“If you can’t see or name a problem, you can’t solve it.” – Kimberlé Crenshaw
On April 25-26, 2024, 175+ philanthropic and impact leaders from around the world came together in Montecito, California, to share their unique experiences and perspectives on intersectional feminist philanthropy as part of the inaugural Doing it Differently Giving List Summit. The event, held by The Giving List Women, was created with the goal to “strengthen the narrative around the importance of women and girls being viewed as a lens, not a lane, in giving.”
That’s important because currently, less than 2% of charitable giving supports the 50,000 organizations in the US dedicated to women and girls. In the inaugural edition of The Giving List Women book, co-founder and CEO Gwyn Lurie wrote that this staggering statistic inspired the launch of The Giving List Women, as did “coming to understand that whether we give $50 a year or $50 million a year, our greatest chance of moving the needle on any issue we care about is by supporting women and girls – by far the most powerful lever for change in almost every key area of philanthropic focus.”
After a welcome reception, the Summit began with guests attending a Doing it Differently Dinner, held in several private homes in the area, including Dr. Nancy O’Reilly’s. Guests were placed with those with both similar and multiple intersectional interests, so while each dinner may have had an issue slant; it included a variety of participants. Co-facilitators joined dinner hosts to keep the conversations moving and, most importantly, to discuss what it would look like if women and men chose to lead differently.
The next day, attendees came together for a full day of powerful presenters, which opened with artist and activist Tiffany Shlain setting the tone. From there, Dr. Michele Bratcher Goodwin, Executive Producer of Ms. Studios and Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy at Georgetown Law, moderated a panel on intersectionality with Mona Sinha, the Global Executive Director of Equality Now, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum.
Stacey Keare, Board Chair of Women Moving Millions moderated the next panel, with Alex Jakana, Senior Program Officer for Philanthropic Partnerships with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Dianne Chipps Bailey, Managing Director and National Philanthropic Strategy Executive for Philanthropic Solutions, Bank of America, participating.
Breakout sessions throughout the day featured several impact leaders, including Kathy Spillar, Executive Director & Co-Founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation, Zakiya Thomas, President and CEO of the ERA Coalition, and Dr. Monique Couvson, President and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color. Attendees reconvened before lunch for a discussion on representation between Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, author, lawyer, community leader, California State University Trustee and Jennifer Siebel Newsom First Partner of California, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, The Representation Project, and a second discussion on the climate between Kavita N. Ramdas, Activist in Residence of Global Fund for Women and Pat Mitchell, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Connected Women Leaders and Co-Founder and Editorial Director of TEDWomen.
Throughout the event, presenters asked attendees to think about the issues at hand and visualize some of the ways they could come together, not only to change the status quo, but also change the world for the better. Presenters sounded the alarm, urged guests to pay attention now, and warned not postpone action.
For example, during the first panel, Kimberlé Crenshaw talked about attacks on intersectionality, equity and inclusion, critical thinking about race, and urged funders to double down. “It’s okay to say, oh, we do intersectionality. I want to say, well, do you fund intersectionality? Do you fund the idea? Do you fund the projects? Do you fund the people who are actually trying to develop the practices?”
“We all believe in democracy, right? We all believe in equity, right? We all believe in freedom. So, we don’t really have to spend a lot of time funding the pillars upon which all of our philanthropy is based,” Kimberléadded. “What happens is that those pillars aren’t deeply cemented into the culture. An actual proposal – Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation – to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion language from any federal language. To remove the idea that gender inequity in income is the product of discrimination. To remove the capacity of the EEOC to actually collect data, which is what allows us to know that there is still gender inequity. So, they’re going to the core of their mission, and they’re funding people to actually help popularize those ideas.”
Mona Sinha also directly addressed donors and said, “You have to think about what your money is doing. What is the world you want to live in? And I think when you start with that basic fundamental question, you have to say, we have systems that are very broken. We have systems that don’t reflect the world we live in or that our children want to live in, or the next generation wants to inherit from us, quite frankly.”
“At the center of it all, people say, oh, gender should be mainstream. Absolutely not. And the reason I say that is once you mainstream something, it gets lost in the shuffle. It gets diluted in whatever you’re funding, “Mona added. “I think we can make huge strides in building a democracy, rebuilding a democracy around the world, and not letting the world go into the hands of all the autocrats, which is what you’re seeing around the world. This year alone, we have 2 billion people in the world that are going to the polls. What’s their reality going to be? When you fund systems change, fund thought leadership, (you) create a shift in imagining and reimagining what our world can be.”
Women Connect4Good, Inc. was just one of several Champion Partners who contributed to the Summit and book launch – including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Philanthropy Together, The Global Center for Gender Equality, G4GC, Women Moving Millions, IUPUI Women’s Philanthropy Institute, and more powerful organizations – that Gwyn said, “represent our nation’s and our world’s vibrant nonprofit and philanthropic culture. They are working to give power to women and girls at a critical moment in our world’s history.”
“Our partner organizations are focused, day in and day out, on investing in women and girls locally, nationally, and globally. They do this work because they understand the huge contribution being made by women and girls to the creation of a vision for a better world,” Gwyn wrote in The Giving List Women book. “They know that the idea is no longer for us all to fit into a world created for and by men. It is about building a world that will be better for us all, for every human on our planet… and the only road to achieving this vision is that which leads to gender equity.”
To learn more about The Giving List Women, or to get a copy of the book for your personal or organizational use, go to www.givinglistwomen.com/signup/.