Lessons in Feminist Governance
4 Questions for Diana Abou Abbas and Sarah-Anne Gresham
Two remarkable leaders, Diana Abou Abbas and Sarah-Anne Gresham, will conclude their service on the Equality Fund Board of Directors in the coming months. We caught up with them to learn more about their journey and to capture their reflections in their own words.
Diana Abou Abbas is a consultant on sexual and reproductive health and rights. She previously served as the Executive Director of Marsa Sexual Health Center in Lebanon and has been an advocate for LGBTQIA and women’s rights for over two decades. Sarah-Anne Gresham is an Antiguan and Barbudan feminist, co-founder of Intersect Antigua, and a doctoral candidate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University.
As Equality Fund Board members, Diana and Sarah-Anne are part of a dynamic team of 18 leaders who guide our organization with a resolutely feminist approach to governance. As grantee partner representatives, Sarah-Anne and Diana embody that approach—bringing critical perspectives across the Board’s work to ensure we are responsive and accountable to feminist movements.
Still a rare practice among funders, appointing grantee partners to our board is an important way we seek to shift power through our own organizational practices. That commitment is longstanding: Two new grantee partner representatives will step into these designated seats next year.
Our exchange with Diana and Sarah-Anne has been lightly edited below. All of us at the Equality Fund are grateful for their leadership—and for so generously sharing their wisdom.
Every board is unique. What stands out to you about the Equality Fund Board and what is it like to be a member?
Sarah-Anne: It has been an incredible learning experience. I appreciate how the board welcomes and encourages a variety of perspectives and approaches to governance and funding. As an academic in gender studies, being embraced by the board at a time when feminist studies, critical race theory, queer theory, and similar fields are under threat in the academy, and devalued by a wider public, has been validating and encouraging.
It has also been a privilege to learn from members with more board experience, and with knowledge about other areas, like investment landscapes and financial models, that I do not have. Most importantly, I appreciated everyone’s patience, kindness, and passion.
Diana: For me, it is all about the geographical and professional diversity. Try to put all the board members on a global map, where they’re from, where they live, what they do, their areas of expertise…it’s pretty remarkable.
Across the board, every member is serious and knowledgeable, yet still fun and open to new ideas. The collective level of expertise is immense and each member is open to sharing their knowledge with you. It all makes for a very powerful experience.
As a grantee partner representative on our Board, you’ve gained a powerful dual perspective—both as a recipient of funds and a leader of the fund. What is one key lesson or insight that emerged from this perspective?
Diana: I walked in eager to give, and I did. But in the end, I received so much more. Serving on the Equality Fund Board pushed me to learn more about how money moves and shifts—and the impact we can have on those processes as feminists.
I can’t express how amazing it is to be at the annual board and staff retreat amid so many smart women from all over the world. All of them are absolutely on top of their game, yet all are able to use methods that simplify learning about their subject matter.
Sarah-Anne : My experience as both a grantee partner, rooted in a strong Caribbean, anti-colonial, feminist community, and as a board director within a cohort committed to crisis response and funding feminist movements, has given me a rich and varied perspective. One lesson I learned from my graduate advisor, Dr. Brittney Cooper, that is relevant to both roles is knowing when to double down on my feminist principles and when to prioritize my relationships with people, instead of constantly reaching for the ever-elusive, “perfect” feminist politic.
It’s a challenging tension to hold. How can we be strategic while also holding true to our feminist commitments? How do we go about gathering ourselves, and the people we need, knowing that everyone has different ideological positions, language, and knowledge?
How can we leverage power and organize more sustainably and ethically? How can we refuse to be seduced by the immediacy and convenience of organizing on capitalist time, to which many fascist movements, using unethical means, owe their success, while being responsive to the urgent needs of people being harmed in real time? It’s a challenging struggle to move through, but one that may open apertures for alternative models of support beyond inherently violent, prevailing systems.
What advice would you give to the next Board member who steps into this role?
Diana: Don’t hesitate to ask questions! This work is complicated, and there are a lot of acronyms and many different parts to the Equality Fund story and history.
Never hesitate to speak up. Be confident in the seat you’re occupying. Remember that the board and team members invested time and effort seeking grantee representatives—and they chose you! The truth is this: They need your perspective on the board.
Finally, be sure to join at least one committee—one you can contribute to, and one you can learn from.
Sarah-Anne: It takes time to settle into one’s role, and perhaps one might not ever feel fully settled—and that might not be a bad thing. We’re living in a moment of continuous uprooting and violence. There are so many urgent crises that demand our time and commitment. Feeling unsettled is a necessary and generative position to be in.
For those with no prior board experience—a position I was in when I first joined—it’s important to be patient with yourself. Being on the board of a fund of this scale requires you to learn a new language designed to make a complex feminist funding ecosystem, and all of its administrative and legal trappings, more legible.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the Equality Fund’s work?
Diana: One area that particularly excites me is the chance to share learning with other feminist donors and organizations so they get involved in gender-lens investing.
As well, there is a powerful opportunity to demonstrate how investing in feminist movements has a lasting impact on women’s quality of life.
Sarah-Anne: I’m hopeful about the Equality Fund’s commitment to taking necessary risks in response to the current state of the world.
The fund’s leadership has not shied away from naming and responding to systems of violence that imperil people globally: including genocide, displacement, and gender-based violence from Gaza to Sudan, and other places subjected to terror. I’m hopeful that the Equality Fund will work to facilitate greater interdependence among grantees to engender long-term organizing sustainability. Centering movements, their people, and their needs, is a step in the right direction.
The Equality Fund Board of Directors advances a feminist governance model that matches the ambition, rigour, and power of our global vision.