The Global Fund for Women was established in 1987 as a non-profit corporation engaged in philanthropic work. It provides funds to seed, strengthen, and link organizations committed to women's well-being and full participation in society. It provides small grants to groups concerned with female human rights and women's access to communication and media.
The Fund also promotes greater donor understanding of the importance of funding women's activities internationally and encourages increased support for women's programs, both in the United States where it is based and globally.
A vital orientation of The Global Fund is its commitment to giving flexible, timely support to women's groups working on emerging, controversial, or difficult issues. It works through an international network of 85 advisers who give their opinions on the merits of various women's organizations and whether or not they should receive funds. It has public charity, non-taxable status in the United States.
In some parts of the world (notably India and Mexico), Global Fund advisers have joined together in groups to advise as a group rather than individually. In both countries. the advisory groups are working toward creating a "women's fund" — a group that would fund raise and give away money - very much as The Global Fund does - within those countries and regions. In the United States, about sixty "women's funds" have developed in various cities, and it is an inclusive and exciting development in philanthropy.
The Fund's support for women's advancement is rooted in: a commitment to justice, an appreciation of the value of women's experience, and a sense of urgency of the need to face and solve the world's problems.
The Fund responds to three particular areas of concern: female human rights; communications, media, and communications technology; and economic autonomy of women. In its four and a half years of existence, it has assisted about 200 groups, many of which are in Asia.
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Toward greater communication and interaction among women and women's groups In the region
The Global fund visits Southeast Asia
In September 1991, Anne Firth Murray, President of The Global Fund for Women, and Lucia Pavia Ticzon, one of the Southeast Asian advisers of The Global Fund and coordinator for organization and human resource development of Isis International and co-founder of the Women's Resource and Research Center (WRRC), both located in Quezon City, Philippines traveled to meet with and consult the advisers and grantees of The Global Fund for Women on the possibility of developing a Global Fund association in Southeast Asia.
Anne and Luchie were able to visit most of the advisers, grantees, selected women's organizations, pro-women donors and donor agencies during the two-week trip that took them to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta and Manila.
During the meetings with individual women and women's groups, the consensus was that women want to work and interact together at a regional level on certain issues such as violence against women, trafficking in women and migrant labor issues, and training of women in community development and related skills. The groups felt that The Global Fund can nurture and expand these regional efforts.
In particular. The Global Fund can help create an environment and a context in which women can relate to each other on the basic reality and uniqueness of women's lives. With this objective in mind, the Global Fund plans to continue discussing the possibilities of strengthening women's
groups in the region.
Since strengthening south-south linkages is also one of the objectives of Isis International and because of its relocation to Manila, close collaboration with The Global Fund and with other women's organizations in the region offer many possibilities for networking.
The trip to Southeast Asia allowed The Global Fund a firsthand look into the many different ways it can service women's groups in the region and thereby the women's movements in the world.