Why Funding Collaboratives Can Create A Gender Equal World
Treating patients in Nepal
Why funding collaboratives can catalyze the change needed for a gender equal world.
I am a woman and a collaborator with creativity and optimism. I am convinced: when we collaborate with our money, our values, our vision, and our imagination, we can start to imagine a gender equal world. I’ve been supporting Co-Impact since inception and rejoined to support the Gender Fund launched this week. Watching the model grow over 5 years, I'm convinced this model has what it takes to catalyze global improvements in basic human rights: being able to live a healthy life, get a good education and a chance to work and thrive.
I was initially attracted to Co-Impact because supporting people and communities through strengthening healthcare systems has been the through-line of my life. As a clinician, a founder and a funder, I’ve sought out the pathways that challenge the status quo. The reality of global health inequity cannot be addressed one patient, one grant, or one intervention at a time. Entrenched systems need to be wholly reimagined, and this can only be achieved through bold, broad collaborations in philanthropy that now center gender.
Over four decades, I’ve learned one thing over and over again: health is intersectional. I spent the first decade of my career as a Physician’s Assistant working in US emergency rooms. I saw how often the drivers of poor health were social, economic, and gendered. The second decade transferred my clinical skills to the global south, working as a PA in Cambodia and Mozambique, where the health challenges were staggering. Lack of access to basic and preventive care made good health impossible. Frustrated by my inability to disrupt the cycles of disease and illness, I was most enraged by the suffering of women. I knew this above all else: in every country, women were disproportionately impacted by broken health systems. I saw what happened to a family when the mother fell ill or died; the ripple effect was devastating. I needed to understand the wider systems, how aid distribution models were structured, and why that funding failed to strengthen the clinics and hospitals that were at the center of healthy communities. I studied international health policy in London and put my degree to work with USAID and with other NGOs in East Africa, but my calling in my third decade was clear: I was a builder. I couldn’t challenge the status quo from within the architecture of foreign aid because it was clear that the flow of money – fragmented, siloed, short-term – was the problem.
My third decade was devoted to building. I co-founded Care2Communities, a non-profit social enterprise model delivering high-quality primary healthcare in Haiti. Through iteration, learning, and long-term relationships, we built a community-based clinic model that centered patients and families. We replicated the model with communities across northern Haiti and, today, the network of clinics serves over 250,000 people.
I didn't call myself a philanthropist until my mid 30's when a family business event allowed me to have more than I needed. Since then, I have committed myself to exploring how philanthropy can catalyze meaningful, measurable impact for the health of women and communities. I joined Women Moving Millions by committing to support women and girls at the level of $1 million over 10 years–my first bold donation for sure! I learn from serving on nonprofit boards including Network of Engaged International Donors Global and membership to TPW. I took on a mentor role for other social entrepreneurs. I pursued an honest learning journey to address power and privilege, and how the lack of diverse voices in the circles of wealth and influence, perpetuate inequality in our work. Inheriting wealth challenged me to consider, continuously, how I live each day and how my core values are represented in all of my choices. That includes everything from how I spend my time, to where I direct my philanthropy, to how I ensure that my investment portfolio reflects my values and embrace the truth that our individual choices can create the world we want where everyone thrives.
I joined Co-Impact in my fourth decade because it spoke to everything that I had hoped would happen in Haiti. I saw a well-constructed systems approach, where communities led, and women were centered. Where many of the solutions existed but needed philanthropic jet fuel, not scattered infusions of funding in disconnected pockets. Co-Impact’s first grants put millions of paid healthcare workers into rural communities across Africa through Last Mile Health and the Liberian Government. We invested in technologies that catalyzed new education opportunities for millions of students through Teaching at the Right Level - Africa. We also invested in the graduation approach to economic opportunity through a global multi-stakeholder effort involving Jeevika, Fundación Capital, and the Partnership for Economic Inclusion (PEI), as a pathway to lift millions of people out of extreme poverty. Scale meant depth and breadth.
The Co-Impact model required relinquishing some measure of control of my donation,, but it was the kind of trade-off that was necessary for large, unrestricted, long-term, and flexible funding. I had to commit to trusting the collective, the experts and innovators who vetted the models for systems transformation – but in so doing, I could leverage my giving commitment ten-fold. The Co-Impact Gender Fund invites philanthropists and stakeholders to an equal table. Donor input and participation isn’t dependent on dollar commitments. We fund as a group – no competition between funders; we just link arms in our shared commitment.
COVID has laid bare the realities of health inequity across the globe. Our planet is on fire, and it is women in the global south – arguably those least responsible for the pillaging of planetary resources – who will be the ones most immediately and perilously impacted. I invite you to join collaborative funding networks to shift the balance of power to the lives and the voices most affected by funding their work, their solutions, their wellness, and their future. Because theirs is ours.
