Funder Focus: Beverley Wybrow and the Canadian Women's Foundation
March 3, 2003
By Nicole Zummach
This month, in recognition of International Women's Day on March 8th,
our Funder Focus features the Canadian Women's Foundation (CWF),
Canada's first and only national public foundation dedicated to improving
the lives of women and girls through economic and social change. CharityVillage
spoke with executive director Beverley Wybrow about why the foundation
was started, the needs it is addressing, the importance of nonprofit
and corporate partnerships, and the current challenges facing many women's
organizations.
CharityVillage: Perhaps you could begin by explaining how
and why the CWF was established in 1991.
Beverley Wybrow: We were started by a group of women who were
concerned about how slowly things were changing for women and girls.
They wanted to see what they could do to help change things more quickly
- this was actually in the late 1980s. So they started meeting with
other women and what they quickly discovered was that what was really
needed was more resources that were targeted specifically for women
and girls, because less than 5% of corporation and foundation money
in Canada at that time (and it really hasn't changed all that much)
was targeted specifically for women and girls.
Early on they did a series of focus groups across the country, and they
asked women in what way money should be used if there was more available.
We heard very clearly from women all over the country that they really
felt that if women had more economic independence, that everything else
in their lives would be easier. So the area of economic development
has always been a focus of our work. The other issue we heard about
from women was the various forms of violence that women experience,
and often poverty and violence are connected for women. So that is the
second area we work in. We still talk to women across the country on
a regular basis, and those are really still the two main issues that
women and girls are facing.
CV: Why do you think it took until so recently for a foundation
such as yours to be established? What role do you see yourself playing
in the nonprofit sector and beyond?
BW: I think one of the reasons it took so long is that many people
who were concerned about changing things for women and girls over the
years, in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, really focused on building the kinds
of services women needed. I think they were very focused on addressing
really critical issues and building services to respond to those issues.
The women who started the foundation realized, I think, that there needed
to be an infrastructure to go along with the services and dealing with
the issues.
We are actually part of a growing global movement í the women's funding
movement. We are part of something called The Women's Funding Network,
and at the last conference last year there were women's funds there
from ten countries around the world. There are now women's funds in
Mexico, South Africa, Nepal, and a whole variety of countries around
the world. So it is a real movement of not just women, but also donors,
who are beginning to realize that investing in women and girls is an
important way to build community and to build our economy as a whole.
CV: Since you are national, and the only public foundation
focused in this area, are you working with government at all to address
the needs of women and girls?
BW: We work cooperatively with government, but almost all of our
funding is private sector money that is raised from individuals, corporations,
and foundations. We have a little bit of support right now from the
National Crime Prevention Centre for work we are doing to develop a
national strategy for private philanthropy in the area of violence against
women. Generally speaking though, our intent is to create new money
for women and girls, so we didn't want to compete with other women's
organizations for shrinking government dollars. Our intent is to try
and raise money privately and make it available for women and girl's
organizations across the country. To date, we have given away $5.2 million
to about 560 projects across Canada, and we are just about to give away
another half-million in the area of violence prevention.
CV: You have many partners from the nonprofit and corporate
sectors. How important are these partnerships to the work you are doing?
BW: They are very important to us. The group of women who started
the organization, and who have been involved in building the foundation,
come from a wide variety of backgrounds. We have a lot of women who
know the issues well and know women's organizations well, but we also
have a number of corporate women who know the field of philanthropy.
So I think our volunteer base is a bit different than most other women's
organizations and that gave us skills and experience to work with corporations
and foundations to build major partnerships. Together we are able to
do a lot more than any of us could do separately. We bring the expertise
about the issues and the ability to reach small grassroots women's organizations
all across the country, and they bring resources, both financial and
human resources, to our partnerships.
Many of our corporate partnerships are multi-level so they will have
a fund at the national level with the Canadian Women's Foundation, but
we also help them at the local level to match their offices or stores
with local women's shelters and other women's organizations. For example,
all of the Body Shops across Canada, all of the Royal LePage Real Estate
offices, all of the Fairmont Hotels, all of the Zellers stores are matched
at the local level and donate and raise money locally. We help them
develop programs that have both national and local components and that
is very important for their ability to involve their employees all across
the country.
CV: You mentioned that your areas of focus are economic development
and prevention of violence against women. Do you evaluate the grants
that you award, and if so, what results are you seeing?
BW: In the area of economic development we have done extensive
evaluation and learning. Our work has really focused on helping organizations
to work with low income women, to help them develop the skills and resources
to start their own businesses, or to start small community-based businesses.
What our learning has shown us is that the really effective way to help
women transition out of poverty is to work holistically with them through
programs that, first of all, don't just look at the problems women have,
but look at what assets they have, to help them look positively at what
their strengths are. A holistic approach helps them build, not just
their financial resources, but their personal resources, their self-esteem,
their confidence; their social resources - their networks, and their
support from other people; and their physical assets - their housing
or the tools of their trade. The programs that help women to build in
all areas of their life simultaneously are much more effective.
We've worked hard to get that learning out to women's organizations
all over the country. We are working now on ways to provide training
and ways for women's organizations to learn how to work more effectively
in that area. Economic development is not an area that a lot of women's
organizations have much experience with. It is quite a new field in
Canada and it is an area where we are really working hard to help women's
groups to build their capacity to do their work effectively.
In the area of violence prevention we are also in the middle of developing
a national philanthropic strategy on that issue. As part of that, last
year we brought together about 20 of the best programs across Canada
that are working with teenagers in the area of violence prevention education,
and we did some learning about what really helps those programs to be
effective. We are now working on sharing that learning as well. It is
important to help women's organizations not only to have more resources
to do their work, but to help them connect and learn from each other
and to find ways to be able to evaluate their work and to learn about
what is going to be most effective.
CV: What do you look for when assessing grant applications?
BW: We are not trying to find the group that seems to be the
most sophisticated. We have a database of about 3,000 women's groups
from all over the country, so a lot of them are pretty grassroots, small
organizations. In our funding we always give priority to groups that
are working with women and girls who face multiple challenges. That
means a lot of different things in different parts of the country. It
means women or girls that are in northern, rural or remote parts of
the country; it means women or girls with a disability; it means immigrant
and refugee women, black women and women of color, older women.
We look for organizations that we feel will be able to use the money
effectively, but that doesn't necessarily mean slick and sophisticated.
It means understanding their community, understanding the women and
girls they are working with, and looking at how those women and girls
are involved in the organization itself. We also grant based somewhat
on geography, and work very hard to give money all across the country
Most women's groups would not necessarily know that corporations and
foundations are there to fund, or don't necessarily have the capacity
to approach them. Whenever we do a round of grants we mail applications
to women's groups Canada-wide to make sure that especially the small
grassroots groups know that the money is available. Then when the applications
come in they are reviewed by a committee of community volunteers, including
representatives from our corporate and foundation partners, who know
the issue really well. They are the ones who go through all of the applications
and select the projects to be funded.
CV: Considering that International Women's Day is this month,
what do you think the message should be to women's organizations and
women in general?
BW: I think a lot of people think that we have done the work
with women and girls, that we have equality now, don't we? Isn't it
time to move on to other issues? On the other hand, when you look at
what is happening globally, it is just now in the international community
that it is really becoming recognized that investing in women is one
of the best and most effective ways to improve economic growth, reduce
poverty, and encourage democracy. For example, The World Bank recently
announced that they are extending a gender analysis to all of their
programming, not just their social programming. They are now going to
be using it and looking at their economic work as well.
So I think the message is that investing in women and girls is really
important for the future of our communities and our society as a whole.
Despite the fact that I think there is a feeling that we have been there
and done that and we have a quality, we really don't. There is a lot
of work that still needs to be done and not enough resources available
dedicated specifically to women and girls. I think yes, we certainly
need to celebrate what we have accomplished, but we also need to look
ahead and know that there is still a lot for us to do in this area.
CV: On that note, where would you like to see the foundation
ten years from now?
BW: In our next ten years one of our major areas of focus will
be working more to let individuals across Canada know about the foundation.
We really have focused in the past ten years on major partnerships with
corporations and foundations. We certainly have individual donors, but
we are not well enough known yet by individuals across Canada. The focus
of our next ten years will be getting the word out there more about
our work and letting people know that if they want to support women
and girls, this is a way they can pool their money with money from a
lot of other donors, and know that really strong projects across the
country are being supported that will help to move women out of poverty
and create a stronger future for girls.
Beverley Wybrow has been with the Canadian Women's Foundation since
it was established in 1991. For more information about the foundation,
visit: www.cdnwomen.org or call 416-365-1444.
