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Dear Colleagues,
Kamala Harris, the first Black, Asian American and woman was elected vice president of the U.S. — thanks to the activism and votes of women of color. We also saw women win a record 132 seats in Congress, with historic firsts for women of color— like Cori Bush, Deb Haaland, Yvette Herrell, Teresa Leger Fernandez, Kesha Ram, Stephanie Byers and Marilyn Strickland — and also a record number of Native women elected to Congress. Election night proved to be an important night for trans and gender non-conforming representation and leadership as well, with successful campaigns for state office by Sarah McBride, Brianna Titone, Taylor Small, Stephanie Byers and Mauree Turner nearly doubling the number of trans and nonbinary state lawmakers.
As we celebrate National Philanthropy Day on Sunday, we have an opportunity to lift up the important role philanthropy can and must play in supporting diverse leadership — especially that of women and girls of color. We saw many glass ceilings break on Election Day because of the movements for equality that have been working to change the culture of racism and sexism. Women’s and girls’ funds and foundations have played an integral role in supporting and nurturing the grassroots organizations and movements that made it possible for America to elect the most diverse representatives ever by doing the hard work to dismantle oppression.
One of the ways women’s funds and foundations support such movements is through participatory grantmaking. That’s why the Women’s Funding Network, with support from the Ford Foundation, engaged in a research project to examine the participatory grantmaking practices of women’s funds and foundations. The research explores opportunities to measure, improve and expand the effectiveness and impact of participatory grantmaking in our work. To learn more about the research, please visit our website to review our blog about the report or see this Nonprofit Quarterly story.
I wish you all a weekend respite and hope you have the time and space to celebrate advances while bracing for the challenges that remain before us. Working together, I know that we will continue to bend the arc of history away from oppression and toward justice.
Yours for equity and justice,
Elizabeth Barajas-Román
Women’s Funding Network
President & CEO
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Check out WFN's findings and analysis from the 2020 research project examining participatory grantmaking practices of gender-equity funders, made possible through collaboration with the WFN membership, the eight other research partners and the Ford Foundation.
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The Ford Foundation funded nine research projects, as outlined by Program Officer Chris Cardona in a recent blog post, on various aspects of participatory grantmaking, including the Women's Funding Network. Working with the women’s funds in the network, WFN engaged with grantmakers within the network to examine the participatory grantmaking practices of place-based women’s funds. Read here from Ford Foundation about their selection process, and the nine research projects chosen, as well as Nonprofit Quarterly's coverage of the projects.
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The Boston Women’s Fund welcomes new Executive Director Natanja Craig-Oquendo to lead the 38-year-old nonprofit. Welcome Natanja to the WFN Community! Read more about Nataja here!
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Natanja was recently featured in The Boston Globe, discussing women of color in leadership. Read more here!
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Rise Up will be holding this year's Breakfast Gala virtually, where they will honor the strength of the visionary Rise Up Leaders around the world, who are rising up in this moment of crisis to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and advance gender equity and racial justice.
December 10, 2020
9:00am PST
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Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, the first Black person, and the first South Asian elected vice president. In a speech on Saturday night, she proclaimed, "While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities." - CNN
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Kamala Harris will make history when she becomes vice-president in January - but another black woman played a pivotal role helping the Biden-Harris ticket win the White House: Stacey Abrams, who played a pivotal role in turning Georgia blue. - BBC
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Charmaine McGuffey, an ex-major in the Hamilton County Sherrif's Office in Ohio, was fired for being a lesbian. She now has defeated her former boss in a primary and won the general election against a candidate the sheriff had backed. - New York Times
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Oxford University Press changed its entry for "woman" in its dictionaries to include more positive ways to describe a female. - CNN
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President-elect Joe Biden named 13 doctors and health experts to his transition's COVID-19 advisory board. Five of those 13 task force members, or 38%, are female. Nine members, or 69%, are Black, Latinx, Asian, or other underrepresented minorities. - Fortune
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Read an op-ed about the impact Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, can make as second gentleman. “We need the first female president, so we can have the second female president, so we can stop caring so much about all these firsts,”
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Meet Kesha Ram, who made history last Tuesday when she became the first woman of color to be elected to the Vermont Senate. - NBC News
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Read an op-ed from CNBC: HR leaders are responding to a recent Women in the Workplace study conducted by McKinsey & Co., which finds that women, particularly women of color, are planning to leave the workforce in record numbers due to burnout.
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New Amnesty International reports find that survivors of domestic violence in eastern Ukraine are not able to seek protection against violence against them due to the government’s ineffective response, in a region where problems of domestic and sexual violence against women are escalating.
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Sydney Barber will be the first black woman to lead the Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. - New York Times
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WATCH: Now This News talks with two tech entrepreneurs, who break down why it's so important for industries like STEM to be welcoming environments where women of color can thrive.
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Browse the New WFN Website!
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If you have a story to share, email Megan at
[email protected]
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