March 31, 2008
Women's Fund of Greater Milwaukee Receives National Grant
The Women’s Fund of Greater Milwaukee, Inc. has received a $60,000 matching grant from The Catalyst Fund at Tides Foundation. The Women’s Fund is one of just eight organizations selected nationwide to receive the first grants made by Catalyst, which was created in 2007 to address the shortage of funding to the sector of women who experience the greatest health disparities.
“Milwaukee has one of the highest poverty, infant mortality, teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates in the fifty largest urban cities,” said Women’s Fund Executive Director Elaine Maly. “We know from the Status of Women in Wisconsin Reports that we have health disparities in breast and cervical cancer outcomes and high rates of domestic violence, sexual abuse and sexual assault. This grant will increase the resources available to combat these disparities.”
The Women’s Fund will use the matching funds for grants to support reproductive justice work at local organizations led by women of color. Tides uses the term “reproductive justice” to include a broad range of work that organizations may be accustomed to calling by another name (such as sexual and/or reproductive health and rights, economic rights, environmental justice, youth development, etc.); a diversity of strategies (from service delivery to policy advocacy and grassroots organizing, etc.); and a range of issues, including but not limited to: comprehensive sexuality education; abortion access; access to quality, affordable, culturally and linguistically appropriate reproductive health care; parenting rights; midwifery and birthing rights; access to contraception, including emergency contraception; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; reproductive health impacts of environmental pollution; regulation of new genetic and reproductive technologies; sex worker rights; and ending violence against women, including state violence, intimate partner violence, and sexual violence.
“We believe that women of color-led organizations are imperative to broadening the reproductive rights movement. They provide additional authenticity and credibility to the movement by including those most impacted by reproductive injustices,” said Maly. “This initiative builds on the Women’s Fund’s social change platform. It provides a meaningful opportunity to support women of color as leaders, and to build sustainable funding for their programs and organizations.”
The Catalyst Fund grant represents the fourth time in recent years that the Women’s Fund has brought national philanthropic funds to the Milwaukee community. Other initiatives include the Cultures of Giving Fund, established at the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors with major support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the Ms. Foundation Collaborative for Youth-Led Social Change, and the Women’s Funding Network’s Venture Fund.