The Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe
brings together for the first time local and pan-European civil society actors with diverse funders to support progress in the areas of gender equality and women’s rights in Europe.
ABOUT
The alliance
CONTEXT
While gender inequality is often viewed as a larger problem outside of Europe than within, the situation is nevertheless disconcerting. Some troubling statistics include:
Women on the average earn
16%
less than their male counterparts
The gap between pensions for men and women is nearly
40%
Only 6%
of large European companies are headed by women
1 in 3
One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence.
Founding Members
As seed funding, the Alliance is currently funded for an initial period of 3 years by la Fondation Chanel, le Fonds l’Oréal pour les Femmes, and the King Baudouin Foundation. Other organizations have committed to joining the Alliance.
HISTORY
In 2019, the Fondation CHANEL engaged in a broad stakeholder consultation to assess and analyse the lack of funding for gender equality issues across Europe. The aim was to explore how to successfully build up philanthropy to support women and girls within the region.
Underfunding of the sector is due to a variety of factors, including the limited allocation of resources from national governments impacted by austerity; a focus on allocating EU funds for gender equality to the global south; the relatively weak philanthropic culture in the field; and a lack of individual donor engagement.
HISTORY
In 2019, the Fondation CHANEL engaged in a broad stakeholder consultation to assess and analyse the lack of funding for gender equality issues across Europe. The aim was to explore how to successfully build up philanthropy to support women and girls within the region.
Underfunding of the sector is due to a variety of factors, including the limited allocation of resources from national governments impacted by austerity; a focus on allocating EU funds for gender equality to the global south; the relatively weak philanthropic culture in the field; and a lack of individual donor engagement.
OUR
FIRST GRANTS
THE "2021 FUND FOR COVID SOLIDARITY" RESULTS
The “2021 Fund for Covid Solidarity”” has selected 13 organisations to support for a total of 600 000€.
These grantees come from 10 different countries (Croatia, Belgium, France, Hungary, Latvia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Czech Republic, Germany) distributed equally between Eastern, Southern and Northern Europe.
They work on issues such as violence against women, health and social protection (62%); access to economic resources, entrepreneurship and digital divide (23%); access to education and training (15%). 8/10 grantees are small organisation with an annual budget under 450 000€. They support a diversity of publics, mainly targeting the people living in the most vulnerable situations.
The grants are awarded for a year (January-December 2022) and provide either core support or project support.
The grantees were selected by an independent group of gender equality experts from women’s fund, philanthropy, academia, CSOs and the private sector and approved by the steering committee. The selection committee was composed of the following members:
Fatem-Zahra Bennis, Deputy Director of Ikambere
Caroline Brac de la Perrière, Funder and Director of Med’s Womens Funds
Matthew Hart, Director of Global Philanthropy Project
Mara-Catherine Harvey, Senior leader in finance and advocate for financial literacy and economic gender equality
Dominique Meurs, Professor and Researcher in economics at Paris Nanterre University
Hertha Toth, Senior program officer, Human Rights Initiative at Open Society Foundations, Berlin office
THE LIST OF GRANTEES
In Eastern Europe:
In Northern Europe:
In Southern Europe:
APPLY
FOR FUNDING
THE SUPPORT WE GIVE
In 2022, funding opportunities will be opened. Keep an eye regularly on this page to be informed.
In 2021, we launched our first open call for proposals “2021 Fund for COVID Solidarity”.
GRANTMAKING PRIORITIES
For the « 2021 Fund for COVID Solidarity », the grantmaking priorities were the following.
Proposals should fall within the broadly-defined objectives of the Fund, contributing to gender equality and women’s rights. This is a Covid Solidarity Fund and resources for 2021 are earmarked for the most vulnerable women and girls who have been the most negatively impacted by Covid.
Our objective is to provide support to organisations in the closest contact possible with people on the ground. While we anticipate primarily funding small, frontline organisations, the Fund will also consider specific project proposals from larger organisations innovating or experimenting in an area where there is demonstrable need.
This fund aims to distribute resources equitably across the European Union. Therefore, we aspire to create a geographic balance of grantees.
In this first year of funding, our call for proposals intentionally encompasses a broad range of thematic areas in order to find the most creative, effective and impactful initiatives. To that end, we invite applications for either general operating support or for specific projects. We aim to support a thematically diverse slate of proposals.
Priority thematic areas are:
* Access to economic resources, entrepreneurship, digital divide.
* Access to education and training: promoting opportunities for education and vocational training, including communications and information technologies.
* Violence Against Women/health and social protection: combatting gender-based violence, securing access to healthcare and social protection.
* Climate change and gender.
* Technology development and innovation.
Proposals in other areas will be considered.
ORGANISATION
AND GOVERNANCE
ACTIVITIES
A POOLED FUND
A SET OF LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Gouvernance
A steering commitee
comprised of donors to the pooled fund makes final granting decisions.An advisory committee
made up of representatives from women’s organisations, networks, women’s funds, the business world and others will ensure robust stakeholder participation.OPERATIONS
The Alliance is established under the auspices of the Brussels-based Network of European Foundations (NEF).FOUNDING
Members
