision-making, which can accelerate progress towards gender equality.
Millions of people are adversely affected by unjust systems and unequal distribution of power within societies. Collaborative philanthropic funds such as these are facilitators of change and Co-Impact’s program partners are tackling the root causes of inequalities and driving long-term, just and inclusive systems change.

The grants being awarded by Co-Impact fall under three categories:

US $95 million of funding under the Foundational Fund to 8 initiatives for long-term systems change initiatives focused on improving health, education, and economic opportunity – the core foundation blocks for societies to flourish and thrive – more just, inclusive, and effective. These initiatives will advance impact at scale and are expected to measurably improve the lives of an estimated 300+ million people.
US $66 million of long-term, flexible funding under the Gender Fund to 24 initiatives addressing a variety of systemic barriers surrounding gender-based and sexual violence, bodily autonomy and access to healthcare, educational opportunities for girls, and improved economic opportunities for women, amongst others. This includes women in leadership initiatives in law which will develop a new generation of women lawyers and advocates, change standards and regulations to create career development for women lawyers, and incubate women leaders in law. Led by predominantly women-led organizations and locally-rooted across Africa, Asia and Latin America, these new program partners will work towards advancing women’s power, agency, and leadership, as well as help shift harmful gender norms that prevent progress towards just and inclusive systems.
US $1.6 million in grants for two initiatives to advance practitioner-oriented research and learning, and generate a body of evidence on how to advance women’s leadership and gender equality.

Common across all the grants is a focus on addressing the structural and discriminatory root causes that hold back progress towards a just and inclusive society. Partners will build on rigorous evidence and lived experiences to advance sustainable impact at scale and build broad and powerful coalitions for change. These efforts will also strengthen their learning, measurement, and evaluation processes to enhance accountability and improve practice.

Co-Impact’s funding will be accompanied by specialist expertise to provide program partners with the support they need to achieve lasting impact at scale. This includes concerted support for organizational strengthening, access to coaching and peer exchange.

Olivia Leland, Co-Impact’s Founder and CEO said: “Many systems around the world fail to deliver on their promises because discrimination against women, girls and other marginalized groups is baked into their design. Our program partners work with governments to fix this, dismantling barriers to inclusion in public and market systems and using proven innovations to help millions of people access greater opportunities and live with dignity.”

These grants also demonstrate what decolonizing development can look like in practice. “Trust and long-term support are essential to achieve outcomes,” says Rakesh Rajani, Vice President of Programs at Co-Impact, “virtually all our long term and flexible funding goes to organizations led by people, mostly women, rooted in the Global South. They are best placed to lead because they are closer to the action, know their local contexts and have the credibility and relationships needed to achieve lasting change.”

These grants are made through Co-Impact’s Foundational and Gender Funds. Co-Impact funders include foundations and philanthropic leaders from across the world who have pooled resources to advance more powerful change together and accelerate mutual learning.

Notes to the Editors

Press requests
Mitali Wroczynski: [email protected]
Co-Impact: [email protected]

About Co-Impact
Founded in 2017, Co-Impact is a global organization which brings together philanthropists, foundations, local advocates and private sector partners from around the world to pool funding that supports efforts to drive sustainable change in health, education, and economic opportunity – in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together with locally-rooted program partners and advisors, Co-Impact has formed a global collaborative that advances inclusive systems change, gender equality, and women’s leadership through grant-making and influencing philanthropy. Co-Impact’s diverse team is spread across 8 countries on 4 continents, where they support powerful coalitions of actors – from grassroots organizations to governments – to collaboratively effect substantive and sustainable systems change.

About the Co-Impact Gender Fund
Launched in March 2022, the Gender Fund aims to raise and disburse US $1bn over the next decade. The Gender Fund provides funding to predominantly women-led, locally-rooted organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America with large, long-term, and flexible funding. Co-Impact will provide at least 10% of the funds raised to feminist and women’s rights groups and movements.

About the Co-Impact Foundational Fund
The Foundational Fund, Co-Impact’s first fund, supports collaborative systems change efforts that will achieve significant and enduring improvements in education, health, and economic opportunity for millions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This Fund provides large, long-term, flexible grants and non-financial support to initiatives that have demonstrated success through an evidence-based approach to creating a more just, equitable, and inclusive world.

African Philanthropy Forum launches the Africa Gender Initiative uniting African philanthropists behind the common goal of advancing gender equality across the continent.
Tsitsi Masiyiwa, the philanthropist behind the Initiative is leading the new cohort of African philanthropists committed to inspire more Africans to give directly to the issue.
The initial list of funding partners includes South African entrepreneurs Beryl and Neverl Kambasha and their BeeNev Kambasha Foundation, Zimbabwean entrepreneurs Mayda and Trevor Mapondera of Catalyst Foundation and SHE Project, South African impact investor Yellowwoods Foundation, Byron Fundira of Chiltern Support and Housing, as well as Zimbabwean entrepreneurs Tsi and Peter Pembere of Express Links International Money Transfer.
To start with, the Africa Gender Initiative will seek to raise US $50M in ten years and will support the activities of Co-Impact’s Gender Fund in Africa.

Kigali, October 24, 2022

Today, the African Philanthropy Forum launched the Africa Gender Initiative (AGI), a platform for African philanthropists to come together, mobilise funding and work collaboratively to close the gender gap.

Initially, funding raised by the Africa Gender Initiative will support the work of the Co-Impact Gender Fund on the continent. The Co-Impact Gender Fund was launched in March to support individuals and organizations driving change in Africa, Asia and Latin America by building women’s leadership in key areas such as law and economics and addressing gender-based inequalities in healthcare, education and economic opportunity.

Given the current state of gender parity in Africa, initiatives such as the AGI are desperately needed. Even before the pandemic, McKinsey Global Institute determined that progress towards gender equality was stalling in Africa. A recent World Economic Forum report now calculates that due to the Covid-19 pandemic gender parity on the continent is still at least 98 years away.

While most global philanthropic funding is going to Africa, only a fraction of this money reaches African non-governmental organizations, programmes or initiatives, with even less going to women-led organizations. Instead, over 80% of gender-focused funding goes to multinational non-governmental organizations and governments.

This severe lack of funding in conjunction with the exacerbation of gender injustice due to the Covid-19 pandemic provides the backdrop and impetus for the Africa Gender Initiative.

To advance a collaborative and long-term approach to giving the Africa Gender Initiative is set up as a community borne out of the cooperation between the Africa Philanthropy Forum, Delta Philanthropies and Co-Impact. Future funding partners will become part of a network of philanthropists, local advocates, and experts to address deep-seated inequalities more efficiently.

H.E. Graça Machel, former First Lady of South Africa and Mozambique and live-long advocate for women’s rights and gender equality commented on the launch of the Africa Gender Initiative:

“Women and girls across Africa are longing for equal treatment and opportunities. We need to listen to their calls and address gender inequality now, as a group by joining forces and working collaboratively.

The way forward is to foster more women’s leadership across the continent to create societies that allow everyone, especially women and girls to thrive.”

Tsitsi Masiyiwa, businesswoman and philanthropist, said:

“I’m delighted to launch the Africa Gender Initiative alongside the African Philanthropy Forum and a group of funders that want to see a more progressive Africa. We are convinced that philanthropy can do more, and want to encourage others to join our call for change.

“We need to finally trust our own and drive funding in the hands of those that know the continent’s needs best. It is time for a new generation of African leaders that break down gender inequalities and allow everyone to reach their full potential.”

Janet Mbugua, Kenyan gender equality advocate and founder of Inua Dada Foundation commented on the launch:

“The approach taken by the Africa Gender Initiative is a bold step in the right direction. It is an urgent necessity that we recognize the potential that women leaders hold across the continent. Working collaboratively with women’s rights and grassroots organizations, feminist networks and funders, is key to breaking down barriers and advancing gender equality.

“For far too long have we been ruled by gendered systems that benefit only men. Seeing this commitment from Africans for Africans is encouraging me to continue to fight for gender equality, everywhere I go.”

Mosun Layode, Executive Director of African Philanthropy Forum, said:

“We are excited about the launch of the Africa Gender Initiative at the African Philanthropy Forum Conference. The initiative embodies APF’s vision to change the culture of giving on the continent and speaks directly to the kind of transformation we look forward to seeing.

Our theme for the conference – “African Philanthropists Closing the Gender Gap” – aligns perfectly with what AGI seeks to achieve. Philanthropy plays an important catalytic role in effecting change, and this initiative will unlock opportunities for women and girls across Africa.”

Mary Wandia, Co-Impact Director of Programs in Africa, said:

“Co-Impact is delighted to collaborate with the Africa Gender Initiative. We believe that philanthropy is a facilitator of change that works most effectively when it works together with locally-rooted partners.

The funding from the Africa Gender Initiative will provide large, long-term and flexible support to African and primarily women-led organizations, programmes and initiatives. Together we will foster women’s leadership, address deep seated gender inequalities and challenge persisting norms that perpetuate discrimination against women and girls.

Increased collaboration between African philanthropists, local advocates and experts will create an environment bigger than its individual parts, ultimately improving the lives of millions.”

-ENDS-

Notes to the Editors

Press requests

Tsitsi Masiyiwa and Delta Philanthropies: [email protected]
Co-Impact: [email protected]

About the Africa Gender Initiative

The Africa Gender Initiative was launched by the Africa Philanthropy Forum on 24th October 2022. Its initial activity will be to support the work of the Co-Impact Gender Fund across the African continent over the next decade. For this the AGI will mobilize US $50M from African philanthropists to address gender inequality.

Through the African Philanthropy Forum and Co-Impact, participants of the AGI will be part of a global community of funders coming together to advance gender equality and women’s leadership through resource mobilization and advocacy.

About Africa Philanthropy Forum

African Philanthropy Forum (APF) is a strong and vibrant community of partners who through their strategic giving, investments and influence, foster shared prosperity on the African Continent. It was incubated by the Global Philanthropy Forum (GPF), a global network of strategic philanthropists and social investors committed to international causes from 2014 – 2016. In 2017, APF became an independent entity and continues to be an affiliate of the GPF.

Over the years, APF has established a strong presence on the Continent, with footprints in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe through convenings and activities. APF has also invested in the development of two Toolkits for African Philanthropists and the “Why Give” Series, which consists of interviews with Africa’s strategic philanthropic leaders to showcase their motivations for giving.

Since inception, APF has reached over 2,500 philanthropists, social investors and key stakeholders in the philanthropic space across Africa and the world. Through APF’s high impact convening and initiatives, the organization has facilitated collaborations, amplified the work of change makers and shared best philanthropic practices and strategies for promoting homegrown development.

About Co-Impact

Founded in 2017, Co-Impact is a global organization focused on building just and equitable systems. Bringing together philanthropists, foundations, local advocates and private sector partners from around the world to pool funding that supports efforts to drive sustainable change in the sectors of health, education, and economic opportunity – in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together with locally rooted program partners and advisors, Co-Impact has formed a global collaborative that advances inclusive systems change, gender equality, and women’s leadership through grant-making and influencing philanthropy.

Co-Impact’s program partners understand the context and approaches required to shift levers of power so that systems benefit all people equally. The organizations diverse team is spread across 8 countries on 4 continents, where they support powerful coalitions of actors – from grassroots organizations to governments – to collaboratively effect substantive and sustainable systems change.

About the Co-Impact Gender Fund

The Gender Fund is a ten-year US $1bn initiative that provides funding to predominantly women-led, locally-rooted organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America with large, long-term, and flexible funding. Co-Impact will provide at least 10% of the funds raised to feminist and women’s rights groups and movements.

By Yasmin Madan and Nguhi Mwaura

Earlier this year, Co-Impact launched the Gender Fund, a collaborative effort across funders, social change organizations, and gender champions to advance gender equality and women’s leadership. Given the deeply entrenched systemic barriers and restrictive norms that women and girls experience, we recognize that funding for gender equality requires disrupting and reimagining traditional funding mechanisms. It starts with who we partner with and how we support them. This blog reflects on our journey so far towards identifying partners for the Gender Fund Country-level grants.

In October 2021, Co-Impact launched an open call to Global South and predominantly women-led organizations to partner with us in our aspiration for a world where women and girls have equal opportunity to lead fulfilling lives, no matter where they are born. A few principles informed the design of the open call:

Our aim is to transform systems to be more effective, just, and inclusive because the basic services that people need in order to lead fulfilling lives are organized in the government and market systems of health, education, and economic opportunity;
Transforming systems means changing how power is distributed, who makes decisions, and whose voices are heard, and that means women’s leadership is integral to systems change;
What we fund is important, but who we fund and how we support them really matters. Recognizing the truth in ‘nothing for us, without us’ requires us to prioritize locally-rooted organizations, especially those led by women.

To live into our aspirations and principles, we consulted with feminist leaders and gender experts, including our Gender Fund Advisory Board. In these engagements, we were encouraged to both build on our previous experience and to expand our mental models. For instance, we examined the ways in which our requirements and selection criteria may exclude certain organizations and/or approaches to systems change, and we reframed the open call. We revisited our language requirements with a language justice lens and launched the open call in six different languages. This was accompanied with support to organizations to also apply in their language of choice and not need English translations from their side. Each of the deliberate design choices we made opened our minds to what is really needed. In turn, we saw the results in the response we got. From across 13 countries in three regions, we received almost double the number of applications from our previous open call round last year. There is a lot to celebrate and a lot to learn. Below, we share our reflections and insights that will continue to inform our work going forward.

First, recognize the power of signaling. In line with our commitment to locally-rooted organizations and representational leadership, we limited applicant eligibility to Global South organizations.¹ We also explicitly stated that at least 75% of our country-level grants would be for organizations led by women.² We signaled our intentions and it worked. We received over 1,130 applications and of these, over 1,000 met our Global South criteria. Similarly, over 90% of the applications we received were from women-led organizations. As funders we need to know that the potential is out there, and wisely use our signaling to find and fund. After multiple rounds of reviews, as we move towards the end of the process, we are confident that our emerging portfolio of country-level grants will reflect a significant number of women-led organizations, especially women-rights groups and feminist movements, in line with our global commitment.

Second, fund an ecosystem for long-term impact. In our first fund, Co-Impact has made relatively substantial and long-term investments in organizations that have a proven model and the potential for large-scale impact through systems change. As part of the Gender Fund, we recognize that irreversible social change and shift in power happens in many different ways. Sometimes it is a technocratic solution around a new policy or better implementation of an existing policy. Or it can mean bringing aspects of better governance and improved accountability mechanisms to make systems function more inclusively and responsively. Other times, it takes advocacy efforts or movement-led activity to shift norms that have held the status quo in place. For us, this meant holding to our core of funding for enduring impact at scale, while being open to what it takes to make systemic and institutional change happen in different country contexts. From our consultations with feminist leaders and gender experts, we also heard the need to resource and support organizations that have been historically underfunded. To support this diversity of approaches and ecosystem of organizations, we created three grant types with different qualification requirements that made it easier for organizations to apply based on their capacity needs, the stage of initiative, and their readiness to scale. For instance, one of our grant types – Catalytic grants – are intended to support women-led organizations that need a longer runway to develop their systems change strategy, establish their partnerships and coalitions, and invest in their organizational strengthening needs. Over 67% of the applications we received were for Catalytic grants showing the need for this kind of support. Building an ecosystem for tomorrow is as important as investing in solid initiatives today. We recognize this and the Gender Fund has committed to having stronger, more resilient, Global South and women-led organizations as part of its ten-year objectives.

Third, prioritize the organization and the people. As our portfolio of program partners grows and as we continue to learn from them on what it takes to do systems change, we realize that the leadership and the team members, organization’s role in the ecosystem, and their commitment to the cause and the context are what inherently matter. The landscapes will evolve, crises like the COVID pandemic will emerge, and the political-economy contexts will remain dynamic, but what will help keep the arc of change in the right direction are the organization’s purpose and people. We re-worked our scoring criteria to reflect this consideration of purpose and people right upfront. In addition to the initiative’s strategy, we also included aspects in our scoring like problem analysis, intersectional gender approach, and commitment to women’s leadership at all levels – within the program and within the organization.

Fourth, balance transparency and probability.

There are several advantages to an open call approach to sourcing. It creates a level playing field, is transparent, and efficiently reaches large numbers of organizations, including many that we may not have known about. As noted, we got over 1,130 applications from 13 countries across three regions. On the other hand, an open call is a process designed to result in more ‘no’ than ‘yes’. If we can only fund 20-25 initiatives in a year, we realize it might be better to also balance it with a more focused sourcing approach. Even with our efforts to simplify our application process and minimize our requirements, we recognize that it involves a commitment of time, effort, and resources from organizations that should be focused on the work they do. So how do we balance the probability of a yes with the fairness and transparency of an open call? We are now revising our sourcing to be more focused in ways that will allow for deeper conversations with organizations. Our approaches going forward may include open calls for the signaling and the broader reach they bring, especially needed in some geographies or issue areas.

Finally, move decision making even closer to the context. In this round, all reviews were done by regional teams of internal and external reviewers. We engaged 16 external reviewers based in 12 different countries.

These reviewers included feminist leaders and gender experts who have deep knowledge of the landscape, an intimate understanding of the issues and the organizations, and can provide a richer perspective on existing partnerships and coalitions. The inputs from all reviewers helped us get to regional portfolios that are unique to the regional contexts and in line with the needs and opportunities that emerged in those countries. Building on this, we will move to even more proximate sourcing approaches. Going forward, our entire sourcing for country-level grants – from design to final selection – will be done in regional teams. These regional teams will be guided by local advisors and experts, will engage openly and transparently, and will determine how best to advance the Gender Fund objectives in their respective countries. The closer we can move our funding and our decision making, the better we can support locally-rooted organizations in advancing gender equality and women’s leadership in their country contexts.

^[1] Applicants must meet 2 of 3 criteria: i) Global Head Office and majority of the total staff presence is in a Global South country; ii) Leader of the initiative/organization and at least 50% of senior leadership are from the Global South; iii) Lead organization/initiative has long-term roots in the region.

^[2] Substantively led by women means: i) The primary leader and a significant portion of the senior leadership of the anchor organization or initiative are women; and ii) Gender composition of the lead organization’s governance structure has significant and/or increasing representation of women.

By Jedi Azania Bukachi and Stephen Mwangangi

As the world starts to “build back” beyond the pandemic, we need drastic action to reverse its disproportionate impact on women and girls and address the root causes of the long-standing inequities it exposed. Philanthropy can, and should, play a vital role in building better, fairer, and more inclusive societies. But to do so effectively requires a shift in our approach.

We live in a world where women make up 75% of the global workforce and work two-thirds of the world’s working hours. When we consider informal and unpaid work, women are paid 24% less than men for comparable work across all regions and sectors. In addition, 153 countries have laws that discriminate against women economically and where one in three women and girls will experience violence or abuse in their lifetime.

These problems have no easy fix. They are entrenched in our laws, policies, and social norms that determine how we all live. Philanthropy has long been a powerful tool, but its approaches need to evolve to respond effectively to these deep-rooted challenges. As one of our funding partners at Co-Impact, Roshni Nadar Malhotra, puts it:

“As we try to create a more equal world for women, we must make efforts to ensure that more women are able to reach leadership roles in the private sector, government, and civil society. This will help bring the diversity of women’s perspectives into decision-making at the highest levels and hopefully help shift the balance of power.”

The limitations of traditional approaches

Although well-intentioned, traditional philanthropic giving does not lend itself to this type of work. Key findings around traditional approaches to philanthropy included a tendency for donors to favor projects with tangible and relatively quick outputs, as well as the prioritization of projects close to them, geographically or emotionally, over causes felt to be far away.

Donors also typically prefer to manage their own operations and programs rather than give some of that decision-making power to other partners who have more knowledge about the context.

Philanthropy must acknowledge the gaps in their knowledge and experience and relinquish power to enable sustainable impact. Thankfully, we are witnessing an increased number of the world’s philanthropists and foundations doing just that.

“Systems change philanthropy” means a departure from short-term, project-based interventions, instead moving towards larger, longer-term support. It requires flexibility and supporting those at the grassroots level to implement the changes they know are needed for their communities.

The “Systems Philanthropist”

Rather than focusing on specific local projects and tangible outputs, “systems philanthropists” tackle issues at the root, the ultimate goal being long-term shifts in the norms and systems that shape all our lives. Funding new schools and hospitals, for instance, is great, but what about the sociocultural shifts required to ensure girls and minorities are empowered to achieve their potential in those schools? What about ensuring that all people have access to judgment-free health care in those hospitals? And how can we look beyond our own experiences to make a substantial change to people’s lives at scale? This model of thinking pushes beyond the support of specific initiatives. The focus is to catalyze change within entire systems for present and future generations.

But how can a donor make this shift? The starting point for systems philanthropy is the willingness to adopt a longer-term perspective. This type of donor is also open to giving outside of the framework of their own experience and approaches problems with a beginner’s mindset, asking questions about how to add value to existing efforts.

They know when to take a step back. They realize that the organizations and leaders they support better understand the problems they are trying to address. They recognize the powerful role of governments and markets and understand their philanthropic efforts as a way to influence those more powerful drivers. They are willing to challenge power dynamics and work with a wider community to build the field and learn collectively.

Bolstering homegrown philanthropy in the Global South

In particular, collaborating with funders where program partners are working is important for us at Co-Impact. The Global South has a long but often unrecorded history of giving, and we want to ensure complementarity and consciousness of cultural, political, and economic contexts.

Diversity of backgrounds and experiences creates the potential for South-South and South-North cross-learning. Also, creating a representative frame of philanthropy – one where the Global South is a geography that is recognized for its important ongoing philanthropic activity.

As an organization, we have developed regional and country-level philanthropic partnerships to support the work of our newly launched Gender Fund in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Working with Tsitsi Masiyiwa and the African Philanthropy Forum, we’re excited to bring together a group of philanthropists from across the continent to support the work of the Africa Gender Fund. We aim to launch this fund in October 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda, around the African Philanthropy Forum Annual Summit. Funders will have the opportunity to join this ambitious and system-shifting cause with an overall fundraising target of $50M over 10 years.

In India, we are working on a similar location-specific initiative in collaboration with Vidya Shah and the Edelgive Foundation, bringing together philanthropists from across India to raise $25M towards gender equality. This regional fund offers donors the opportunity to collaborate and partner with others in their immediate geographic area to maximize their impact.

Latin America receives comparatively little philanthropic funding relative to Africa or Asia. We are in the process of discussing a partnership in Brazil with philanthropic actors in the region to support the development of a Brazil Gender Fund and becoming valued partners of Co-Impact’s global community.

Our three regional or national funding cohorts embrace our unique approach to funding focused on bringing in a variety of donors. Collectively, they create a strong voice in their respective regions that encourages more learning, more collaboration, and ultimately more funding.

But how does this translate to impact on the ground?

Through our first Fund, we have seen how a systems change-focused, cross-sectoral, Global South-led approach to philanthropy can make a huge impact.

One of our Systems Change Grant program partners, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, is partnering with the South African government and the private sector to redesign and build economic pathways to help shift three million young South Africans “from learning to earning” by 2025. Harambee and its partners are developing and implementing effective growth strategies to catalyze earning opportunities for the youth in the formal and informal economy. This is done through systems-level, cross-sectoral adaptations, such as adopting more inclusive hiring methods.

Lend-A-Hand India (LAHI) is another Systems Change Grant program partner. They work with government partners and other stakeholders to provide sustainable funding and much-needed support to transform education and training models. Bringing quality demand-relevant Skills Education into mainstream secondary education and building strategic partnerships. Since 2017, actors from varying sectors have collectively ensured that 1 million girls and boys in Indian classrooms will benefit from increased employability skills in the near future.

Some final thoughts

We’ve seen interest in systems change philanthropy grow considerably since Co-Impact’s launch in 2017. An increasing number of philanthropists are recognizing the deep impact that collaborative giving can have on issues they care about. So far, we have brought together 45 philanthropists and foundations from 16 countries. Together, we have raised over $330 million for gender-equitable approaches to education, health, and economic opportunity through the Gender Fund, which launched in March 2022. We look forward to achieving our goal of US$1 billion in 10 years.

Central to our ethos is that changing systems on a deep-rooted level requires a collective effort from change-makers across the world from all sectors of society, all genders, and minorities. As put by Tsitsi Masiwiya:

“There is no ‘one’ intervention, organization, or solution that can address every single barrier that is preventing women from living equitable and fulfilling lives.”

Effective systems change must embrace certain critical factors to create a just and inclusive world. First, those with contextual experience and a deep understanding of the issues should define and decide on the best interventions and strategies. Secondly, fostering collaboration between learning from donors, grassroots and iNGO leaders, activists, and experts across the sector. Thirdly, breaking the outdated power dynamics of traditional philanthropy by signposting Global-South-based leaders and local organizations’ contributions to regional development.

There is a lot of work to be done. However, we are optimistic that we can help transform philanthropy and funding practices as a whole and, as a result, the transformative work of social change organizations and leaders worldwide.

June 27, 2022.

Bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is devastating. It reinforces the structural barriers and discriminatory gender norms that hold women and girls back.

We know that sexual and reproductive health and rights are essential for gender equality, and for women’s power, agency, and leadership.

This ruling sends a damaging message to the rest of the world about women’s societal status. It is a step back for women’s rights in the U.S. and especially for Black women, women of color, and other marginalized groups, who will bear the brunt of this decision socially, economically, and politically.

We must challenge the root causes of systemic inequality and seek to dismantle existing power structures that limit the human rights and freedoms of women and other marginalized groups.

Co-Impact stands with every woman and ally in the U.S. as they fight this injustice, and with our program partners – who are on the ground across Africa, Asia, and Latin America – carrying out the crucial work to protect the rights of women and girls. Global solidarity is now more critical than ever. We must keep pushing together; changing the systems that shape our societies requires our collective, persistent action.

Co-Impact, 9 May 2022.

In 2020, Co-Impact made a public commitment to evaluate and improve our practices to advance equity and inclusion across our work. This summary report shares what we are learning and how we are seeking to improve.

Co-Impact brings together local changemakers and funders from around the world. We provide flexible grants to locally-rooted partners making health, education, and economic systems stronger and more inclusive – creating impact that lasts.

As a global organization, we aim to foster equity and inclusion across our teams and daily practice. To this end, our efforts to track our approaches to equity and inclusion are focused on three areas: our programs, how we influence philanthropy, and how we execute our organizational policies and approaches.

While we have made positive strides in some areas, we realize that there are others we continue to grapple with. We appreciate that this process is a marathon, not a sprint, therefore it requires long-term commitment across our teams and leadership. Below is a summary of the three categories Co-Impact is using to track our commitment toward racial justice, equity, and Inclusion.

Our Programs

Co-Impact aims to develop and apply an intersectional framework to address inequities related to gender, race, class, and other forms of discrimination. In 2021, we revised our Handbook that articulates our core principles and guides our activities, protocols, and decisions. This includes our approach to women’s leadership, gender equality, and intersectionality. These inform how we structure, source, and award our grants; how we assess proposals; how we support partners, strengthen organizations, measure success; and how we share lessons. Applying this framework helps us to directly address inequities related to gender, race, class, and other forms of discrimination.

In our Gender Fund Open call process, we explicitly outlined Co-Impact’s keen interest to collaborate with partners who bring feminist approaches that tackle root-causes of structural injustice, question who holds power and how it is exercised, address restrictive and discriminatory norms, and deepen inclusion.

In addition, we explicitly outlined our approach to inclusivity, which included:

Clarifying our use of the term ‘gender’ and ‘women and girls’, which is meant to be inclusive of all those who identify as women and girls on the gender spectrum.
Prioritizing language accessibility and we implemented this throughout our sourcing and review process. For instance, our open call for concept notes was translated into 5 major languages of our focus countries – Bahasa, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tagalog. We also conducted webinars with live translations and accepted concept notes in all 6 languages (including English).
Committing to make 100% of our core grants to locally rooted organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with a majority of organizations led by women.

There are some areas across our program work that we still need to improve on. The next year will involve regular monitoring of progress.

As we continue to grow, we have taken an intersectional approach to our learning. How we measure success and share lessons actively encourages data disaggregation by race, gender, and other markers, including three-level outcomes (systems, organization, and people). We are on track to develop a shared monitoring tool to enable our team to implement this model. Our annual plans are now developed, reviewed, and tracked to reflect inclusion commitments; the data generated will be used to inform decision-making and team development.

Programmatically we will continue to actively seek to advance women; and those marginalized on the basis of gender, race, caste, ethnicity, class, disability, sexual identity and other contextual factors – historically disadvantaged constituencies. Tackling leadership at all levels and especially with regard to women leaders in senior management and governance.

Our program partners (PP) reflect our efforts to strengthen and broaden representation within the organizations we support. Many have made progress in the operationalization of their commitments to gender equality, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). As a result of Co-Impact’s organization strengthening support for PPs, we have begun to see considerations around intersectionality reflected in the work and governance of our partners’ organizations. This includes changes in team composition, compensation models, leadership, and board representation, as well as commitments to expanding their monitoring and evaluation framework for empowerment and equity. We will continue to encourage this shift by working closely with our PPs and creating space for continuous conversation and learning.

Our Work to Influence Philanthropy

Co-Impact advocates for increased resources for organizations addressing systemic discrimination and inequality, particularly those that are led and governed by women and other underrepresented groups. This has been formalized through our vetting policy, and several dialogues hosted with existing funders focused on addressing privilege and power in grantmaking. More recently, we published a resource tool to influence approaches aimed at high-impact philanthropy that indicates how systems change philanthropy should center on gender and intersectionality. The publication also includes reflection on some of the challenges in philanthropy and the journey of some funders regarding focusing on systems change (rather than individual projects).

Co-Impact continues to advocate for increased resources for women and minority-led organizations and address the power dynamics in philanthropy. We have also had conversations with our funding community regarding power and privilege through more than 100 external engagements in the last three years, and advocated alongside others, helping to shape conversations around the future of philanthropy. Furthermore, we have focused our speaking engagements on those where we directly address philanthropists, foundation leaders, or in some cases high-level professionals and advisors to philanthropy. We acknowledge that there is still a need for continuous dialogue to influence change, we will make every effort to facilitate transparency and accountability in our advocacy and influencing efforts.

We aim to advance the representation and participation of women and leaders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America in philanthropy. In terms of Co-Impact’s funder diversity, we have representation from 16 countries. Our work with regional cohorts seeks to leverage new funding opportunities. Collaborating with Tsitsi Masiyiwa and the African Philanthropy Forum to bring together a group of philanthropists from across Africa, and with Vidya Shah and EdelGive Foundation on a similar model to support this work in India. We are in the early stages of building a similar model in Latin America

Overall, our ongoing work to influence the philanthropic sector intends to:

Continue to advocate for better funding practices, where funding is more significant, supportive, flexible, and longer-term. We support our program partners in this way and hope to influence other funders to do the same.
Be more vocal about only accepting speaking engagements that have balanced representation, including women, participants from diverse nationalities and orientations, and especially experts from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Create awareness of the need to shift power dynamics in philanthropy during all speaking engagements. Actively promote anti-racism and gender inclusion, and grantmaking that addresses discrimination in all its forms.
Build deep partnerships with philanthropic organizations to foster mutual learnings among a global group of funders. We are working to develop regional country-level partnerships targeting philanthropy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Increase funding for locally rooted, women-led organizations. Organizations led by persons that have lived experience possess a deep contextual understanding of the political, economic, and social landscape of their countries and thus, are best placed to have an impact.

Our Organizational Approach

In our recently launched Gender Fund, we established a governance board and advisory board with significant representation from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our Boards are intentionally diverse and inclusive, with 50% non-funder representation.

As we build out our organization’s systems, we are committed to transparent, consistent, efficient processes, as well as the removal of barriers for ourselves and the diverse cohort of organizations we support. We also seek to provide a space for all voices to be heard and respected; to unearth unconscious bias and challenge prejudice within ourselves and others.

Below are some of our specific actions in this area:

Our grants management process is grounded in the core principle of transparency. Our granting model commits to providing core grants to organizations rooted in our 13 focus countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We are keen to explore how our grantmaking model (and the underlying concepts) can be more inclusive. We are also building out our processes and systems so that they are clear and transparent, revising our documents and agreements to make them accessible to our partners around the world, and revamping our due diligence approach so that it is respectful of local contexts. This work should be completed later this year.

To be effective, we expanded our team to include staff in key g, where our work is focused. Our global team reflects a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Recruitment at Co-Impact is focused on growing our staff to be much more proximate to our work, with significant lived experience in our key geographies. We are committed to increasing the representation of women, people from the Global South, and historically disadvantaged constituencies at all levels among our staff. We are working actively to foster a work environment that ensures all our staff are respected, heard, and given opportunities to thrive.

We have developed a clear approach to pay equity and transparency, and recently published a compensation philosophy for our internal team that includes key features around equity in recruitment (including a commitment to publishing salary information in our job postings). We plan to share our philosophy publicly in the near future.

We will work to ensure DEI is truly embedded in our culture. We will enhance our policies and tools to codify and promote these commitments within our Handbook and website. This includes engaging external facilitators on racial equity and updating our grantmaking and procurement to ensure that we are developing policies and criteria that benefit globally diverse firms/ organizations.

As a global organization, Co-Impact is taking measures to deepen our individual and collective learning and growth. In doing so, we aim to make clear that to be part of Co-Impact means to actively advance gender equality and to strive to be anti-racist and against all forms of discrimination.

Over the coming years, we endeavor to publicly share our progress. Co-Impact will continue to monitor progress against our goals. This will help to inform how we can better work to strengthen our commitments. By sharing this update, we hope to signal the importance of the purposeful dedication of time and resources toward racial justice, equity, and inclusion. We do this in solidarity with individuals and organizations around the world that are advocating for the same.

Watch our program partners, gender fund advisors, board members and funders share their excitement and vision for the Gender Fund.

Program Partners

Red Alas

Breakthrough Trust

Partnership for Economic Policy

ARMMAN

Asia Justice Coalition

EquisJusticia

GQUAL

NOSSAS

Pradan

Board and Funders

Roshni Nadar Malhotra · HCL

Elizabeth Sheehan · Care 2 Communities

Maryana Iskander

Tsitsi Masiyiwa

Gender Fund Advisors

Elizabeth Yee · Rockefeller Foundation

Mabel van Oranje

Theo Sowa

Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg

By Nandunda Kakai

March is a befitting name for a month defined by momentum and disruption within the gender community. The rallying call of #BreakTheBias went viral during International Women’s Day. Feminist leaders declared that gender inequality – coupled with the climate crisis – is ‘the greatest challenge of our time’ at the 66^th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, stated,

“It is only with women and girls at the center of our efforts that we have our best chance to succeed in addressing our current and pressing global challenges – from the climate emergency to political divisions to a sustainable recovery from this global pandemic.”

In Africa, feminist activists disrupted the status quo by convening the first parallel CSW on African soil, dubbed ‘Africa disrupt CSW66’, to drive more meaningful regional participation. Across the world, women’s rights and feminist movements, from grassroots to global efforts, created spaces to celebrate, reflect, and strategize on advancing gender equality.

The following week on 17 March, at Co-Impact, we were thrilled to launch the Gender Fund, our second fund that aims to raise 1 billion dollars over the next decade to make systems and societies more just and inclusive, advance women’s power, agency, and leadership at all levels, and address harmful gender norms.

As part of the launch, we had the privilege of hosting a vibrant public discussion on Galvanizing Collective Action for Gender Equality in the second installment of our newly started conversations series: a virtual space for learning and sharing with our community of partners and allies. Co-Impact’s Founder and CEO, Olivia Leland, hosted the discussion in the company of three dynamic leaders: Sohini B, CEO of Breakthrough Trust; Laura Garcia–President and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund; and Crystal Simeoni, Director for Nawi –Afrifem Macroeconomics Collective (The Nawi Collective). They discussed gender equality, with a keen emphasis on systems change and collaboration. The event attracted an audience of over 400 attendees from 39 different countries. The highlights video from this event is now available on our YouTube channel,

Here are the three key takeaways from the conversation:

1. Progress for gender equality will require disrupting and reimagining traditional funding mechanisms and approaches

When it comes to addressing gender equality, women’s rights activism and social movements have long been recognized as the key drivers of change. Few normative changes would have been possible without their contributions. Referencing a large-scale study based on data from 70 countries, session speakers pointed to quantitative evidence identifying autonomous women’s movements as the single most significant factor in influencing progressive policy on violence against women. They also noted that the influence of these movements surpasses that of women’s representation in legislature or politics. Yet, data shows that while funding for gender equality has been rising over the last decade, it has not trickled down to where it is most needed. Only 1% of that funding has reached women’s organizations that form the heartbeat of disruptive social movements for systemic change.

Even when available, funding, especially for small, informal, or emerging movements, is often designed to be restrictive and short-term while imposing complex administrative burdens on these organizations to attract and retain these funds. This is a reality that Crystal termed a ‘bureaucratic violence’ that distracts women’s rights and social movements from their movement-building passions and agenda. Moreover, traditional philanthropy is often perceived to mirror structures of inequality steeped in colonialism and capitalism and lacks sufficient mechanisms for pooling, collaboration, or identification of resonant opportunities to fund locally rooted movements.

Importantly, there was consensus on the need for philanthropy to adopt a more trust-based approach, founded on feminist values and principles, as quantity was deemed less important than flexibility, trust, sustainability, and the sharing of power. These are the four critical attributes that the Gender Fund hopes to continually respond to by offering flexible, multi-year funding through a partner-led approach. This approach means supporting organizations with lived experience and a deep understanding of the local context to lead initiatives that tackle inequality in critical sectors.

2. Advancing gender equality and women’s leadership will require collective disruptive action by multiple stakeholders at micro and macro levels

What does it take to close the projected 135-year gap to attain gender equality? While collaborative philanthropy has an important role to play, the truth is that disrupting entrenched systems of discrimination and inequality requires a collaborative approach from actors at all levels of these systems.

Sohini, in her presentation, defined gender equality from a rights-based perspective. She framed it as equal access and enjoyment of rights, resources, and power for women, girls, and gender minorities. Crystal Simeoni and Laura Garcia framed gender equality from an intersectional feminist lens with political and ideological underpinnings. The takeaway from this discussion was that gender equality will not be achieved without deconstructing the entire economic, political, social, and cultural systems and current norms.

As Laura emphasized, viewing gender equality as only a women’s or girls’ issue is grossly missing the point; it is about creating more just and equitable systems for all people. Gender is important and relevant across all sectors and issue areas, from climate action to education, to health. At Co-Impact, this looks like a winning coalition of strategic partners coming together from across the wider “ecosystem” that can help a program partner advance their ideas quickly and effectively.

3. Systemic change at scale is slow but attainable

Scaling solutions to respond to the complex and contextual systemic problems is something the gender community and feminist organizations often grapple with. Adopting the entrepreneurial and capitalist approach to scale has not always translated meaningfully within social movements. Unlike commercial innovations that scale linearly, effective scale in systems is often dependent on complex, spontaneous & continuous relationships, actions & behaviors.

To scale strategically means that actors would need to identify and focus on a critical component of the system that can cause a catalytic and enduring effect on other parts of the system to produce results at scale. However, this is hard work, which must be done collaboratively and adopt intersectional and large-scale systems thinking among all actors, including governments. This often requires patiently focusing on proven homegrown solutions, sustaining their funding, and focusing on depth before growth.

It’s 2032. What has the Gender Fund Achieved?

Co-Impact’s vision for the Gender Fund is audacious. Over the next 10 years, the fund aims to transform systems to be more just and inclusive, ensuring that at least 100 million people have better healthcare, quality education, and the opportunity to thrive – regardless of their gender, class, ethnicity, or race. Our webinar guests shared this aspiration for the fund to enable the scaling of more ideas, dismantle biases to create transformative feminist leaders, and lead in catalyzing change in how philanthropy is conceptualized and delivered so that women’s rights and feminist organizations do the work that they know needs to be done on their terms in the way that they want to do it.

Personally, I most liked the idea of joyful disruption. An idea grounded in feminist thinking where we ‘construct a community that is not only fighting injustice and crisis, but building happiness, love, and imagination.’ A hope that doing the challenging work of transforming systems results in happier, healthier communities and that those in the trenches of feminist movements can have moments of fun, self care, and enjoyment while at it. After all, as the title of Jane Barry’s book reads, what’s the point of revolution if we can’t dance?

Watch what happened …

Our program partners, gender fund advisors, board members, and funders share their excitement and vision for the Gender Fund.