Health Funder Puts Women of Color Front and Center

Southern California Grantmakers
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
Click here for more.
Health Funder Puts Women of Color Front and Center Giving Compass

Giving Compass’ Take:

• Southern California Grantmakers (SCG) reports on the California Wellness Foundation’s investment in supporting improved health for women of color.

• The issues tackled (including a jobs initiative for formerly incarcerated women of color) have been underfunded in the past. How can the nonprofit world better focus our efforts to this population?

• Women of color still need more access to checkups and health screenings. Here’s one effort to help in that area.

The California Wellness Foundation is putting up $13 million over the next five years to better health outcomes for women of color through two distinct initiatives tackling issues that disproportionately affect nonwhite women.

Part of the funding will go toward treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. The rest will support a reentry and jobs initiative for formerly incarcerated women of color. Neither field is new to attention from philanthropy, but California Wellness is a rarity in focusing on the effects of these plights on women of color in particular.

As we’ve often reported, funders have tended to zero in on different parts of a sprawling criminal justice system that’s entangled millions of people. Cal Wellness is a case in point. All its work, including in this issue area, has been focused in California. The foundation has been part of a coalition of funders working to improve the state’s juvenile justice system. It is on the leadership team of a grantmakers group that’s led the work called California Funders for Boys and Men of Color.

Now, it’s putting money into another important niche. Despite the growing number of funders working on criminal justice issues, few focus on formerly incarcerated women or women of color specifically. But women are the fastest growing sector of the population behind bars, which includes jail, according to organizations that track those numbers. Women of color are overrepresented at every level of the prison system — federal, state and local.

Read the full article about the health funder prioritizing women of color by Caitlin Reilly at Southern California Grantmakers.

Learning and benchmarking are key steps towards becoming an impact giver. If you are interested in giving with impact on North America take a look at these selections from Giving Compass.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Philanthropy’s Privilege and Rethinking Risk

    We know about the barriers nonprofits face to procure funding for pilot programs. Chief among them is what feels like the hesitance of many funders to support leaders who are seeking to innovate. Rashad Robinson has touched on the challenge of procuring pilot funding with regards to Color of Change initiatives that subsequently turned out to be extremely successful. In a conversation with CEP staff last year, Shaheer Mustafa, president and CEO of HopeWell, a New England nonprofit social services agency, described the initial difficulty of raising funding for the organization’s now-proven My First Place program until philanthropy stepped up. How much more impact could philanthropy achieve if there were more funders who were willing to provide the resources to test creative solutions? If funders aren’t willing to take on more risk to fund inventive pilots, the potential costs to people and communities like those served by Color of Change and HopeWell are immeasurable. As I’ve followed the coverage of recent rallies and protests, I have been inspired by stories (like this one reported on MSN) of white protestors “forming a barrier between Black protestors and the police,” essentially using their privilege to shield others — and in doing so increasing their personal risk. Reading about and seeing videos of this, I thought, isn’t this the role of philanthropy, given the power and privilege it has been granted by the laws governing it, and by its lax accountability to the people (when compared to for-profit businesses or government)? If philanthropy is going to use its privilege and increase its risk-taking, there are several essential questions to consider. How does philanthropy weigh the risks calculated in current practices against the potential risks to society if philanthropy does not do enough in this pivotal moment? Who gets to decide what is enough? Is it time to redefine what the picture of risk looks like in philanthropy? If yes, whose perspectives should drive the conversation? And how can philanthropy better take risks to support the development and testing of the creative solutions that are not precedented, but are very much needed in these truly exceptional times? Read the full article about philanthropy’s privilege by Leaha Wynn at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.

Looking for a way to get involved?

If you are looking for opportunities to learn and connect with others interested in the topic of Gender Equity, take a look at these events, galas, conferences and volunteering opportunities aggregated by Giving Compass.

Loading...
Learn More
Are you ready to give?

If you are ready to take action and invest in causes for Gender Equity, check out these Giving Funds, Charitable Organizations and Projects related to Gender Equity.

Loading...
Learn More

Sign in

Your personal information is confidential at Giving Compass. For more information, please visit our privacy policy. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use.