Our grantmaking priorities provide a unique funding niche for the Women's Fund and partner relationships with grantees. We are a social change grantmaker seeking to create progress toward our vision of an equitable community for everyone. What is social change?
Our funding priorities
Economic Justice
The creation of fair economic policies that work for everyone, that enable employment to be a way out of poverty rather than another form of poverty, that provide an adequate safety net, that guarantee workers a voice, and that allow workers to be good employees and good members of their families and communities. A just economy is one that protects and sustains the dignity of humans while benefiting the health, natural resources and cultures of the larger community.
Social Justice
Working for a just redistribution of power and resources, by changing the circumstances, systems and attitudes that create inequalities and prevent people from participating fully in society.
Leadership Development
Encouraging new leaders and existing leaders among women and girls through knowledge/skill acquisition and practice in ways that help them use their power to effect social change and promote the value of equity, social justice, self-knowledge, personal empowerment, collaboration, citizenship, and service.
We funded 13 local nonprofits in our current grantmaking cycle and have made investments in a total of more than 100 community-based agencies.
Women's Fund 2006-07 Grantees
Economic Justice
- 9to5 Poverty Network Initiative - $10,000 for Removing Barriers to Economic Self-Sufficiency for Low-Income Women in Milwaukee, helping low-wage women in Milwaukee make progress towards economic self-sufficiency.
- Hmong American Women's Association - $10,000 for "Sib Pab Tu" (Taking Care of Each Other) Workers' Association, empowering Hmong women workers and girls through opportunities for personal and economic growth.>
- Legal Aid Society - $5,000 for Class Action Project Against Predatory Lenders, balancing the uneven playing field by providing legal counsel to those most vulnerable to predatory lending practices and setting important precedent.
Social Justice
- ACLU-Other American Tour - $5,000 for The Other America Tour, increasing socio-cultural awareness, responsibility and action among high school aged youth.
- Benedict Center - $10,000 for Transformative Justice, providing an all-inclusive advocacy initiative for systematic change with Benedict Center women as full partners.
- Healing Center - $10,000 for sexual Assault Survivor Advocacy Project, increasing gender sensitive, culturally competent supports and services for sexual assault survivors.
- Meta House - $10,000 for the Meta House Women's Advocacy Project, reducing the stigma and shift social policy that differentially valuespeople based on gender, reinforces stigma and denies women with substance use disorders the right to receive appropriate treatment.
- Milwaukee Muslim Women's Coalition - $10,000 for Combating Islamophobia by Empowering Women, diminishing negative perceptions, addressing stereotypes and creating a greater sense of community in the broader Milwaukee community through education and dialogue.
- The Taskforce on Family Violence - $10,000 for Violence Against Women and Girls Social Justice Forum, promoting the use of human rights and social justice principles in local service provision and as a means of engaging clients in local work to end violence.
Leadership Development
- CORE/El Centro - $5,000 for a Leadership Development Program, improving the health of the communities in which our clients reside by building the capacity of identified individuals who live in those communities.
- Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund - $10,000 for Citizen Action of Milwaukee Leadership Development Initiative, increasing the number and capacity of leaders from low-income and people of color communities engaged in social change efforts in their communities.
- Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin - $5,000 for African American Women & Girls Education and Empowerment Program, lowering the rates of unintended teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in Milwaukee's at-risk communities by changing underlying social norms that lead to gaps in information and health care for underserved and people of color groups.
- Wisconsin Apprentice Organizer's Project - $10,000 to increase the numbers of highly skilled, effective women organizers addressing social justice issues.