Last month, AVPN hosted their 2023 Global Conference in the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in partnership with Yayasan Hasanah. Alliance polled our audience to find out which session they’d most like to read about. ‘Building Inclusive Futures: Integrating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Grant Making and Programs’ was the first place poll winner. We’ve also covered the second place poll winner, which you can read about here.  

Taking place at 7.30am on the second day of AVPN after a long night of networking, the organisers of this breakfast session were not expecting a large turnout. And yet, by 7.20am the room was packed.  

Extra chairs had to be brought in. Fresh coffee and pastries flowed. And while there was a larger number of female attendees, I was glad to see plenty of men in the room too. After all, men are also essential drivers of change when it comes to inclusivity.   

Moderated by Neelima Karath from LGT Venture Philanthropy, the panel included Sanjana Gaind from Women’s Fund Asia, Supriya Balakrishnan from LGT Venture Philanthropy and Keeran Sivarajah from the Bridgespan group.  

‘Inclusion makes life easier for all of us,’ Neelima introduced the topic, inviting attendees to think more deeply about the ‘intersectionality of identities that influence our culture and reality’ and to ‘go beyond tokenism.’ As an ice-breaker, we were encouraged to write down the different facets of our own identities on post-it notes, and to reflect on our own positions of privilege. 

Sanjana Gaind discussed inclusivity practices in her line of work, particularly when it comes to funding in regions where crises are exacerbating inequalities and people on the margins are being cut off from the resources they need.  

‘How are marginalized groups able to access resources that, at this moment, are absolutely critical for survival?’ she asked. Her organisation, Women’s Fund Asia, is a resourcing arm of the feminist movement with a rights-based approach. Their grant-making work is informed by feminist principles, which includes acknowledging women as leaders and rights-bearers in their communities, proritising diversity in funding choices, and making grant-making processes accessible.  

One key way they do this is by allowing organisations to submit grant applications in their own language, and offering translation services. They seek to provide grants to orgs led by disabled women, indigenous women, migrant women, trans/intersex women and other disadvantaged groups. As well as financial support, they also provide programmatic and institutional support, and support grantees in capacity strengthening work.  

‘As a funder we have power, and we have to recognize that,’ Sanjana declared. The decisions made by funders often impact the allocation of essential resources, either widening or narrowing existing inequalities. Women’s Fund Asia tries to offset this by having an external advisory group that reviews grant applications and helps them make decisions. Last year, they issued $6.9 million dollars in grants, which only fulfilled 30% of the ask from applications they received.  

One of the biggest challenges they face is dealing with the huge unmet need for resources, as well as difficultly in sending money and resources within the region due to complex legal requirements, which usually hits grassroots orgs the hardest.  

A recent Bridgespan report found that ‘in 2018 approximately 1 percent of gender-focused international aid was directed to women’s rights organisations.’ Alongside this, the majority of budgets and funding decisions are still held by the Global North, with many Global South orgs told that they ‘don’t have the capacity to absorb large budgets.’ Challenging this unequal power dynamic is something that feminist funders and movements must reckon with. ‘There’s no shortcut to diversity and inclusion’ Sanjana finished.  

Keeran Sivarajah then moderated an audience discussion, inviting Priya Varadarajan from Co-impact to speak about their work as a collaborative donor supporting systems change and genuine intersectionality by building leadership within women at the community level. Co-impact funds projects in the Global South that address root causes in areas such as education, health, economics and law. Funding decisions and leadership sit within the regions of Africa, Latin America and Asia where they operate.  

Naghma Mulla from EdelGive foundation spoke about her experience of embedding DEI into the grant-making process and building mechanisms to attract the grantees doing the work they want to support. She stated that many grassroots feminist orgs are prevented from applying to funds by limiting beliefs or ideologies. ‘The problem lies in how we are giving funds…they’re putting out their vulnerabilities for collaboration, we are using those vulnerabilities to eliminate. The onus is on us,’ she stated.  

Sana Mustafa from Asylum Access added to the discussion, bringing up that DEI is colonial language, and that many orgs might already be implementing it without even realizing it. Language being a key accessibility issue was a recurring theme during the session, and it’s clear that there’s more work to be done when it comes to addressing this. 

However, as the session came to a close, there was an air of charged excitement in the room. The practical takeaways and passionate case studies from speakers had successfully galvanized attendees. The message was clear. Building inclusive futures isn’t just a distant aspiration. It’s already in progress, here and now. And it’s something funders can actively partake in. After all, the onus is on us.

Annmarie McQueen is subscriptions manager at Alliance