Women’s and girls’ organizations surpassed $10 billion in giving for the first time, receiving $10.2 billion in philanthropic support during 2021. While awareness of gender-focused issues such as pay equity and reproductive rights has grown, overall charitable giving that supports women and girls remains relatively small at 1.9% of total giving.

The data is from the sixth annual Women & Girls Index researched by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. The 2024 WGI adds finalized Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data from 2021(the last year for which financial data is available) across 54,588 organizations — providing an analysis on the decade 2012 to 2021 that highlights both gaps and growth in philanthropic support for women and girls.

The decade-long dataset offers a broader context for understanding how giving to women’s and girls’ organizations has evolved. The data shows that while women’s and girls’ organizations are seeing growth in charitable dollars raised, they’re often keeping pace with or still falling behind other causes such as human services and education.

“We must bolster philanthropic support for the wide range of organizations serving women and girls, from those addressing services like healthcare and human rights, to those focused on education and economic empowerment, to advance meaningful, enduring progress,” Jacqueline Ackerman, interim director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, said via a statement.

There is no single measure tracked by the report (such as philanthropic support, assets, revenues, expenses) in which WGI organizations outpaced growth for non-WGI organizations over the last decade.

Extending a consistent trend over time, reproductive health and family planning organizations continued to receive the greatest amount of philanthropic support for women’s and girls’ organizations in 2021, at $1.8 billion. This was followed by women’s and girls’ human services organizations and family and gender-based violence organizations, each receiving $1.6 billion in 2021.

Organizations serving women’s and girls’ civil rights and advocacy saw the largest growth in philanthropic support at 60.9% from 2020 to 2021. In addition to growing the most from 2020 to 2021, this group of organizations more than doubled the amount of philanthropic support they received over the decade.

“The Women & Girls Index is a powerful resource that enables donors, fundraisers and those committed to women’s and girls’ causes to understand and address the need for increased and lasting philanthropic support for women and girls,” said Una Osili, Ph.D., associate dean for research and international programs at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

The WGI was created in 2019 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is a cornerstone project of the Equitable Giving Lab (EGL), an initiative of the school funded by Google.org to better understand charitable giving to diverse communities and under-resourced groups. Forthcoming research by the school for the Equitable Giving Lab will examine funding for BIPOC communities, as well as intersectional groups like LGBTQ+ women and girls, and women and girls of color.

The full research brief and a downloadable dataset of women- and girls-serving organizations are available at EquitableGivingLab.org/WGI. A searchable index of the 54,588 charitable organizations included in the 2024 WGI can be accessed at WomenAndGirlsIndex.org

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Source From Non Profit Times