Sonal Sachdev Patel is the Marshall Institute’s first Philanthropist in Residence, has worked alongside the Marshall Institute’s team led by its Director, Professor Stephan Chambers, and Swatee Deepak as Practitioner in Residence and Founding member of Shake The Table to create something truly valuable in the world of philanthropy. In this blog, she reflects on the role and sets out her plans for the future.

A topline analysis of funding to gender equality, key drivers of new funders to the space and an analysis of key network organisations bringing together funders of gender equality to provide space for learning, coordination and identify opportunities for joint funding, influencing or advocacy. This document provides an overview of some of the new entrants into the gender equality and feminist funding space.

Feminist movements are powerful, and donors who want to contribute to solving the biggest challenges facing the world today, should fund them deeply, and without restrictions.

While climate events exacerbate existing gender inequalities, the women, girls and nonbinary people who endure them are precisely the folks who can help solve our climate crisis. They know from experience what changes are needed, and they have the drive to realize those changes. Indeed, their survival depends on it.

Donors of color have their own experiences of systemic inequalities, racism, and colonialism. They may have faced discrimination in their own lives and careers–and within philanthropic spaces too. They are seen as different. And they are, different and unique, in new, exciting ways. Their perspectives can help make giving more effective for social change–exactly what is needed as hard-won human rights around the world continue to face rollbacks and increasing threats.

In a world where Black people have reproductive justice, we will be free to enjoy all aspects of our sexuality, create families of our choice (or not), have access to knowledge about sexual health, benefit from a wide range of contraception options, and enjoy high quality, affordable healthcare.

The world that the far Right and authoritarians want is very different from the one that feminist social justice movements seek to create.

Donors who want to further social change should step up funding for feminist movements and organizations by at least US$6 billion by 2026, according to a report published last month by the Bridgespan Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advises philanthropists globally, and Shake the Table, a project of the nonprofit Panorama Group, that seeks to bridge social justice movements with philanthropy.

Kiersten Marek thought it would be helpful to hear from Pamela Shifman, former Executive Director of the NoVo Foundation, and recently appointed (September, 2021) President of the Democracy Alliance, to discuss the Lighting the Way report with us in a little more depth.

AllAfrica's Melody Chironda spoke with renowned women's rights and social justice activist Theo Sowa about women's rights and democracy in the wake of the release of a report by Shake the Table on the need to increase funding for feminist organisations.

Feminist movements and organizations around the world are the key drivers of social change, yet they are under-financed, under-valued, and grossly under-appreciated.

At the center of almost every social justice movement are cis- and trans- women and girls, and non-binary folks of color leading the charge.

The leaked draft ruling of the US Supreme Court to reverse Roe versus Wade -- the landmark 1973 judgment that ruled it unconstitutional to restrict the right to have an abortion -- was devastating but not surprising…

Here’s a Mother’s Day story that is rarely told: The majority of women in prison are mothers or pregnant and destined to become parents while incarcerated. In fact, more than 60 percent of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18.

Philanthropists should invest about $1.5 billion annually in women’s rights organizations if they want to support feminist movements worldwide, according to a new report from nonprofit advisory firm The Bridgespan Group and Shake the Table, a group that connects donors to organizations focused on social and economic justice.

Citing the untapped potential of such movements and calling them ‘powerhouses for social change,’ the authors suggest five effective ways donors can support them