How Equality Fund’s Investments in Women’s and Feminist Funds are Advancing Change

Is it possible to assess the real-world outcomes of funding women’s and feminist funds? The answer is yes.

We are pleased to share a third-party report on the impact of Equality Fund’s partnership with 40 women’s and feminist funds (WFFs) between 2020 and 2025. It is an evaluation, as reported by ImpactMapper.

What is the impact of over $60 million CAD?

Here are a few key findings:

• Investing in women’s and feminist funds (WFF) ensures resources reach the most underserved communities. They are essential infrastructure in connecting global funding to local solutions, including constituent-led, informal, first-time funded, and structurally marginalized groups often excluded from mainstream philanthropy.
• Women’s and feminist funds add value beyond re-granting. 95% of women’s and feminist funds report strengthened alliances and feminist movement infrastructure in their regions. This was a crucial condition for collective action, crisis response and coordinated advocacy.
• Women’s rights organizations (WROs) supported by women’s and feminist funds are driving real change. When it comes to sexual and gender-based violence, more than 40% of surveyed WROs were able to strengthen the infrastructure that survivors rely on and nearly 50% of surveyed WROs used community dialogue and survivor-led storytelling to actively challenge the harmful norms and stigmas that enable these types of violence.

You can read the report in full in English, French and Spanish.

1. Flexible Funding for Gender Equality: How Equality Fund’s Investments in Women’s and Feminist Funds Are Advancing Change (2020 - 2025). This is the main anchor report, which presents the first, focused evaluation of Equality Fund’s investments in WFFs since our launch in 2019. (français | español)
2. Preventing and Responding to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. This brief highlights what a sample of WROs achieved around SGBV prevention and response with WFF support between 2020-25. (français | español)
3. Protecting Gains and Advancing Inclusive Gender Rights. This brief highlights what a sample of WROs achieved relating to inclusive gender rights with WFF support between 2020-25. (français | español)

We are grateful to all 40 funds who participated in this evaluation and learning process.

We invite you to use this data to make the case for women’s and feminist funds in your own work and to cite the source of information.