Donor-Activist Barbara Dobkin Profiled in Wall Street Journal

It gives us great pleasure to report that on Tuesday, longtime Ms. Foundation for Women partner and friend, Barbara Dobkin, was profiled in The Wall Street Journal for her significant philanthropic efforts on behalf of women and girls around the world.

Identified (quite rightly!) by the Journal as "one of the first women to focus on giving with a lens toward gender," Barbara's impact on the field of philanthropy cannot be understated. Barbara is a founding chairwoman of the Jewish Women's Archive and Ma'yan, the Jewish Women's Project of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, and has been deeply involved in funding women's empowerment through the American Jewish World Service, the Women Donors Network, the Women's Funding Network and Women Moving Millions -- and has provided vital support to the Ms. Foundation for many years.

Her focus on promoting lasting social change -- and her understanding that the people facing any set of problems are those best positioned to come up with effective solutions -- have made Barbara a great ally of the Ms. Foundation for many years. The key to building a just and equitable society, she told the Journal, requires focusing on the outcomes that matter, and looking beyond the easy fix to push for systemic change. "We need to get to the core of the issues and fund solutions," she notes, "not just attack the problems."

Congratulations to Barbara on being chosen as the Journal's "Donor of the Day" -- and many thanks for your years of support and leadership. The women of this world are better off for all you've done.

Photo: American Jewish World Service

Upcoming Event: Evaluating Policy Change and Advocacy

For those of you in the funding community who are already planning your Fall schedules, we have an exciting event to share.

On Wednesday, September 15th from 3:00 - 5;00 pm, Philanthropy New York will present Can You Hear Us Now: Evaluating Policy Change and Advocacy. Among other speakers, the panel will feature the Ms. Foundation's own A. Caroline Hotaling, Program Officer for National Policy and Strategic Opportunities.

The session will explore approaches to evaluating advocacy and public policy funding and the significance of evaluation in the funding process. From the Philanthropy New York site:

The attraction of public policy and advocacy funding is its potential to leverage systemic change. But [how] do you know if it’s working, especially when advocacy work is usually a long-term investment with long-term outcomes?

Evaluation has the potential to inform and strengthen advocacy and policy change work. It yields information for learning and improvement, and for reporting and accountability. Advocacy and policy change evaluation is a critical tool for ensuring that the work is on track—and for identifying when it has gone astray so that course corrections can be made.

Topics will include:

• How advocacy and policy change work is different from other philanthropic work, and how these differences affect evaluation.
• What does interim progress mean? What types of measures are appropriate?
• What needs to be decided when designing an advocacy/policy change evaluation?

CEOs, trustees, program officers, evaluation officers, and other funders are encouraged to attend.

Register now for what's sure to be a thought-provoking event! (Registration closes on Sept. 13.)

Who Gives? Women Do

Women and giving. Historically, the idea that the one might be reliably connected to the other has been fairly regularly dismissed. As in: women don't have the capacity to give at high levels. As in: women just don't donate as frequently as men do charitable causes.

Though we here at the Foundation have had excellent reason to reject those conceits for years (we're here, after all!), two recent articles are shedding extra light on just how significantly women are impacting philanthropy here and abroad, and highlighting the unique approaches many are taking to putting their money to work on behalf of women around the world.

In a piece that ran on The Huffington Post last week, Tabby Biddle looked closely at how the rising economic power of women is impacting philanthropy. She noted:

In the United States, the latest statistics show that there are more women controlling more wealth in the U.S. than ever before. (Of those in the wealthiest tier of the country -- defined by the I.R.S. as individuals with assets of at least $1.5 million -- 43 percent are women.) Furthermore, women are reported to control 83 percent of household spending and more than 50 percent of family wealth. The reality is that women, strengthened by increasing economic power and education, are the rising wave of philanthropists.

The point is not just that women have more money in their pockets, Biddle observes. It's also that they're directing more and more of it toward charitable giving, as compared to their male peers. According to a Barclay's Wealth study from 2009 that Biddle references, "women in the U.S. give to charity, on average, nearly twice as much as men." How's that for dispelling the myth that women just don't give?

Of course, what's particularly interesting to note is not just the rise in numbers of women of women giving, and the increasing amounts they are donating to charity, but also the unique methods they are employing to disburse their funds. In last Sunday's Boston Globe, Kathleen Burge penned an excellent article about the rise in popularity of "giving circles" among women -- a concept we at the Ms. Foundation are intimately acquainted with, having originated a version of this kind of collaborative funding model in the earliest days of our existence.

Rather than acting as individual donors, in these models donors pool their resources for greater impact and, in some cases, decide together where to direct their funds. In her article, Burge profiles a few, small groups of women who have banded together informally in this way; at the Ms. Foundation, groups like our Democracy Funding Circle use similar methods to deploy their funds, while also deepening their knowledge base on specific issues and engaging with like-minded individuals who are working toward progressive social change.

Take a little time to read these articles, and then think about how you might leverage the power in your pocket -- and the collective power in your community -- to bring about change that benefits women and families. As both of these pieces show, your investment today really could make all the difference in the world.

Ms. Foundation Issues New Report on Gender-Based Violence Funding

In the fight to end gender-based violence, much has been done to raise awareness of the issue and its impact on women and families -- but how much do we know about how foundations in the US are funding the issue? Or about the level of support they're lending to the cause?

Now, through a new report released by the Ms. Foundation for Women, those questions have been answered.

Timed to coincide with the 15th Anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, last year the Foundation undertook a multi-pronged study to measure the scope, focus and impact of funding for gender-based violence. The results of that study are now being released in a new report -- "Efforts to Address Gender-Based Violence: A Look at Foundation Funding" -- which reviews the progress foundations have made in addressing gender-based violence, in order to sketch the current philanthropic landscape and its potential for growth.

Featuring first-person interviews with staff members from the Arizona Foundation for Women, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, Novo Foundation and the Verizon Foundation - which generously provided funding for the project - the report includes:

• Data derived from survey responses of over 100 grantmakers and practitioners in the field of gender-based violence
• Listings of the top foundations that give in this issue area
• Recommendations for current funders and those who are considering supporting this issue

As the old adage goes, "You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been." By offering a comprehensive review of the state of funding in the field, "Efforts to Address Gender-Based Violence" offers a critical jumping off point for the future of funding for gender-based violence programs. Download [pdf] your copy of our groundbreaking new report today.