Women First FAQs

What is Women First and what do we do?

Women First is a public foundation—a grantmaking public charity with funding from individual and corporate donors, as well as from our endowment. For 50 years, Women First has been giving grants to women-led organizations in countries where gender inequities remain pervasive. Our grantee partners implement programs focused on economic empowerment as a way to improve the lives of women, girls and trans people.
In 2021, Women First will be supporting 5 new and 24 ongoing grantee partners. We will support these groups for 6 years, adding 10-15 new grantees each year.

Women First envisions a world where gender equity prevails, and in which every woman and girl has the power to thrive. Funding for women and girls in developing economies is extremely limited. Gender inequity stymies growth, perpetuating global power imbalances that can contribute to political instability, diminished global trade and increased violence—even feeding into terrorism and war.
A 2012 study of 70 countries over four decades found the mobilization of independent women’s groups had a more directly influenced positive change in communities than almost any other factor, including wealth and political movements.
Research conducted by funders and independent groups shows the social benefits of shifting decision-making power to those who best understand the local context. And yet, only 2% of donor funding reaches grassroots community-based organizations.

Women First can identify emerging, high-potential organizations based on 50 years of experience and grantee networks in our five initial countries of focus—Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and India.
Women First has developed a unique grantmaking model designed specifically to support new and emerging grassroots organizations over a six year partnership. We combine funding with non-financial resources like mentorship and in-region networking opportunities to amplify our grantees’ voices and position them as leaders.
Women First believes that the strength and sustainability of our grantees’ organizations – or organizational capacity – is just as important as the programs they implement. Our use of flexible, or unrestricted, funding offers grantees the opportunity to invest in their own sustainability, which means stronger organizations, better outcomes, and greater likelihood that a program will endure even after a funder moves on.
Women First’s funding supports confident women leaders, aiming to equip them with a diverse and reasonably-secure resource base to work from.
Women First creates a pipeline: grantees have greater opportunities to access larger funding, and funders interested in supporting women-led grassroots organizations can be introduced to strong and effective potential grantees.

Groups that are governed and led by women, girls, and/or trans people, and are dedicated to improving the lives of women, girls and/or trans people through economic empowerment.
Emerging organizations that have huge potential, strong local roots and impressive leaders, but struggle to secure consistent funding and have annual budgets typically less than US $50,000.

Women First has a comprehensive set of criteria that help applicants understand if they will be a strong fit for our funding, and to guide our decision-making. For more information on who and what we fund, please visit our For Grantseekers page.

Our application and due diligence processes eliminate applications that are a poor fit with our mission, or which raise concerns around legitimacy or viability.

Women First encourages grantees to introduce our staff to groups they know and trust; therefore, many new grants are awarded to organizations we have met in person during in-country visits.
Women First’s grantmaking is driven by a Theory of Change, which defines the changes we seek to influence and the pathway we will take to get there. Our Theory of Change is complemented by a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework - a blueprint for how Women First and its grantees will collect data, track progress, and measure results. This keeps our data relevant and connected to our mission, and ensures consistency across our portfolio.
Women First grantees commit to at least two core indicators that research has shown to effectively measure the types of changes we seek to create. Grantee partners, often with the support of consultants, gather both qualitative and quantitative data on those indicators.
We will work with our partners to measure direct programmatic outcomes and progress in three major domains, and seek opportunities to support the evaluation of longer-term impact.

We define Capacity Building as a process of developing and strengthening organizational resources that helps our partners ensure programmatic effectiveness and future sustainability.
We know that organizational capacity and programmatic impact are linked, and that stronger capacity leads to stronger programs.
We offer our grantee partners a number of Capacity Building opportunities.

These are the countries in which our depth of experience over 50 years of grantmaking has created the strongest local networks.

Adopting a geographic focus as part of a grantmaking strategy brings benefits to both funder and grantees, including more opportunities for our grantees to collaborate with us, our strategic partners, and each other, allowing for a more viable and robust site visit program, and opening doors for strategic partners, such as embassy representatives, companies with operations in the area, or important public figures.