Charitable Giving to Women’s, Girls’ Orgs Exceeds $10B for First Time
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy released its sixth annual Women & Girls Index (WGI), a systematically generated, comprehensive index that measures charitable giving to organizations dedicated to women and girls in the U.S., including the amount of philanthropic support they receive from individuals, foundations, and corporations. The 2024 WGI adds finalized 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.
For the first time, women’s and girls’ organizations surpassed $10 billion in giving as they received $10.2 billion in philanthropic support in 2021. This historic milestone is set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing disproportionate impact on women, particularly women of color and those in low-wage jobs, and ongoing discussions about the systemic barriers to gender equity. 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. This statistic highlights the continued need for greater philanthropic support across the full spectrum of causes that improve the lives of women and girls.
The decade-long dataset allows for an examination of long-term trends, offering a broader context for understanding how giving to women’s and girls’ organizations has evolved. The data reveals 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. 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.
“It’s truly encouraging to see women’s and girls’ organizations surpass the $10 billion mark. Yet, these groups still receive less than 2% of overall philanthropic funding—a statistic that has not changed since we began tracking data from 2012,” said Jacqueline Ackerman, interim director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “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.”
Key findings from the 2024 WGI include:
- Surpassing the $10 billion mark for the first time, women’s and girls’ organizations received $10.2 billion in philanthropic support in 2021, representing 1.9% of overall charitable giving.
- Reproductive health and family planning organizations received the greatest amount of philanthropic support for women’s and girls’ organizations in 2021, a consistent trend over time. WGI organizations serving women’s and girls’ civil rights and advocacy saw the largest growth (60.9%) from 2020 to 2021.
- Support for women’s and girls’ organizations from government grants increased 26.5% from 2020 to 2021, which was more than the 14.8% growth in government grants to non-WGI organizations. However, over the decade 2012-2021, government grants to WGI organizations and to non-WGI organizations grew at nearly the same overall rate.
“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 2024 Women & Girls Index research brief is available here.
Source: Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
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