Netherlands-based women’s fund Mama Cash has just launched a new strategic plan for 2009-13 in what they describe as ‘an official switch to a new era in grantmaking’. Whereas in 2008 Mama Cash invested €2.515.049 in 172 women’s and girls’ rights organizations in 73 different countries, the plan is now to fund 100 organizations each year ‘so that we can establish deeper relationships with groups and help them to grow in influence and scale’. By the end of 2013, it is envisaged that their annual grants will have more than doubled to total €6 million.

The goals are far-reaching: to fund and support ambitious women’s and girls’ human rights organizations and initiatives that push beyond the status quo and to build a strong global architecture of women’s funds so that women’s movements can grow in scale, influence, and collective power.

Is anything lost in the general move towards more ‘strategic’ grantmaking? This is one of the issues that will be considered in the March issue of Alliance, which will focus on the role of small grants, which seem to be a slightly endangered species at the moment. Guest editor will be Chet Tchozewski of Global Greengrants Fund.
 
For more information
http://www.mamacash.org