One-off days of giving like Giving Tuesday may dominate headlines and social media feeds, but there’s much more to charitable giving than the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
In fact, there is an entire world of quiet giving that doesn’t seek the spotlight, and in that world a great transformation is taking place; the rise of women-led giving.
Whether it’s through targeted projects, grassroots movements, or simply bringing new approaches to traditional ways of making charitable investments, women are stepping into roles as architects of social change in ways their predecessors weren’t able to.
The result is a positively diversified landscape of giving that promises to do more good than before, with targets and approaches that target a wider range of beneficiaries.
“It’s not just that women are writing checks where they hadn’t before,” explains Amy Marks Dornbusch, a longtime philanthropist and founder of new social venture AtlasDaughters. “We’re thinking critically about where our dollars go, the structural barriers that exist, and how we can address them in sustainable ways, and this is driving a tangible change in how the philanthropic industry operates.”
The Change Women-Led Giving Is Driving
Historically, philanthropy has been a top-down process, driven by large, monolithic institutions, often with men in charge.
Women-led giving challenges the status quo, favoring approaches that are more participatory, collaborative, and impact-driven.
Melinda French Gates captured this sentiment in her groundbreaking Moment of Lift, where she highlighted the importance of investing in women as a means of lifting entire communities out of poverty.
Gates joins a growing group of donors who argue that philanthropy has to do more than alleviate symptoms, and donors who want to succeed in this have to engage a broader set of stakeholders more deeply than ever before.
“We see women looking for ways to give back and get engaged with meaningful causes —to volunteer, donate or advocate. We believe we all have a role to play in making the world a better place. It starts within our families and communities, but also through the organizations we support to bring about change,” explains Sarah Thompson, who leads Save the Children US’ Corporate Partnerships team.
This philosophy underpins the work of organizations like Maverick Collective, a PSI initiative co-founded by Melinda Gates and the Crown Princess of Norway.
Maverick Collective brings together women philanthropists to invest in global health innovations, ranging from access to contraception to dismantling harmful gender norms, and engaging those women deeply in the work they are funding.
“We believe in radical collaboration,” says Rena Greifinger, Managing Director of Maverick Collective. “Women in our network are more than donors. They’re here because they are natural-born problem solvers.”
A defining feature of women-led philanthropy is how the donors engage.
As Rena notes, “they roll up their sleeves in a way that reflects how women are not merely stakeholders in philanthropy, they are a critical part of the engine driving it forward.”
Amy Marks Dornbusch underwrites this sentiment in full.
“The Maverick Collective is a community that enables me to supercharge my own impact with aligned philanthropic women in ways that would be near impossible to imagine being done through other means or traditional routes of philanthropy.”
“For example, I was able to lean on our small but mighty community to collectively raise over $7 Million in the span of 10 days to aid a Vital Voices led effort to evacuate and permanently resettle over a thousand Afghan female leaders on the Taliban kill list during the fall of Kabul. This type of risk tolerant, trust-based rapid response demonstrates the power and opportunity that arises from collaborative female funders,” Amy added.
It is exactly these spur-of-the-moment acts of giving that underscore the subtle ways women-led giving is changing philanthropy.
Women are no longer asking for permission before they act, and the world is a better place for it.
The Ripple Effects of Women-Led Giving
When women give, they often focus on areas that ripple far beyond their immediate reach, benefiting entire ecosystems.
Women donors tend to prioritize education, healthcare, and economic empowerment, areas that build resilience and opportunity for entire communities, and studies have shown that prioritizing women in charitable giving can lead to outsized positive impacts.
“Over the last decade, their investments have helped us unlock over $100M in new funding for under-resourced and critical initiatives in women’s health.” Rena Greifinger from the Maverick Collective explains, validating the philanthropic industry’s sentiment that women drive funding to a more diverse group of recipients and projects.
“It’s not that there aren’t men involved and active in these spaces, but there’s definitely a greater pull for our group towards giving approaches that are more collaborative and active than what I see elsewhere.” Rena adds.
Amy Marks Dornbusch, whose foundation supports pathways for entrepreneurship in urban areas among many other topics, agrees in full.
“My objective in lifting up communities isn’t short-sighted ,” she says. “As a family of entrepreneurs, we have the ability to enable long-term community change by supporting the individuals and programs that contribute to the cultural fabric, and who are also focused on long-term development and self-sustaining support. We take a venture-minded approach to philanthropy by investing in the leaders, capacity building and bringing programs to scale.”
This systems-oriented approach is a hallmark of women-led philanthropy, with donors like Melinda French Gates being at the forefront of investing in systems and positive feedback loops rather than one-off initiatives for more than a decade.
Women-Led Quiet Giving
Much of the philanthropy that takes place outside Giving Tuesday is deliberately low-profile, operating out of the spotlight.
While high-profile campaigns can inspire, they can also overshadow the smaller, quieter acts of generosity that form the backbone of social change.
“Not everything needs a hashtag,” Amy remarks. “Some of the most impactful giving happens behind closed doors, without fanfare or recognition, and I see my peers gravitating more and more towards the walk instead of the talk.”
This ethos of humility is especially important in grassroots philanthropy, where building trust with communities requires trust in a lack of ulterior motives. For groups like Maverick Collective, this means not just listening to the communities they want to support, but ensuring those communities have what they need to lead.
“Authentic partnership goes well beyond imposing solutions or making yourself the figurehead of change,” says Rena Greifinger.
“Donors need to come in with curiosity and a learning mindset, building trust with frontline leaders and impacted communities, and then doing whatever you can to remove the barriers that stand in the way of their thriving.”
What Others Can Learn From Women-Led Giving
Sarah Thompson, who leads Save the Children US’ Corporate Partnerships, sees a range of opportunity for nonprofits and corporations to adapt best practices from women-led giving.
“The stakes for children have never been higher, so we need to be much more strategic about how the nonprofit and donor community seek to deliver impact,” Sarah explains.
“There is an incredible amount of white space in corporate giving in particular, where a significant portion of employee matching gifts programs goes unclaimed every year. We’re glad to see more employee voices influencing where corporate giving goes. When women have a say in this, we find strategic choices are made, investing in initiatives that empower other women in times of need around the world, such as child and maternal health and education, to name a few.,” Sarah continues.
Another thing we all could learn from women-led giving that flies planes in and out of crisis zones on a moment’s notice is to aim higher with the impact we want to see.
“The biggest moonshot for our organization is essentially to see us go out of business —that is, that all children could be safe, healthy, learning and thriving,” Sarah begins. “It really takes us working together —companies, nonprofits, governments and local communities—to make change at this scale happen. But this change won’t be possible unless women are further included with a growing seat at the table,” Sarah adds.
As the philanthropic landscape evolves, non-profits would do well to take note of the strategies and values driving female-led giving. From focusing on long-term relationships to prioritizing collaboration and community-led solutions, these approaches offer a blueprint for more sustainable, impactful fundraising.
As Melinda Gates has said, “When we invest in women, we invest in the future.” And in the world of philanthropy, that future looks brighter than ever.