During the International Women’s month, CREAW showcased learnings on ‘Feminist funding for ‘Off The Tarmac’ women’s rights organisations(WROs) at the French Embassy. ‘Off the Tarmac’ refers to grassroots or non-mainstream women’s organizations that operate outside of formal, institutionalized frameworks. They work in remote, underserved, or conflict-affected areas where traditional infrastructure (legal, social, or economic) is limited.
They often have limited access to large-scale funding, rely on local resources and volunteers work with structures that are not formalized as such they are overlooked by mainstream development partners. Due to their proximity to the community, these organisations focus on marginalized groups, utilize intersectional approaches, and community driven focus.
Despite their ability to quickly respond to community needs and make sustainable change, WROs remain severely underfunded. They only receive a paltry 0.13% of Official Development Assistance(ODA) often given to mainstream organisations.
Identifying this gap, CREAW has, over the last 5 years, sub granted 41 ‘off the tarmac’ women’s rights organisations in 21 counties in partnership with Embassy of France, Global Affairs Canada, Hewlett Foundation, Mastecard Foundation and Embassy of Sweden. We have seen incredible growth of these WROs leading to deeper sustainable impact in the communities they serve.
The learning brief highlighted the key outcomes of our sub granting journey including derisking WROs, strengthening of their institutions, increased agency, enhanced collaborations and partnerships, digital transformation and tech enabled advocacy among others.
The session challenged development partners, implementing partners and stakeholders to rethink feminist funding for grassroots WROs with the following recommendations: increase access to multi year, flexible core funding, simplify grant application and reporting requirements, strengthen capacity building and organisational development, promote digital inclusion and tech access, address socio cultural and political barriers, expand participatory and trust based grant making, expand local philanthropy and alternative financing options.
We look forward to deepening the work we do while working with these critical organisations.