FINAL REPORT ON ALL-DAY MEETING

The Global Fund for Women in the World: Brainstorming Outcomes and Strategies for 2013

Cathedral Hill HotelAugust 6, 2007

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BACKGROUND

The staff and several board members of Global Fund for Women participated in an all-day meeting at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Monday, August 6th 2007. The meeting was facilitated by Ellen Sprenger, Global Fund’s strategic planning consultant, and Lydia Alpizar, current Global Fund board member and executive director of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development. Dale Needles supervised the process. Please see appendix for a list of meeting participants and the meeting agenda.

The purpose of the meeting was two-fold:

1. To obtain a shared understanding of key developments in relation to women’s rights organizing, movements and funding trends globally.

2. To explore possible outcomes and strategies for 2013.

Starting with the morning presentation on women’s rights organizations, movement building, and the funding landscape, group exercises as the “Implications for GFW’s Future Work”, and “Connecting Key Insights to 2013 Outcomes and Strategies,” this report shares some of the meeting’s most salient themes on meeting participants’ perceptions of Global Fund’s new strategic directions and key insights. The meeting program was prepared by Dale Needles and Ellen Sprenger. The report was developed and written up by Michelle Morales under the supervision of Ellen and Dale.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENT BUILDING, AND THE FUNDING LANDSCAPE

Ellen and Lydia’s PowerPoint presentation on “Women’s Rights Organizations, Movement Building, and the Funding Landscape” was instrumental in shaping the content of the day’s events. The following are main points from the presentation1. All data is for 2005.

1. Movement building is not in itself an organic process – individuals, groups, and organizations must achieve common agendas for change and build collective power to “advance women’s rights goals and agendas” and ultimately enhance the “capacity of its different constituents to work together.” In other words, as Lydia stated, “we need to make it happen.”

Related to this, it was also stated that “good work” and “getting sufficient resources for organizations” are insufficient to achieve the goals of a common social agenda. These things must be supplemented by and coordinated as a movement (as defined by Srilatha Batliwala), as movements possess the capacity to connect strategies and forge alliances between multiple players. The ability to create social change is largely influenced by the capacity to think and act collectively.

2. Women’s movements from many regions of the world have enjoyed significant achievements. One of the more notable achievements is the building of new institutional arrangements and mechanisms to advance women’s rights and gender

equality. However, these achievements do not come without their challenges in funding, backlash, leadership, fragmentation, achieving common political agendas and a shared understanding of normative frameworks for movement building. Please refer to actual PowerPoint presentation for more challenges and achievements including more specific data for the different geographic regions.

3. Funding trends for the different regions generally point to an inaccessibility of (bilateral and multilateral) development aid and large foundation funding. The other trend is that the average grant size is growing, which makes funding especially inaccessible for smaller groups and organizations. The fact that 66% of women’s organizations have organizational budgets less than or equal to $50K illustrates that there is a gap between the funding landscape on the one hand and the and the women’s movement landscape on the other.

For example, thirty-eight percent of women’s groups in the Europe/CIS region report receiving less funding now than they did 5 years ago. Thirty-seven percent of women’s groups in Latin America are experiencing the same trend. Women’s groups from all regions have experienced a 25% - 30% decline in revenue. Over the past 5 years there has been a consistent decline of available funds for women and girls.

1 See powerpoint presentation titled “Women’s Rights Organizations, movement building and the funding landscape”, Agust 6th, by Lydia Alpizar and Ellen Sprenger, for more detail

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4. Global Fund for Women is #6 on the top 20 list of donors that fund women’s rights organizations globally. Individual donors, the Dutch government, Ford Foundation and Oxfam International top the list.

5. In 2005 Women’s Funds possessed a total of $27 million in long-term assets

and make USD 15 million in combined grants of which roughly 50% is from the Global Fund for Women. Collectively the women’s funds make grants to 46% of the AWID survey respondents and represent 5% of the combined income of the almost 800 groups surveyed.

IMPLICATIONS FOR GFW’s FUTURE WORK

Meeting participants were organized into random groups of three. Each group was instructed to gather feedback on what they considered to be the most important insights from the morning PowerPoint presentation. Below is an analysis of what was shared.

How the Global Fund Structures Its Role in the Global Women’s Movement

Most groups expressed questions and concerns with how the Global Fund understands and structures its role in the global women’s movement. The morning presentation on led many groups to seriously consider the prospect of Global Fund as an “intermediary” between funding agencies which larger grants budgets and the often small groups that make up women’s movements globally.

Some groups gave other specific ideas as to how the Global Fund should structure its role in the global women’s movement. There were some references to how the Global Fund should take ownership over its expertise and use that ownership as an avenue towards becoming the “expert of choice” in donor education and consulting. Other groups implicated a cross-building and networking role for the Global Fund because, as the PowerPoint presentation showed, there is much fragmentation and isolation in the movement. Because the Global Fund has the resources to do so, it

should take more of an active role in linking grantees and other institutional players in the movement with each other so as to build the capacity of the movement to create social change.

Related to this, many of the groups who reflected on this role also reflected on the implications for Global Fund’s grantmaking and fundraising. Who the Global Fund decides to fund and how it executes its grantmaking process is linked to how the Global Fund structures its role in the global women’s movement. In terms of Global Fund’s fundraising, some groups reported that the Global Fund should seriously consider whom it approaches for money and how it does so and whether these funding sources reflect Global Fund’s overall grantmaking mission and role in the movement.

While meeting participants seemed to process the information presented in the PowerPoint presentation as “eye-opening”, this theme is not a new one. The central component of GFW’s 2003 – 2008 strategic plan was “to strengthen the infrastructure of the global women’s movement…” Because the Global Fund for Women seems to have already made this commitment, the question now becomes how exactly will Global Fund for Women position and structure itself so that it is most effective in its efforts to strengthen the infrastructure of the global women’s movement and execute its mission?

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should take more of an active role in linking grantees and other institutional players in the movement with each other so as to build

the capacity of the movement to create social change.

How the Global Fund Understands Growthand Its Implementation

Some groups expressed implications to Global Fund’s grantmaking budget in termsof growth. One group stated that as an outcome of growth, Global Fund will need to raise enough funds to double its grantmaking budget so that “more money will get to the movement.” Another group expressed that growth instead should be understood from a “product base” perspective, that perhaps Global Fund should expand its product base to include educational programs and consulting services and not only include grants.

In response to these statements, another group offered that growth, no matter what the context is, should be purposeful and deliberate. “Optimizing” the Global Fund’s budget should not be for the sole reason of increasing Global Fund’s financial resources, but rather for the benefit of the entire women’s movement.

All of these statements point to how the Global Fund for Women understands growth and its responsibility to the movement. Global Fund meeting participants seem to pin growth as a response to the Global Fund’s perceived role in the movement. The morning PowerPoint presentation painted a picture of the funding landscape in women’s rights

with the Global Fund as a major player in the field. For various reasons having to do with its unique grantmaking philosophy, its relatively large grantmaking budget, and its ability to absorb large grants, Global Fund already plays an enormously influential role in the advancing and building of the global women’s movement. Not only this, but it also has the potential to create even more impact in social change-creation. By growing in ways that are strategic and accountable to the needs of the women’s movement, Global Fund is enacting responsibility and ownership of its expertise and influence. As Ellen stated, the Global Fund for Women already intervenes in the women’s movement everyday, so it “better know what it is doing!”

While growth in the most general terms should be strategic, purposeful, and deliberate, smaller details of that growth should also be fashioned and implemented similarly. For instance, several groups suggested that perhaps Global Fund should expand its product base to include donor educational programs and consultation services. Similarly, according to the PowerPoint presentation, the ability of social movements to create social change is ultimately influenced by institutional players’ abilities to connect with each other, advance knowledge, share strategies and challenges, and celebrate successes.

REVENUE CONTINUUM EXERCISE

After the reports back on the “Implications” exercise, Ellen had the meeting participants position themselves on an imaginary revenue continuum down the middle of the room, with $28 million, two times GFW’s current revenue, as the middle. On the continuum roughly 40% of meeting participants indicated that they would like to see a doubling of revenue ($28 million in 2013), 30% aspired three times the revenue of 2007 ($42 million in 2013) and another 30% would like to see four times or more revenue ($56 million or more).

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While this exercise indicated a readiness to grow, the question how to grow, for example in terms of organizational design, the role of strategic allies or processing of grants proposal, was still on the table.

CONNECTING KEY INSIGHTS TO 2013 OUTCOMES AND STRATEGIES

For the purposes of this exercise, meeting participants were split into six pre-determined groups of 5 or more. Each group represented an emerging theme or issue from the strategic planning process. The groups were: Resource Mobilization, Grantmaking, Building Capacity and Leadership, Sharing Information & Building Knowledge, Raising GFW’s Visibility, and Advocacy and Influencing Policy.

The ground rules for this exercise were as follows:

• Search for the best questions and answers.

• Question truths, assumptions and sacred cows.

• Listen actively.• Identify what you don’t know, bring ideas

from the outside.• Confront the facts of your current reality.

Each group was instructed to “dream with no limitations” and map out possible outcomes for GFW’s strategic planning process and the strategies through which to achieve those outcomes. Listed below are the outcomes and strategies each group identified, with the strategies listed underneath each outcome. Also included are relevant quotes taken from previous interviews that Ellen conducted with Global Fund staff and board members.

Resource Mobilization

“Our primary responsibility is to raise as much money as we can. The more money we can raise the more power we have to change the world.” (board member)

“We have unlimited possibilities for raising money, especially through all the individual relationships we maintain.” (member of staff)

“Institutional donors will abandon us if we don’t do something fast. We use a language that is old and fails to spark enthusiasm. What is our new thinking?” (member of staff)

Outcome 1: Triple money for global women’s movement. Increase money for GFW by increasing general support grants for GFW, by “making the

case” for GFW’s grantmaking philosophy and funding for women’s rights, and by developing a philanthropic educational program.

Increase money for the global women’s movement by leveraging role to influence corporate and other large funders to give more money to women’s rights; educating program officers of other funders; “tie-offs to hand-offs”; and by having more grantee/funder convenings.

Outcome 2: Women’s Funds (other than GFW) make up 3/4 or funding for the women’s movement.

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Build capacity of women’s funds. Collaborate with women’s funds and women’s rights groups. Develop joint proposals between GFW and the Women’s Funds

Outcome 3: The Global Fund raises 60% of its grantmaking budget from individuals. Increase the number of individual donors for an increase in percentage of grantmaking

budget that comes from individuals. Have diverse partnerships with donors, especially in the communications function. Have GFW chapters in different states Develop “peer to peer” fundraising techniques and protocols. Develop donor education for movement building.

Outcome 4: Do not increase percentage of overall budget that is “restricted” or with “strings attached.” Develop philanthropic educational program. Review and revamp criteria for accepting funding.

Making Grants

“We need to play a more active and systematic role in connecting grantees with each other and other donors.” (board member)

“Applying for a GFW grant is like a lottery. If you keep trying you will eventually get something….We need a different process.” (board member)

“Redefine and redirect grantmaking energies…work deeper and longer. More renewal and multi-year grants.” (member of staff)

Outcome 1: Develop new grantmaking initiatives. Have systematic and periodic analysis of regions. Have stringent application deadlines. Designate 33% of grantmaking to the most marginal and emerging constituencies. Designate 33% of grantmaking to most marginal and emerging constituencies.

Outcome 2: Have a 3-month proposal turnaround. Effectively and consistently streamline the grantmaking process.

Outcome 3: Develop grantmaking analysis and plans on an annual basis. Collect feedback every 2 years. Have a 2-month reflection period when office is not accepting proposals.

Outcome 4: Have evaluations and assessments of final reports guide renewal funding and new grants.

Outcome 5: Give $25 - $50 million in grants every year. Have specific funding pools – or defined funds, for example:

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Increase financial resources for a “media fund” to $5 million a year. A women’s Building Fund (Room of her Own) A special Great Lakes initiative A 3 Layered Movement Building Fund with specific criteria and assessment measures.

Outcome 6: Give $5 million in grants for each region.

Outcome 7: Conduct 20 grantee convenings a year.

Outcome 8: Assist in the development of 40 women’s funds worldwide.

Outcome 9: Develop more collaborations between the women’s funds.

Outcome 10: Increase financial resources for a “media fund” to $5 million a year.

Building Capacity and Leadership

“There may be some self deception about the power piece of funders. Is GFW really the best player to facilitate building capacity and leadership? Best we fund those who are already doing this so that they can scale up their efforts.” (board member)

Outcome 1: Have stronger and more strategic women’s funds. Have more unrestricted, long-term grants. Provide technical assistance on fundraising and how to diversify funding sources to

women’s funds. Collaborate on a major fundraising campaign. Sharing and jointly developing technology.

Outcome 2: Have stronger relationships and more links between grantees and donors. Have a communications campaign on emerging leaders in the field of women’s rights. Invite more grantees and donors to conferences, panels, convenings, and house parties.

Have GFW facilitate gatherings/events/information-sharing sessions. Advocate for more house parties. Influence funding decision-makers.

Outcome 3: Develop more global leaders for women’s rights. Develop a strategic grantmaking initiative to support leadership development. Support advisors and staffing taking on leadership roles in the movement. Use donors as Global Fund ambassadors.

Sharing Information & Building Knowledge

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“Our credibility is on the line. We are out there talking about how great our model is but cannot back it up very well. We need to focus on our own information and knowledge needs.” (member of staff)

“We need to provide technical assistance, maybe focus on other women’s funds first.” (member of staff)

“We should do more on leadership: scholarships, exchanges, internships.” (member of staff)

“What is missing is good impact information. This should be our first priority….” (board member)

Outcome 1: Have a stronger and more strategic networking role between grantees and donors (both individual and institutional). Have more regional & cross-regional convenings. Use web-based networking tools.

Outcome 2: Become a consulting arm for peer organizations.

Outcome 3: Develop a philanthropic educational program. Develop clear educational messages. Hold donor convenings. Conduct research (this is applicable to all outcomes presented) Present to affinity groups.

Outcome 4: Build awareness of women’s human rights. Conduct a national educational campaign. Increase grantmaking to awareness-raising groups. Use donors as ambassadors.

Outcome 5: Conduct an International Organizing campaign. Develop cooperative partnerships. Conduct international convenings of women’s rights group leaders. Implement speaker series that include peer organizations. Take over international media.

Outcome 6: Having defined evaluation procedures. Self-define what those procedures will look like. Work with Ellen.

Raising Visibility

“Communications for fundraising is not the same thing as communications for movement building. What are we trying to make more visible and for what purpose?” (board member)

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“Our ability to connect those who contribute by donating money and those who run programs on the ground is a key asset. We should do more of this modeling of donors and grantees as equal partners.” (member of staff)

“We need to establish ourselves as a leading organization. We might think we are, but frankly, we are not. Are we cutting edge? We should frame ourselves much more in terms of movement building and how we are part of the larger mix.” (member of staff)

“We need to use our invitational power to bring movement leaders into the spaces we have access to. We should not make the mistake of thinking that we are the movement.” (board member)

Outcome 1: Increase GFW funding and money for the global women’s movement. Increase donor pool of young inheritors of wealth. Increase GFW’s return on investment. Increase money for communications function. Raise visibility of GFW as an intermediary. Increase funding from untapped resources, like individuals, corporations, and foundations. Have house parties in every U.S. state. Increase GFW’s “product base”.

Outcome 2: Develop an educational program for all types of donors (individuals, international, corporations, young professionals, etc) on women’s human rights and the global women’s movement. Develop a sophisticated media department at GFW.

Outcome 3: Advance women’s human rights through more convenings and more policy and legal reform. Conduct impact assessments. Conduct women’s human rights social forums. Be seen as the resource of choice on T.V., radio, and newspaper in donor education. Advocate for women’s human rights as part of high school academic curriculums. Publicize legal reforms and policy advances made around the world.

Advocacy & Influencing Policy

“I hear this a lot: “Keep your limited resources and focus on changing your governments policies, the Abstinence only thing, global Gag Rule, war in Iraq…” (board member)

“We need to become more active in causing others to act. But whom are we directing our efforts to. Maybe we should become an operating NGO, or a lobbying organization.” (board member)

“GFW is not well positioned to do this. We should focus on forming alliances with others who are doing this and are good at it.” (board member)

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Outcome 1: Position GFW as a key player and primary resource for policy makers and media on women’s human rights by expanding GFW’s mission to include policy work and making this a substantial portion of GFW’s work. Develop advocacy partnerships with grantees, funders, U.S. based advocacy groups,

bilateral organizations, and other social movements. Develop clearer, more sophisticated, and updated messaging and language. Engage in effective knowledge production to demonstrate impact and establish credibility. Leverage partnerships and the knowledge of individual donors.

Outcome 2: Create mobilized constituencies (grantees, donors, the public). Leverage partnerships and the knowledge of individual donors. Develop advocacy partnerships with grantees, funders, U.S. based advocacy groups,

bilateral organizations, and other social movements. Conduct trainings for advocates (including donors) and staff.

Outcome 3: Have a robust international communications/media program that targets global audiences. Conduct trainings for advocates (including donors) and staff. Leverage partnerships and the knowledge of individual donors. Mobilize constituencies. Develop clearer, more sophisticated, and updated messaging and language.

ANALYSIS: MIND-MAPPING EXERCISE

The overall objective of this exercise was to brainstorm possible outcomes and strategies for Global Fund’s strategic directions for the planning period 2003 – 2008. Despite the varying nature of each of the groups’ themes, many reported similar outcomes, and in some cases, similar strategies. Listed below are the outcomes that appeared across most, if not all, groups.

Increase Money and Resources for the Global Women’s Movement

One major commonality found in almost every group was an expressed desire to increase the amount of money and resources for the global women’s movement. While groups differed in their strategies and rationale for doing so, all groups showed agreement that a key principle of Global Fund’s new strategic directions for 2008 – 2013 should be the increased allocation of funds and resources

to women’s rights organizations and women’s funds around the world.

Expand Global Fund’s Work to Include Other Functions and Services?

Almost all groups indicated that there is a huge need for educational, policy, and consulting work in the movement, and that perhaps Global Fund should respond to this need by expanding its mission to include these functions and services. Most groups thought that the educational programs should target individual and institutional donors, as well as U.S. – based policy advocacy groups. Potential consumers of Global Fund’s women’s rights expertise included for policy-makers and major funders.

Initially, there was a lot of support for this idea as meeting participants began to realize Global Fund’s power and influence in the global women’s movement. However,

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as the day progressed, people began to question Global Fund’s capacity to take on for-profit consulting services and even if this was a strategic move for the movement in general. If the Global Fund’s primary responsibility is to be the leading grantmaker for the field of women’s rights and movement-building, the Global Fund can support this work through its grantmaking. As Lydia Alpizar stated, the Global Fund is already in a “unique position” in the philanthropic community. Perhaps the Global Fund should start thinking how it can further strengthen this position by improving its existing work in the areas of grantmaking and resource mobilization.

The overarching objective for expanding Global Fund’s mission was to increase money and resources for the global women’s movement. An underlying assumption is that in order for the global women’s movement to advance and receive more funding, donors and other stakeholders must be educated on the significance of funding women’s rights groups and the far-reaching effects of gender inequality and discrimination.

Enhance and Further Develop Linkages and Collaborative Relationships

Almost all groups referenced this theme. Generally, the groups assumed that the Global Fund should be more proactive in enhancing and developing linkages and collaborative relationships between grantees, grantees and donors, and

grantees and policy-makers. It was felt that that the Global Fund is in the position to 1) understand and access information and knowledge related to the status of women’s movements and the work of women’s groups; and 2) navigate global women’s movements to create those linkages and networking opportunities.

Raise Visibility of the Global Fund, Women’s Rights Issues, and the Global Women’s Movement

Most groups reported raising the visibility of the Global Fund for Women, women’s rights issues and the global women’s movement as an integral outcome for the strengthening of the infrastructure of women’s movements. Some felt that Global Fund’s media and communications function should be expanded and utilized more effectively towards this outcome. Some potential communications projects included national and international awareness-building campaigns and donor education programs. U.S.-based and global audiences were designated as target markets for these campaigns.

Raising visibility seems like an intuitive action to undertake if the overall objective is to advance women’s human rights and the global women’s movement. However, like the “growth” issue, perhaps this should be approached from a purposeful and deliberate standpoint, one that makes sense to the Global Fund, as a leading grantmaker in the field of women’s human rights.

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CONCLUSION

The all-day meeting was inundated with aha! moments and paradigm shifts in the thinking and understanding around Global Fund’s position and role in the global women’s movement. The morning PowerPoint presentation, with its external environmental scan, presented a framework which helped meeting participants conceptualize Global Fund’s responsibility and role in the global women’s movement. It helped meeting participants take ownership and responsibility of Global Fund for Women’s power, influence, and expertise. While the ‘how” of growth was not explicitly

addressed during the day, meeting participants were able to imagine a forum where growth could occur in strategic and manageable ways. By the end of the day there was the shared understanding that Global Fund is very influential in the global women’s movement and therefore also directive, and that Global Fund for Women’s resource mobilization and grantmaking potential possess extraordinary potential for even more influence and advancement of women’s rights globally.

AUGUST 7 MANAGEMENT MEETING

Meeting participants should also read the report on the August 7th management meeting. On Tuesday, August 7th members of Global Fund’s middle and senior management teams met to discuss the aha! moments and paradigm shifts of the all-day meeting in further detail.

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LIST OF MEETING PARTICIPANTS

GFW Staff & Interns1. Angelika Arutyunova-

Needham2. Arnetra Burnett3. Ashley Allen4. Bessma Mourad5. Caitlin Stanton6. Dale Needles7. Dechen Tsering8. Diana Di Battista9. Erika Guevara Rosas10. Erin Oglesby11. Fennis Ho12. Franciso Prochilo13. Jenifer Wanous14. Katka Kastnerova15. Kavita Ramdas16. Kellea Miller17. Kelly McVicker18. Leanne Grossman19. Lillian Cincone

20. Loveline Tangwan21. Maame Yelbert - Obeng22. Melissa Nunan-Lew23. Muadi Mukenge24. Naishin Fu25. Rachel Humphrey26. Randy Trigg27. Sande Smith28. Sarah Chester29. Sarah Costa30. Scholastica Kinuthia31. Shalini Nataraj32. Sheila Corwin33. Susana Caceres34. Susanna Handow35. Zeina Zaatari36. Brittany37. Durga38. Lindsay 39. Lauren40. Michelle Morales

GFW Board Members (former & current)1. Stans Kleijnen - current2. Mu Sochua - current3. Diane Jordan Wexler – former4. Lydia Alpizar – current

GFW consultant1. Patty Wilson

Meeting Facilitators1. Ellen Sprenger – GFW strategic planning consultant2. Lydia Alpizar – Executive Director AWID

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PROGRAM OUTLINE

“The Global Fund for Women in the World: Brainstorming Outcomes and Strategies for 2013”August 6th, 2007

Purpose: To obtain a shared understanding of key developments in relation to women’s rights organizing,

movements and funding trends To explore possible outcomes and strategies for 2013

Location: Cathedral Hill hotel Facilitation: Ellen Sprenger and Lydia Alpizar

9:30 – 10:00 Purpose and Agenda Kavita and Dale open the meeting, set the tone, explain the purpose and introduce Lydia and Ellen Ellen presents the agenda of the day and gives a quick overview of where we are in the strategic

planning process and next steps

10:00 - 11:15 Interactive presentation on Women’s Rights Organizing, Movementbuilding and the Funding Landscape

Presentation 40 minutes (Lydia and Ellen) Questions and comments (in the middle of the presentation and at the end), (35 minutes)

11:15 – 11:30 BREAK

11:30 – 12:20 Implications for GFW’s future work In buzz groups of three: What are the three most important insights from the morning session (10

minutes) Sharing in the larger group, adding onto each others points and arguments (45 minutes)

12:20 – 1:20 LUNCH

1:20 - 2:30 Connecting key insights to 2013 outcomes and strategies (small groups with roaming facilitators –Ellen and Lydia-)

Lydia frames the afternoon, relationship with morning and expected outcomes Ellen presents emerging themes and issues, interview quotes and small group instructions (20

minutes) Instruction (1 minutes) and work in 6 small groups (everyone has a copy of the instructions), including

visual presentations (40 minutes)

2:30 – 2:45 BREAK

2:45 – 4:00 Reports back Reports from the groups (6 groups, 4 minutes each, 25 minutes), participants walk over to see the

different visuals Discussion (20 minutes) Reflections from Lydia and Ellen (10 minutes).

4:00 – 4:30 Closing thoughts, reminders about next steps Lydia facilitates circle exercise on learnings and a final round about how people feel about the day Ellen reminds everyone of next steps Dale and Kavita close the meeting

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