Collective Future Fund Announces $3 Million In Mobilization Grants That Will Amplify Survivor-Led Movements in U.S. and Transnationally
(NEW YORK) Today the Collective Future Fund announced its inaugural grantees, a dynamic group of women-of-color-led social justice organizations that are doubling down on their work to end sexual harassment and violence in 2020.
The Fund is a new initiative of 14 leading philanthropic institutions that have committed more than a combined $20 million over the next five years to women-of-color and survivor-led efforts to end sexual harassment and violence against all women and girls.
“Women of color have always led the way in bending the arc toward justice — from Ida B. Wells to Wilma Mankiller to Grace Lee Boggs to Sylvia Rivera. We are strategists, bridge-builders, and healers, and we know that sexual violence has been used to systematically mute our collective power. Resourcing women of color survivors and movement advocates can transform the future for everyone,” said Aleyamma Mathew, the Fund’s director and a nationally known expert on the intersection of gender and economic justice with over 20 years of philanthropy, advocacy, and organizing experience at the local, state, and national levels.
When the #MeToo movement, created by Tarana Burke in 2006, gained global attention in 2017, it opened up a broad conversation about daily realities of sexual violence as well as an opportunity for survivors and healing to be centered as the basis for cultural and political transformation. The Collective Future Fund was formed in response to a public call for philanthropy to meet this opportunity by investing in survivors and movement infrastructure. Donors collaborating to establish the Fund are calling attention to the persistent gap in philanthropic support for work to end sexual harassment and build movements for gender, racial, and economic justice; only 1.6% of philanthropic giving in the United States goes towards women and girls, and only .6% of foundation funding was directed at women of color in the U.S. last year.
Previously known as the Collaborative Fund for Women’s Safety and Dignity, the Collective Future Fund is supporting 15 inaugural grantees working across the United States and transnationally through their Mobilization 2020 grants. These grants resource year-long projects focused on survivor- and women-of-color-led movement building to ensure their perspectives are a focal point in this critical year for shaping the public conversation about national and global policy priorities.
“The survivors calling for systemic change to end violence against women are the very same leaders at the forefront of efforts to protect democracy, build a just economy, and grow grassroots leadership centering low-income women, Black and Indigenous women, trans women, and migrant women,” said Puja Dhawan, Director of the Initiative to End Violence Against Girls and Women at the NoVo Foundation. “We are honored to join in supporting this bold vision through this first set of Collective Future Fund grants.”
The projects have a particular focus on elevating efforts to end interpersonal, workplace, and state-sponsored violence against women and girls — efforts that are essential to democracy and economic justice in 2020 through community organizing, advocacy, and involving survivors in civic engagement.
Tarana Burke, founder and Executive Director of me too. International: “The work we’re embarking on in 2020 towards interrupting sexual violence through survivor-led, survivor-centered programs, narrative change, and civic and social engagement transnationally is what we are most passionate about. Support from the Collective Future Fund will ensure a successful launch of these programs in community with groundbreaking organizations that we are honored to call comrades in the movement.”
Prof. Anita Hill, University Professor of Law, Social Policy and Women’s and Gender Studies, at Brandeis University’s Heller School: “Despite the valiant efforts of the 2017 #MeToo movement, there has been no comprehensive policy response from current elected officials or from 2020 presidential candidates to prevent gender-based violence. Our hope is to amplify survivors’ voices in ways that promote civic engagement, inform policy proposals and enhance public engagement on this critical issue.”
Other grantees are specifically building power in and amplifying the voices of communities that have experienced disproportionate colonial violence:
Gloriann Sacha Antonetty, founder of Revista Étnica: “Violence deeply affects Black and immigrant women in Puerto Rico. In this moment of heightened activism, we have the opportunity to lift up Afrolatina women’s voices using art, storytelling and media, as tools for healing and organizing within the international afrofeminist movement.
Morning Star Gali, Project Director for Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples: “We are Native women survivors of violence who envision a future where Indigenous worldviews are centered so that true gender equity and justice replace patriarchal control. As we support women to address sexual violence, we’re drawing on the strength of our ancestors who have survived genocide and forced displacement, and carrying forward a sacred responsibility passed from our elders to bring our communities back into balance.”
Several transnational grantees are focused on building movements across borders for economic, racial and gender justice.
Elizabeth Tang, General Secretary, International Domestic Workers Federation: “In this momentous year—the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action when women came together from around the world to assert women’s rights as human rights—we’re mobilizing domestic workers to advocate for global policies that reflect their experiences and claim their rights as women and as workers.”
“Despite many victories for gender equality in the past decades, the war on women and girls’ bodies continues, requiring us to build transnational solidarity and collective action. The Collective Future Fund is exciting because it resources Black, Indigenous, lesbian, bisexual, trans, immigrant, and disabled women and girls to claim their power, heal, and mobilize for justice –– from the United States, to India, from South Africa, to Chile, and Nigeria, and beyond,” said Nicolette Naylor, International Program Director, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice for the Ford Foundation.
“In this critical moment, philanthropy has stepped up to answer the call of survivor-led movements and provide substantial resources for visionary work that reimagines what is possible for girls and women of color,” said Leticia Peguero, Vice President of Programs for the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
The Collective Future Fund’s donors include: Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Ford Foundation, General Service Foundation, Kapor Center, Nathan Cummings Foundation, NoVo Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Pivotal Ventures, Unbound Philanthropy, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Women Donors Network, and an anonymous foundation.
The Collective Future Fund’s inaugural grantees include:
- A Long Walk Home Chicago, IL
- Black Women’s Blueprint New York, NY
- Gender-Based Violence Working Group at Brandeis University Waltham, MA
- Fund for Trans Generations National
- Girls for Gender Equity NYC
- International Domestic Workers Federation Hong Kong / transnational
- Just Associates Washington DC / transnational
- Justice for Migrant Women U.S. / transnational
- me too. International NYC / transnational
- National Domestic Workers Alliance NYC / national
- National Women’s Law Center Washington DC / national
- One Fair Wage national
- Restoring Justice for Indigenous People California
- Revista Étnica Puerto Rico
- Tahirih Justice Center Washington DC / national
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The Collective Future Fund brings together social justice movements, survivors, and donors to heal, resource, and mobilize to shape a collective future free from sexual harassment and violence. With a priority on supporting efforts that are led by women of color, the Fund envisions a world in which all women and girls––cis, transgender, and gender non-conforming––can live, learn, and work in safety and dignity. Learn more at www.collectivefuturefund.org
The Collective Future Fund is fiscally sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), a nonprofit organization that manages more than $200 million in annual giving. As one of the world’s largest philanthropic service organizations, RPA has facilitated $3 billion in grantmaking to nearly 70 countries and serves as fiscal sponsor for more than 50 projects. For more information, please visit www.rockpa.org
