The democratisation of philanthropy is anchored in the core value that funding to advance social causes can only achieve its full impact if it is ethical and decolonised. We believe this can only be achieved by reallocating and redistributing power over decisions and resource allocation to people, groups, and organisations who are experts in their own work and contexts.

Our commitment

Women Win is committed to championing innovative funding strategies to channel resources to local gender rights activists, organisations, and movements. We seek the transformation of philanthropy by championing shared decision-making at strategic governance level with representatives of the impacted people and communities. This includes positioning local experts as central actors that lead the processes. By moving towards more democratised philanthropic models, we believe our tools and methodologies can be leveraged towards a greater sector-wide commitment towards equity, accountability, and necessary innovation for fluid contexts.

Pooled funding

A pooled fund is comprised of multiple individual funders. Pooled funding helps amplify the value of the fund, for both funders and partners, by creating more effective mechanisms.

This type of funding model strengthens the resilience and the sustainability of the fund by diversifying the income sources and reducing both the risk and the dependency, as well as power of one contributor or partner.

Shared governance

This model is based on a shared and collaborative approach to grantmaking, which shifts power from individual funders to a representative group of key stakeholders. This is achieved by forming an Advisory Committee with representatives from key stakeholders as close to the local context as possible. This group convenes regularly to discuss and reflect on their individual goals and the goals of the fund. By leveraging shared governance in fund management, Women Win endeavors to work collaboratively with local experts for grantmaking decisions. This disruption of traditional grant management processes fosters faster and more effective responses to changing complex contexts.

Participatory grantmaking

One of the main elements of democratising philanthropy is to engage in decision-making those who are directly affected by the issues. As Women Win seeks to develop increasingly decolonised processes for grantmaking, participatory methods remain at its core – with activists, civil-society leaders, and nonprofit members leading all grantmaking decisions.

By using participatory grantmaking, Women Win aims to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in all the phases of grantmaking and enable members of the community to have the power to determine how resources are allocated.

Fiscal hosting

Fiscal hosting extends legal and tax-exempt status to a person or a group so they may advance their charitable or other exempt activities, access funding, and operate under host organisation’s infrastructure.

Women Win is the fiscal host of a variety of initiatives aligned with our vision and missions. We provide a safe and stable philanthropic infrastructure, extending legal and tax-exempt status so emerging organisations and activists can receive funds, operate, and thrive while doing their best work.

Learning hub

The learning hub is a technology-rich learning environment that provides formal and informal opportunities for members to come together with peers, funders, grantees, and other experts. It is a shared learning ecosystem through which peer-to-peer and funder-grantee learning exchanges are facilitated and help work towards capacity building of all participants.

The learning hub enables an innovative interactive platform for real-time learning and network building, and moves away from a traditionally extractive, transactional, and top-down donor-grantee reporting relationship.