Our Grants

We believe that no one is better suited to uplift women and girls in a community than the women and girls who live there. 

Our funding model has always relied on smart, courageous and determined female leaders around the world who design and implement sustainable solutions that fit the local context, unique barriers, and infrastructure of their own neighborhoods. 

Over the past 50 years, we've supported nearly 700 women-led projects. Time and time again we've been proven right:

Women get things done. 

Why Small Grants?

The benefits of grassroots funding - or the funding of people within the communities directly affected by a problem - are numerous and well documented:

Better Outcomes:

When people designing and leading a project are intimately familiar with the social structures at work, their plan will be better tailored and more effective.

Sustainability:

Grassroots organizers have personal and permanent connections to the communities they represent, so they are more motivated to commit to outcomes that last.

Lower Costs:

Giving control to grassroots organizations immediately eliminates the high costs of travel, accommodations, etc. so often employed by larger NGOs.

Self-Sufficient Communities:

With grassroots grants, community members benefit from the process as well as the outcomes. Project leaders learn new skills, identify larger problems at work in their neighborhoods, and create change that they choose and they believe in.

Small Grants, Local Action, Better Lives.

Women First has a unique grantmaking model designed specifically to support new and emerging grassroots organizations. Our grants are longer in duration and flexible, more focused on true collaboration, sustainability, capacity-building and outcomes. Our grantees move through three distinct funding stages—opportunity, investment, and leverage—as their organizations move through ‘emerging’, ‘enhancing’, and ‘established’ stages of development.

Our grants are flexible (a mix of capacity building and programmatic support), and grantees will have the opportunity to receive 6 years of funding up to $95,000. Our three-stage approach allows us (and our grantees) to benchmark milestones, re-commit to or adjust intended outcomes, take the pulse of our partnership to ensure that it is healthy, and build momentum towards our grantees long-term sustainability.