2023 Wrapped!
Since the start of 2024, we at CFF have taken some time to reflect on a few moments from 2023, and what they mean in context to what’s ahead for CFF and our partners in the coming year.
As we move into our fifth year as a collaborative fund, we’re reflecting on how CFF was born at the height of the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements and just before the onset of the global COVID pandemic. In just a few years, we’ve witnessed the escalation of violence against Black and brown gendered bodies, attacks on bodily autonomy, and threats to democracy deepen — only further amplifying the demands and visibility of our movements.
Last spring, we journeyed to Oxford, UK for the Skoll World Forum where we sparked conversation about the dire lack of funding to end gender-based violence. We also joined our policy colleagues, grantee partners, and co-conspirators in Washington DC to discuss gendered violence with the White House Gender Policy Council, and marked the launch of the White House’s first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. Our team attended the 22nd Century Initiative Conference in Minneapolis where we moderated a session titled Reimagining Safety: Centering Survival and Thriving in a Pluralist Democracy, featuring some grantee partner leaders.
Last fall, CFF co-sponsored the Women’s Funding Network’s Feminist Funded Conference in Washington, DC and joined the Ford Foundation’s Free Future 2023 Forum on Preventing Gender-Based Violence. And as some of the most exciting milestones of 2023, CFF announced a pilot of transnational grantmaking totaling $500,000 to 9 organizations, before hosting a powerful funders briefing at the Ford Foundation in New York City, where we discussed our collective work toward a future of safety and democracy.
We grew our team, deepened our impact, and expanded our vision of safety for all. Yet survivor-centered work to end gendered, racialized, and sexualized violence continues to be critically under-resourced, even as women and gender-expansive people of color are powerfully situated as agents of change both within the U.S. and also in solidarity and collaboration with feminist struggles transnationally.
With a lot at stake in 2024 here in the US and globally, we’re ready to go even further to invest in sustainability for survivor leaders and their communities who are meeting these crises head on. We hope you’ll continue on with us in this journey.
