To Tackle Gender Inequity, Philanthropic Thinking Must Shift

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.