The Women & Girls Index (WGI) provides the only systematically generated, comprehensive data on charitable organizations dedicated to women and girls. The WGI tracks the landscape of women’s and girls’ organizations in the U.S., including the amount of philanthropic support they receive from individuals, foundations, and corporations.

The WGI is a cornerstone project of the Equitable Giving Lab (EGL), an initiative to better understand charitable giving to diverse communities and under-resourced groups. The Lab currently comprises research on giving to LGBTQ+ and to women’s and girls’ organizations, in addition to case studies of organizations serving these populations. The data are hosted at WomenAndGirlsIndex.org, including a searchable database of all WGI organizations, a downloadable copy of the full Index, and more detail about the Index and the methodology used to create and update the WGI.

The updated WGI adds information from 2020—the most recent year for which finalized IRS data on charitable organizations is available. This update expands the picture of charitable giving to women and girls from 2012 to 2020. The year 2020 was marked by upheaval across all areas of life due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting economic woes, and a renewed racial justice movement in response to the murder of George Floyd—and philanthropy was no exception, especially philanthropy devoted to women and girls. The pandemic disproportionately impacted women in numerous ways, and charitable giving rose in response to the need generated by these unprecedented events.1 Societal conversations inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement also raised questions about the dearth of funding for women and girls of color, along with other under-resourced groups.2 The protests spurred donors to action, including MacKenzie Scott, who emphasized racial, gender, and LGBTQ+ equity in her 2020 giving.3 Forthcoming research from the Equitable Giving Lab will examine funding for BIPOC communities, as well as intersectional groups like LGBTQ+ women and girls, and women and girls of color. The newest WGI data provide an opportunity to understand how giving to women’s and girls’ organizations changed during the momentous events of 2020.

Findings:

  1. Women’s and girls’ organizations received $8.8 billion in philanthropic support in 2020—or 1.8% of overall charitable giving. This $8.8 billion represents a 9.2% increase in philanthropic support over 2019.
  2. Reproductive health and family planning organizations received the greatest amount of philanthropic support for women’s and girls’ organizations in 2020, a consistent trend over time. However, other types of women’s and girls’ organizations experienced changes likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as an increase in contributions to women’s and girls’ human services organizations, and a decrease in contributions to women’s and girls’ sports and recreation.
  3. Some subsectors received a disproportionate boost in charitable giving from 2019 to 2020, including women’s and girls’ arts and culture, and women’s and girls’ education. This growth can be explained in part by the influence of a few large donations on relatively small areas of philanthropy.
  4. Support for women’s and girls’ organizations from government grants increased 10.1% from 2019 to 2020, but substantially lagged the 36.6% growth for other charitable organizations.