Shifting doubt to solidarity
I had such an inspiring call recently with Jasmine George, the founder of the Bangalore-based reproductive justice organization Hidden Pockets Collective. Jasmine is an attorney, an activist, a researcher and an organizer—in other words, a powerhouse!—and has been using her expertise for many years to provide adolescent girls and young women in India with access to abortion as well as knowledge about their bodies and rights. She has also supported region-wide and international organizations in their grantmaking, mobilizing resources for grassroots organizations in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan, and across South and Southeast Asia and the MENA region more broadly.
We were connected by a friend to talk about Jasmine’s recent obsession—the vast expansion in individual wealth, particularly among young tech entrepreneurs, in her home base of Bangalore, resulting from its development as the tech and innovation center of India. With mistrust of NGOs high, and outright hostility toward “feminism” the norm, how could some of these newly wealthy would-be philanthropists be persuaded to consider putting their ample resources not only to “charity” but to more work based on human rights principles, and particularly to efforts that go beyond supporting “women and girls” and get to the root causes of social inequity?
For those of us who have been steeped in human rights-based work, it can be frustrating to observe, year after year, that huge INGOs garner what looks like immense philanthropic investment by charitable individuals (even when racked by public scandal over misuse of funds) while small, locally-led, rights-based organizations struggle mightily to do their work, even when the entire humanitarian and development sector has determined the critical need for localization as a way to deliver more effective results. And this is not only true for communities affected by humanitarian disasters, but for low-resource communities overall.
Yet I find myself frustrated as well by the constant refrain within feminist movement funding spaces about how little funding locally-led/grassroots/feminist organizations receive. While true, the repetition of this perspective is not persuading most people to change the way they give. Jasmine’s conundrum is my own—how do we meet those with wealth where they are and provide them with an inspiring, meaningful journey toward using their resources to support the work of social transformation?
I have been delighted to hear from Faye Macheke, the co-executive director of AWID—the Association for Women’s Rights in Development—that she shares this perspective and is passionate about sparking dialogues that can move these conversations forward instead of freezing them in place. She and her team are planning the 15th AWID Forum in December with this vision in mind. This makes me even more excited to be deep in the planning, with my wonderful co-leader, Tracy Mack Parker, for our upcoming Learning Journey to the AWID Forum, December 1-9, 2024. We will be reprising the incredible experience we had in Kigali last July, once again utilizing an inspiring, energizing gathering of advocates, activists, policy-makers and funders as the springboard for a learning journey for philanthropic individuals. In a time of so many challenges, we must come together to spark joy and invest time, energy and resources in forward motion and vision. This work of connection is not easy, but it is truly the only way we can build real solidarity and realize common goals for change.
