Philanthropy Class: Kavita Ramdas, Global Fund for Women (11/23/2004)

Kavita Ramdas the CEO of the Global Fund for Women came to speak. Laura led off with a pitch for global social investing funding intermediaries, saying that donors had the advantages of pooling their money with other donors, plus the expertise of the intermediary that has a knowledge base and understanding of the local NGO’s. The GFW has a unique peer evaluation among its grantees, as well as a network of volunteer country advisers. They target controversial issues and groups, and hold open board meetings. They give grants for operations, which can make assessment difficult.

Kavita started by contemplating the world condition to see what the particular role of philanthropy and women’s leadership is. Although she stopped short of direct condemnation, she was clearly alarmed by some of the national and global changes, as well as watchful of other transitions (such as China’s growth and the election of a socialist government in Brazil). She encouraged us to take a more global view of the news, and read sources to supplement US-based ones. The US ones tend to ignore conditions in Africa, for example, where she rattled off the list of troubled countries: Ertirea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia. Finally, she turned to the role of women. Her basic argument is that everyone needs to participate fully, and that women’s empowerment is not intended to take anything away from men; indeed, success will be liberating for men.

The six areas of focus for the GFW are:

1. Health and women’s rights
   
2. Peace
   
3. Environmental and economic justice
   
4. Civic participation
   
5. Education for women
   
6. Fostering local philanthropy
   

She mentioned that GFW has an initiative to increase grant making in the Middle East and Northern Africa. She claimed that corruption is no worse in the developing world than in the developed world, and that 98% of their grant recipients file the requested reports. Women’s leadership style offers different opportunities, though many have come to power using “traditional male” leadership models. Everyone, she says, has the opportunity to benefit, and people are seeking changes.

She talked a bit about their grant making operations and recent board meeting. GFW accepts grants in any language, a powerful statement of acceptance to all, she said. Plus, “English has become the language of empire” and while there are many potential benefits, there is also much baggage. GFW hosts “activists in residence” and started their recent board meeting with an interesting “Power shuffle” exercise: with everyone starting from the midpoint of the room, people were asked to take steps forward or backward for traits that affected their representative power (e.g., “Holds US passport: +5”, “Live in a conflict zone: -2”, “parents had a high school education: +2”) the resulting sort showed the inequality of people’s relative starting positions.