Women's funds in the Global South and East play an important role in facilitating the access of women's rights organizations and advocates to financial resources and help contribute to the refocusing of local cultures of giving on structural causes of discrimination, a report from the International Network of Women's Funds, Mama Cash, and the International Human Rights Funders Group finds.

The report, Collective Change: The Value of Mobilizing Local Resources for Women's Rights in the Global South and East (144 pages, PDF), presents case studies of ten funds that invest in women-led projects, ranging from the African Women's Development Fund (Ghana) and Fondo Mujeres del Sur (Argentina) to the South Asia Women's Fund (Sri Lanka) and the Ukrainian Women's Fund (Ukraine). In examining the strategies, successes, challenges, and lessons learned by the funds in their efforts to mobilize local resources, the studies demonstrate that, in addition to awarding direct grants, building grantee capacity, and advocating for policy change, the funds helped raise awareness of the human rights violations women and girls face and helped change internalized attitudes, social and cultural norms, and formal policies. Their local resource mobilization work also led to progress in building a lasting local constituency of support for collective action; a shift in philanthropic focus from direct services to systemic change; and improvements in the sustainability of local and regional women's rights movements.

According to the report, relationship building, strategic communications, and innovations that make giving appealing are essential to success in mobilizing local support. Such efforts, however, are challenged by slow-to-change philanthropic cultures, inadequate philanthropic infrastructure, the absence of legal and fiscal incentives, and lack of staff capacity. Recommendations for funders include providing flexible funding, more funding for communications efforts, supporting South-South exchanges and joint efforts, and facilitating networking and knowledge sharing.