Leading with Humanity: How Philanthropy Can Power Women-Led Organizations and Tackle Global Challenges
2025 has emerged as a year of turmoil, marked by fear, uncertainty, and upheaval. Attacks on foreign aid, climate justice, racial equality, and women’s rights have brought us to a pivotal moment.
While the United States remains the largest global donor of humanitarian assistance, contributing roughly 1% of its federal budget to foreign aid, the recent freeze on U.S. Agency for International Development funding has disrupted essential programs. Vital services such as healthcare, food security, and the delivery of lifesaving medicines and clean water have been disrupted and are now at risk, while widespread job losses among civil servants further compound the crisis. These decisions are having devastating impacts on access to education, health, and livelihoods worldwide.
The question is: How can philanthropy rise up to meet this moment and help build a future where communities thrive?
Why Investing in Women-Led Organizations Matters
This is a moment for philanthropists to double down on their investment in women-led organizations. Research consistently shows that when women and girls have access to the right resources, education, and leadership opportunities, they reinvest in their families and communities. Empowering women in leadership — especially in sectors such as politics, agriculture, technology, and education — has been shown to boost productivity, spark innovation, and contribute directly to economic development. In times of crisis, women’s resilience is often the key to catalyzing change and recovery.
Yet, women’s rights movements and women-led organizations have long been severely underfunded and now face an even greater threat of financial instability. Women of color-led organizations are particularly vulnerable, often receiving the least support from both governmental and philanthropic sources. Similarly, women entrepreneurs often face challenges in securing funding due to bias, and they lack access to the same networks as male entrepreneurs, limiting their ability to find mentors or investors. It’s time for philanthropy to step up when it matters most.
The Power of Unrestricted Funding
The philanthropic sector can also embrace the growing trend of trust-based philanthropy. At WomenStrong International, we believe that multi-year, unrestricted funding is critical to enabling women-led organizations to flourish. Local grassroots organizations are uniquely positioned to respond to crises quickly and effectively because they understand their communities, have established relationships, and operate with flexibility. Their extensive local networks — including volunteers, community leaders, partner organizations, and often local government — allow them to mobilize resources swiftly to address urgent needs and to reach remote or marginalized populations that larger nongovernmental organizations might overlook.
Unrestricted funding provides these organizations with the freedom to adapt, innovate, and sustain their work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our grantee partners swiftly pivoted from their previous programming to provide foodstuffs, domestic violence hotlines and services, emergency financial assistance, educational materials, and mental health support — directing resources where these deeply rooted community-based organizations knew they were most needed.
Strengthening Women-Led Organizations
During this challenging time, women-led organizations also need support to develop strategies for managing crises and ensuring long-term sustainability. Philanthropy can help. At WomenStrong International, our mission is to strengthen women-led organizations so that they can improve the lives of women and girls in their communities. Through our Learning Lab, we provide safe spaces for grantee partners to connect across regions, share challenges, and collaborate in devising and implementing solutions. These spaces foster solidarity, skill-building, and collective action – core principles of the women’s rights movement. We also embrace risk-taking, encouraging our grantee partners to test new ideas and to learn from failure. True progress often comes from trial and error, and it’s essential that philanthropy support this process. At this moment, we are working with our partners to address their sustainability issues by listening to their needs and engaging in crisis planning.
A Call to Action
At this moment, it is critical that philanthropy lead with empathy and humanity. We must collectively strategize to resist the growing influence of anti-rights groups, which have the potential to undermine years of progress in advancing gender equity and human rights. At WomenStrong, we believe that now is the time for investors and philanthropists to step up and invest in women-led organizations, particularly those led by women of color. These organizations go beyond providing services, challenging existing social and political systems, and pressing for transformative change.
An investment in women-led organizations will not only help them navigate current challenges; it will unlock the potential for long-term, positive change, locally and globally. Supporting women-led organizations isn’t just about funding; it’s about building an ecosystem of empowerment, equity, and sustainable impact, for women and their communities.
Now is the time for donors to come and invest together to fund women-led organizations. Will you join us? Our future depends on it.
