The “Where is the Money?” #WITM survey is now live! Dive in and share your experience with funding your organizing with feminists around the world.
Learn more and take the survey
Around the world, feminist, women’s rights, and allied movements are confronting power and reimagining a politics of liberation. The contributions that fuel this work come in many forms, from financial and political resources to daily acts of resistance and survival.
AWID’s Resourcing Feminist Movements (RFM) Initiative shines a light on the current funding ecosystem, which range from self-generated models of resourcing to more formal funding streams.
Through our research and analysis, we examine how funding practices can better serve our movements. We critically explore the contradictions in “funding” social transformation, especially in the face of increasing political repression, anti-rights agendas, and rising corporate power. Above all, we build collective strategies that support thriving, robust, and resilient movements.
Create and amplify alternatives: We amplify funding practices that center activists’ own priorities and engage a diverse range of funders and activists in crafting new, dynamic models for resourcing feminist movements, particularly in the context of closing civil society space.
Build knowledge: We explore, exchange, and strengthen knowledge about how movements are attracting, organizing, and using the resources they need to accomplish meaningful change.
Advocate: We work in partnerships, such as the Count Me In! Consortium, to influence funding agendas and open space for feminist movements to be in direct dialogue to shift power and money.
Diakite was actively involved in advocating for women in political and public life in Mali.
She worked to support training of women candidates in elections, and spoke out against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). She was a strong proponent of reproductive health and rights.
ถ้ากลุ่มหรือองค์กรของคุณได้รับการสนับสนุนเงินทุน คุณสามารถพูดคุยกับแหล่งทุนของคุณได้ตั้งแต่ตอนนี้หากพวกเค้าสามารถสนับสนุนการเดินทางและการเข้าร่วมของคุณได้ หลายองค์กรวางแผนงบประมาณปีหน้าในปี 2566 จึงเป็นการดีกว่าหากสามารถพูดคุยกับพวกเค้าก่อนภายในปีนี้
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Assembly as Pleasure: Weaving Feminist Collaborative ProjectsGhiwa Sayegh, Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research Witchcraft, shamanism and other insurgent knowledge against patriarchySofía Blanco Sixtos, Colectiva Feminista MAPAS |
Carol Thomas was a trailblazer for women’s sexual and reproductive rights in South Africa. A gifted gynecologist and founder of the WomenSpace, she practiced and advocated for non-traditional ways of delivering healthcare to women, offering services that were high quality, empathetic and accessible.
“She entered into not only the joy of pregnancies and new babies, but the anxieties of infertility and premature deliveries and female cancers, the heartbreak of miscarriages and stillbirths.” Helen Moffett
Carol thought in new paradigms that centered the needs of women with the least access to services and rights in society:
“The prevailing socio-economic environment that we find ourselves in means that women bear a disproportionate burden of disease and unemployment…As a black, previously disadvantaged woman I have a good sense of what is happening in our communities.” - Carol Thomas
Carol’s innovative and multi-award-winning social venture “iMobiMaMa” used mobile kiosks and interactive technology to connect women directly with antenatal and reproductive health services, information and support in communities all over South Africa.
Carol supported women both in wanted and unwanted pregnancies, mentoring many nurses and doctors during her lifetime.
She was also described as the go-to gynecologist “for trans folks who could have affirming care. She got it right when so many did not have the language or pronouns. Her warm blankets, listening and saying just what you needed to hear was so comforting.” -Marion Lynn Stevens
Carol Thomas was described as being at the height of her professional career when she died on 12 April 2019 of complications following a double lung transplant.
The tributes that poured in following her unexpected death referred to her as many things:
“a role model, warrior woman, innovator, dynamic leader, mould-breaker, dynamo, brilliant scientist, compassionate doctor.”
Undoubtedly, Carol Thomas will be remembered and honored for being all of this and much more.
เป็นกระบวนการเดียวกันและกำหนดเวลาเดียวกันทุกประการ โปรดใช้แบบฟอร์มเดียวกันนี้ในการส่งกิจกรรมของคุณ ไม่ว่าจะเป็นกิจกรรมที่จัดแบบพบกันทางกายภาพ ทางออนไลน์ หรือทั้งสองแบบ (ไฮบริด)
“I’m no adherent to the concept of the ‘Third World’. I make films so that people - no matter what race or color they are - can understand them. For me there are only exploiters and the exploited, that’s all. To make a film means to take a position.” - Sarah Maldoror
Her groundbreaking film and “revolutionary picture” Sambizanga (1972) follows Angolan militants’ anti-colonial liberation struggle, as well as captures a woman’s perspective in a historical moment she finds herself in.
“For many African filmmakers, cinema is a revolutionary tool, a political education to raise consciousness. It is inscribed in the evolution of a Third Cinema striving to decolonize thought and advocate radical changes in society.” - Sarah Maldoror
Throughout her career, Sarah - together with a number of African and Caribbean artists - co-founded (1956) the first Black theatre troupe in France. She made around 40 films, comprising important documentaries that amplify the lives and work of black artists, including her friend and poet Aimé Césaire who wrote to her:
“To Sarah Maldo
who, a camera in hand,
fights oppression, alienation
and flies in the face
of human bullshit.”
Sarah was also committed to giving African women more ownership of the filmmaking process. In an interview, she pointed out:
"African women must be everywhere. They must be in the images, behind the camera, in the editing room and involved in every stage of the making of a film. They must be the ones to talk about their problems."
Sarah left an incredibly powerful legacy to be carried forward.
Born 19 July 1929, Sarah passed away on 13 April 2020 from complications of the coronavirus.
Watch Sambizanga and read a film review in a 1973 New York Times article
มี! ขณะนี้พวกเรากำลังค้นหานวัตกรรมทางเทคโนโลยีที่จะช่วยให้เกิดการเชื่อมต่อและการเข้าร่วมอย่างมีความหมาย
“If we stay quiet they kill us and if we talk [they kill us] too. So, let’s talk.” - Cristina Bautista, 2019
A tireless defender of the rights of Nasa people, Cristina spoke strongly and loudly against the violence directed at her community. In a speech before the United Nations, she called for the protection of Indigenous women’s lives and their involvement in different spheres of life. In 2017, Cristina was a UN Human Rights Office Indigenous fellow and she was awarded a grant from the UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples in 2019.
“I would like to bring to light the current situation of the Indigenous people in Colombia, the killing of Indigenous leaders, the repression of social protest. Instead of helping, the peace deal has increased war and the exploitation of sacred territories in Colombia… In the current situation, in almost all Indigenous nations as women we have been working to find a better future for our families. I don’t want more women from the countryside to continue living under these circumstances. We need opportunities for Indigenous women to participate in politics, in the economy, in society and in culture. Today gives me true strength, to see all these women here and that I am not alone.” - Cristina Bautista, 2019
On 29 October 2019, Cristina was murdered along with four unarmed Indigenous guards in an attack which was allegedly carried out by armed members of “Dagoberto Ramos”, a FARC dissident group.
According to Global Witness, “the murder of community and social leaders has risen dramatically in Colombia in recent years.”
“The Nasa community has repeatedly raised the alarm with the authorities about threats to their safety. Despite efforts by successive Colombian Governments, indigenous peoples continue to face great risks, especially religious or community leaders like Cristina Bautista.” - UN press briefing, 1 November 2019
Watch a speech by Cristina Bautista in August 2019 in which she denounced previous murders of Indigenous guards (Spanish only)
The WITM survey is focused on the feminist resourcing realities of the last 3 years (2021 to 2023), and has five key sections:
It consists of mandatory* and optional questions, most of which are multiple-choice. You will have a chance to share more on issues that are important to you by responding to the open question(s) at the end of the survey.
To respond to the questions quickly and easily, we advise that you have your key financial information at hand (e.g., your annual budgets from 2021 to 2023). However, if you wish to save your responses and come back to the survey later, you are able to do this whenever needed.
In order to achieve our mission, AWID works through multi-year interconnected programs which encompass a variety of strategies including knowledge production and dissemination, action-research, advocacy, alliance building, and convening strategic dialogues.
Our 2011 Annual Report provides key highlights of our work during the year to contribute to the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality worldwide.
The global survey is a key pillar of the third iteration of our action-oriented research: “Where is the Money for Feminist Organizing?” (in short, Where is the Money or WITM). The results of the survey will be further elaborated and explored through in-depth conversations with activists and funders and cross-referenced with other existing analysis and research on the state of funding for feminists and gender equality globally.
The full “Where is the Money for Feminist Organizing” report will be published in 2026.
To learn more how AWID has been shining a light on money for and against feminist movements check out the work of our Resourcing Feminist Movements Initiative here.
For us at AWID, 2023 was the first year of our new Strategic Plan, “Fierce Feminisms: Together We Rise”, which speaks to the unapologetic drive needed to change the world, and the plurality of feminisms and movements in our ecosystem.
In the course of 2023, the volatile situation in Sudan has escalated greatly. The unspeakable genocide in Gaza, in the context of ongoing colonization and occupation of Palestine, continues as we write these lines. Climate crises, militarization, and extractivism all persist as threats to people and the planet. Building stronger movements and people power is a vision to which we contribute daily, through AWID membership, teach-ins, resourcing advocacy and more.
Download the full 2023 Annual Report
From centering climate in feminist economies to advocating for resourcing feminist movements - an urgent task, given the chronic underfunding of feminist, indigenous and Global South movements who are on the frontlines of climate crisis - we are finding solutions.
Yes! We recognize and appreciate different reasons why feminists, in their respective contexts, don’t have external funding: from being ineligible to apply for grants and/or receive money from abroad, to relying on resources generated autonomously as a political strategy in its own right. We want to hear from you regardless of your experience with external funding.
Claudia is a feminist psychologist with a Masters degree in Development Equality and Equity. She has been a human rights activist for 30 years, and a women’s rights activist for the last 24.
Claudia works in El Salvador as the co-founder and Executive Director of Asociación Mujeres Transformando. For the past 16 years she has defended labour rights of women working within the textile and garment maquila sector. This includes collaborations to draft legislative bills, public policy proposals and research that aim to improve labour conditions for women workers in this sector. She has worked tirelessly to support organizational strengthening and empowerment of women workers in the textile maquilas and those doing embroidery piece-work from home.
She is an active participant in advocacy efforts at the national, regional and international levels to defend and claim labour rights for the working class in the global South from a feminist, anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchy perspective and class and gender awareness raising. She is a board member with the Spotlight Initiative and its national reference group. She is also part of UN Women’s Civic Society Advisory Group.
We are asking for this data to facilitate the review of responses, avoid duplication and be able to contact your group in case you have been unable to complete the questionnaire and/or you have doubts or further questions. You can learn more about how we use the personal information we collect through our work here.
Jemimah Naburri-Kaheru is an accomplished international HR strategist with a profound impact within the Horn of Africa Region. Jemimah previously served as the Regional Human Resource and Office Manager at the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA). Her influence extends to HR leadership for over 70 regional staff, as the organization experienced rapid growth with a 40% increase in annual revenues. Throughout her career, Jemimah has orchestrated successful recruitment efforts, introduced merit-based performance systems, and overseen employee relations and HR policies.. She played a pivotal role in supporting global workforce strategies. With an academic background in Development Studies from Makerere University (Uganda) and an ongoing MBA in Human Resource Management, Jemimah's commitment to professional development is evident. Her contribution to high-performance workforces and international HR leadership positions her as an invaluable asset to any global enterprise.
لتقوية صوتنا وقوتنا الجماعية لنصل لتمويل أكبر وأفضل للتنظيمات النسائية والنسوية وحركات الميم - عين وحلفائها/يفاتها عالمياً
