Giving Compass' Take:
- Emily Katz interviews Surina Khan, CEO of the Women's Foundation of California, about funding gender justice and how the foundation is modifying its approach.
- How is your philanthropy supporting or advancing gender justice?
- Check out Giving Compass' Gender and Giving collection.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
I asked five foundation executives—private, public, family, tech, small and large—if they’ve taken any special measures to ready themselves for the year ahead. In our third installment, we hear from Surina Khan, CEO of the Women's Foundation of California, a statewide, publicly supported foundation dedicated to achieving racial, economic, and gender justice by centering the experience and expertise of communities most impacted by systemic injustice. read the interview below.
EK: Tell me about your appetite for risk right now, if you're even thinking in those terms.
SK: We have a lot of opportunity and an imperative to continue working to advance gender, racial, and economic justice. So I think it's risky to keep things going as they are, I think we have to change up in so many different dimensions. What is our imperative to really be bold? It's risky not to do anything.
EK: How are you thinking about funding in 2020? Are doing anything differently or doing more of the same?
SK: We want to stay the course in our ‘invest, train, and connect’ strategies. That means multi-issue funding for gender justice and training grassroots leaders to be effective public policy advocates. And convening and connecting community leaders and partners across the state.
We're also adding a culture change strategy. We've been funding strategic communications, policy advocacy, and grassroots organizing coalition building. And our theory is, if we add a culture change strategy, through our Culture Change Fund, we can connect and build the capacity of movement leaders and artists and culture makers to accelerate change.
Adding that cultural component, we won’t just be changing the laws, we’ll be making sure that people are acting, behaving, thinking differently when it comes to gender or racial justice or pay equity issues.
Read the full article about equity in philanthropy by Emily Katz at Northern California Grantmakers.