94. Then and Now: Giving Trends Among Women - Kiersten Marek

10:07PM Mar 22, 2021

Speakers:

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Midroll

Kiersten Marek

Keywords:

women

philanthropy

people

gender equality

donors

happening

virtuous

important

funders

gift

story

world

talk

years

hear

platform

piece

big

movement

country

Welcome back to The we're for good podcast. It's women of impact week presented by virtuous. It's day two. We're so glad you're here.

Hey, I'm john.

And I'm Becky.

And this is the we are for good podcast.

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So let's get started. Welcome, welcome. How are you Becky, what you're doing,

I'm going to Rhode Island today

as a smallest state in the union and biggest ideas

I know. And we have a power house here. And I'm so excited because we're talking about a lot of my favorite topics today, writing, philanthropy, women in philanthropy, lifting up women in philanthropy, and we have such a powerhouse expert here. It is my delight to introduce kyrsten Merrick. She's the editor of philanthropy women. And she's going to be talking to us today about giving trends for women in 2021. But I just think her bio is so interesting and impressive. And I just want to give a little bit of background before we dive into this conversation. But she is the founder of philanthropy, women, and she practices clinical social work, which I love in Cranston, Rhode Island. And she just writes about how women donors and their allies are advancing social change. And such a poignant topic today in this era when women have so much influence over giving. And I'm just really excited to dive into her expertise. She launched this organization in January of 2017. And she just really wanted to create a new home for women donors to read, understand and amplify feminist philanthropy. So she they've curated over 800 articles, she's got a funder database with over 600 gender equality funder listings, I know people are Marcus folks, people are tuning in, and they're gonna want to get access to that. And they just talk about everything from gender equity across all of our sectors, health and education and arts. And I just say kind of everywhere when you look at the gamut of it. And so I just love that she focuses on amplifying the good work that women do in philanthropy and the power that's in that so I think we're gonna have a great conversation. Kiersten Welcome to we're for good podcast. Thanks for being here.

Thank you so much. It is my pleasure to be here with you.

I would love to know just a little bit about your journey. And anytime I talk to an editor or writer, I'm curious, you know, the the points that got you here and how you got into philanthropy, so can you connect the dots for our listeners?

Sure. I've always been, you know, interested in women's issues, I studied Women's Studies and British literature at Hunter College in New York City. And so that was always one of my passions. So the personal and political kind of came together for me, after going through becoming a social worker, you know, my work as social as a social worker is very personal, because I'm primarily a therapist. But having the political piece was always very important for me. So I, I had a platform called k america.com. It still exists, which I was active on with many friends since 2002. And then in 2014, I started writing for inside philanthropy. And that was really critical, because I started to see that there were these big pieces of funding that drove this work. And there were these particularly these women funders, who no one knew about, and I thought, this is something that I'm going to make it my purpose to remedy because these women show us the way in so many different aspects of how they are managing their lives and their resources. So I kept writing there for about two and a half years. And then I said, I want my own platform that really highlights this. And so I got some initial support, and we launched in 2017. And we've been kind of cruising along ever since. Um, and so that's kind of the backstory there. I do continue to practice clinical social work so it's not a big moneymaker to write about women's philanthropy. No surprise there, I'm sure. But, um, it is vital. I and I, you know, I just think the mission is so important to the future of our social justice movements.

Well, I just love you know, we have a heart obviously for content creators, we're in that game with you and we just think that that is such an important One Piece of capital these days is just sharing ideas with people. And so I love that you've dedicated even a part your side hustle to making this happen to spread good ideas. I know we're probably going to lead in and talk to the incredible McKenzie Scott gift, because I think that's his pinnacle of this moment of women power and philanthropy. But I would love to start the conversation, just giving us a little bit of history, you know, maybe giving us some research or maybe the history of how women philanthropy kind of has gotten to the place that it is today.

Sure. I'd like to kind of start that history. I have been working on a book draft on feminism that includes the the philanthropy story. And so this actually got me back to looking at my book draft. And I was like, I've got to get back to this. I, you know, I sort of let it love it, not put it aside for about a year. But I have actually done a lot of the groundwork. So I'd like to start the story. My daughter, she's 37. Right. When actually, before Seneca Falls in the first official women's rights conference, there was another conference that was called the first anti slavery convention of American women. And it was in 1837, it took place in New York City. And it was wildly successful. I think they had over 140 women come from across the country. And it was, it was open to women of all races. So there were also women of color in this first meeting. So it went so well that then in 1838, they decided to have a separate meeting in Philadelphia. And that meeting did not go quite as well. This might bring up a little bit of flashbacks for people to what's happened recently in our country. But what happened back in 1838, is that a mob surrounded the building where these women were meeting. And the women were so frightened that they decided to lock arms and evacuate the building. And then the mob burned the building to the ground. So for about 10 years, there was this kind of hush over feminism and stuff was still going on, but people didn't know too much about it. Understandably, there was sort of a traumatizing, I think of the early movement. But then in 1848, we had Seneca Falls, which was the first official women's rights women's rights conference. But not surprisingly, it was very white. Because I think there was still that trauma wound from the early experience of being burned to the ground by by radicals. So then we're going to flash forward really quick 1920 women get the vote. So women start to be able to access their rights and to participate in decision making now and we're gonna fast forward again to the 1970s. And then we have the women's movement starting to happen. And, you know, that was very much an on the ground movement of people, but it was also fed by philanthropy. So in 1972, the Ford Foundation started in a national fellowship program to encourage research on women's studies. So we've just $1 million over three years, they sort of laid the groundwork for legitimising women's studies as a field in academia. And so in the 70s, and 80s, other major foundations came on board, Carnegie Rockefeller, the foundation started to write the checks for these research programs and also for other social programs to to advance women and girls. It's estimated between 1972 and 1992, that $36 million was plowed into funding for gender equality. And by 1999, there were over 80 centers on college campuses across the US for Women's Studies. Yeah, so that was kind of, you know, where we sort of laid the groundwork, I think, for this to be legitimized, then it also got more legitimate in the culture at large with the women's funding network, which formed in 1985. The women donors network in 1990. And then when it really got official with philanthropy, in 1997, when the women's philanthropy Institute was established first in Michigan, and then it moved to Indiana in 2004. From there where we've seen big movement is in 2007 women moving millions was formed by Hello Kelly Han and her sister, Swanee hunt. And this really enabled women to make big gifts for gender equality. It brought them together in a network that validated big gifts. So from there I think we've seen over the past 10 years, this increasingly large gifts thing happening for women and girls.

The buffets, you know, are a good example of that with the novo Foundation, although now they're sort of drop dropping back on some of that funding, but they really started with their 90 million commitment. That was another one that really took it to another level, I believe that was in 2016. And then in 2019, we had Melinda Gates, who committed 1 billion to women and girls over 10 years. And now in 2020, we have Mackenzie Scott, who has given over 6 billion this year alone with a large share of that funding going to women and girls, and it's yet to be determined exactly how much but I would certainly estimate over 1 billion in just one year, was committed by McKenzie Scott to women and girls,

as you walk us through that history. I mean, I just had so many, like quotes coming to me that like quotes that we just all know, especially as you're sharing that Philadelphia Story, which makes my stomach hurt, you know, you know, just that thought that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, you know, and that is why history is so important. It's why giving underserved individuals a microphone and a chance to express their ideas and their thoughts and how they can improve the world is so critical. And the Women's March, I don't When was that? 2017 2018? I mean, McKinsey, Scott, I mean, Vice President Harris, I mean, these are huge movements for women. And I just believe that so much good can come from women linking arms for good. We are hardwired to be empathizers to look at the crowd and in the community and take care of the village. So this is just a really fascinating topic for me. And I would love to hear what trends you're paying attention to right now. particularly around women's giving, could you share with our listeners some of the giving trends that you're seeing for 2021? And beyond as it relates to just this growing momentum? Right?

Yeah. So I mean, how is philanthropy feeding gender equality across society, I think the overarching thing we know is that when you begin to address women's needs, a whole lot of other related issues become more apparent. And you start to be able to make those connections and articulate those connections. So I'm just going to highlight a few of those to give you, you know, a little taste, but there are literally hundreds of ways that you can identify how this is happening. But one way in particular, is when a gender lens approach intersects with health policy. So you have examples like Sarah hackie, Byrd, who's now the executive director of women movie millions, she spent much of her early career helping to raise the money to get the rape kit battle backlog addressed, and to start to really take action to address sexual assault in our country in a very meaningful way. So that that's where we're sort of advancing in policy. I think, too, you know, first, we've wrecked, it took us a long time to just recognize that sexual assault exists. And that, you know, it's it's not really prosecuted. Now that we've recognized that we're finally starting to do the pieces that will make it possible for us to prosecute. So that's, that's huge. Another example of that intersection with health policy is organizations like the Obama foundation supporting work globally, to end female genital mutilation because we're finally recognizing that as a practice that violates girls, basic human rights. So again, it you know, we knew these things were a problem for a long time. But to actually take action takes years of movement building and now we are at the point where I think there is more action happening, it's becoming more mainstream, larger foundations are helping it to get that into the public conversation.

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Unger. representation so important in growing up seeing more and more women fulfill leadership positions help publishers open up avenues and opportunities for all women. And I think our generation especially is shifting the narrative, that just because there's one woman leader on the team doesn't mean there isn't room at the table for more. So I think collectively, women are shifting from a scarcity mindset and instead paving avenues for more women to be leaders, my mom was a single mom working two to three entry level jobs at any given time to keep us going. And that was always a present parent somehow. And over the last 20 years, she's worked her way up to a CEO position. And I've been able to watch that and have conversations with her and just learned so much about what being a compassionate and effective leader looks like from her. I come from a decade in the nonprofit world. And I know that customers that virtuous serves are working so incredibly hard to make a difference in the world. And it's truly a labor of love and passion. And so to be able to make aspects of their daily lives a little bit easier, is just extremely rewarding.

I love that. And it also, to me underscores the fact that women are such bold and brave individuals, they will go into spaces that many people will not there are not many people that want to push the agenda of getting rape kits tested, or talking about female mutilation. But these are issues that are plaguing society. And if we don't have conversations around them, and even create awareness that it exists, then again, history is going to be doomed to repeat itself. I feel like I'm starting to repeat myself. So I think these are great examples. I really appreciate you bringing them up. And I just learned a lot about a lot of things that I didn't know about. So I have a couple more can I kind of get

going,

I think there's we're seeing more evidence of women donors influencing political leadership. In 2014, the women donors network, started a project called reflective democracy campaign that really broke down how male dominated our leadership is on every level politically. And now, organizations have really taken this to a different level by you know, organizations like she should run and higher heights, got out there and did the work to get women to run. And now we're seeing that there are a record number of women, particularly women of color, making it into government seats. So you know, then these donors go a step further, and now they've funded a new media site called the 19th. Specializing in covering women's politics. So now these women leaders are going to get more political coverage, more mainstream coverage, it's gonna be you know, they have a they have a deal with usa today to have the 19th articles on the mainstream newspapers of USA Today. So this is how I see them really breaking through and getting more media savvy as well, as a big piece of the strategy.

I love that we you just brought up the 19th. Because we just talked to Susan MacPherson earlier who is one of the angel investors, and we learned about that organization, and it is phenomenal. We're gonna add them to our list of people that we want to go and talk to you as well come on our podcast,

will kearson. You know, we've got a broad listener base, and all of us want to engage women more deeply in our missions and our nonprofits. Can you kind of, you know, share some maybe these are trends to have How do you see engagement with women in philanthropic causes happening, you know, in the most dynamic way at organizations today,

one way that I think we see a lot of very dynamic action right now is in the response to COVID related to gender lens giving and gender lens strategies, because COVID has shown that there is this women's leadership differential. You know, we know that countries like New Zealand, that have women at the top of the pyramid are doing better in terms of maintaining public health. And because we also know that women and families are being more heavily impacted by COVID. funders are really starting to create strategies that specifically address that. So you know, very quickly we're seeing these very large efforts. I just published about an announcement yesterday, several countries and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, sort of acting like its own country, because such a huge foundation are coming together, they have pledged 20 point 6 billion in new funding for women's reproductive, Maternal and Child Health rights, particularly addressing how there's this gap that is being caused by COVID. So, you know, in that way, I really see the gender lens response becoming very mainstream people are recognizing That the response that centers on women is just better. You know,

I wonder, you know, I think there's a lot of people that are listening right now. And when I think about the the ways that we've been taught in development of how to think about women, that women are the decision makers that women are most likely to leave playing gifts, I just think about kind of all of those stats that you feel like you've just heard over the years, how would you encourage, you know, our listeners who are working to engage women and really trying to do it virtually right now? You know, what is the best way to approach them? What is what is a way that people can reach out during this time of pandemic and engage with their women in a meaningful way and connect them to their philanthropic missions?

Yeah, I mean, I think bringing them together with, you know, face to face or voice to voice kind of convening is more important than we realize. And you know, when I see and attend myself to meetings, where leaders in this, in this area of gender lens, come together to talk about strategy, I'm really, I'm really inspired, I ended up leaving usually feeling more confident, in my own work and in, in kind of my own daily life, even so, I think that process of just opening up places where we can come together is more possible than ever, you know, as a side effect of COVID. Because of the work around,

we now have to use these virtual platforms. And using this that, that those virtual platforms opens us up, I think that we have to leverage that in new ways. And to me that says, you know, something to me that that is true, that we say all the time in our company, which is community is everything. And when you can bring like minded individuals together, especially women who are hardwired, to care, to want to lean in to want to lift their voice to want to encourage someone who says something really great. And I mean, you're right, when you walk away from those sorts of robust discussions, where everyone has a seat at the table, everyone's voice is equally as important. I just think incredible things can happen. And, and by the way, I love that you brought up the countries that are doing COVID really well, because I remember reading that article back in I don't know if it was May, or June of 2020, where it's like, these are the countries that have zero COVID cases, and they were all LED, but it was like New Zealand and Iceland and Germany. I think that was just near the list. But it's like Taiwan, I can't remember all of them. But it was like women really can do extraordinary things. When you when you pair the heart and the head together from a leadership standpoint. So that's a great example.

We love the heart in the head, which is high storytelling, we feel like is such a big part of learning and growth. And honestly, just I'm trying to fathom what it's like to, to curate and be the editor for 800 pieces of content about this topic. I mean, probably every day, you're met with a story that's just like a wow moment. But what's what's the story of philanthropy that has really stuck with you? You know, in light of all of this, I'd love to hear one.

Well, yeah, I know, I sort of contemplated this from a lot of angles. And you know, I'm also a therapist. So I hear a lot of people's real life stories that no one else gets to hear. And so I sort of thought about that, and in my own life. So I have a couple of stories that, you know, happened to both involve waiters and waitresses, which I don't know why I actually have been a waitress. So maybe that's part of it. But I'm one story and and i think of these as what I would call true gifts. And a true gift I feel is one that really comes from your own inspiration internally. You know, as opposed to Yes, my siblings or my, you know, husband gives me a gift for Christmas. So I give him a gift. Yeah, we're inspired, but not that same. So this, these are my examples. One is, um, you know, about 10 years ago, when my mom was at the end of her life, one of my sisters came to stay nearby, the two of us kind of managed it together. And then she was here for several months. And while she was here, she went to one restaurant several times a week just because that was what ended up happening. And she ended up talking a lot with one of the waiters there and he would ask about how she was doing and she would tell them about you know how she was here to help with my mom. And so after my mom passed, this gentleman came to my mom's funeral. Oh, I just thought was so sweet. Like, it was such a true gift. Like he did not have to do that. He was there. Because he just genuinely listened to my sister and appreciated what she was doing, and showed it to her to her and to us as a whole family. So that is one story that kind of sticks with me. And then more recently, I just have came across another story of someone who was just going a lot to one place, you know, kind of someone who's a little bit socially isolated, I would say, and met someone there who, you know, they just got to have exchanges with one of the waitresses there more frequently. And it occurred to him that he wanted to give a gift to her. So he got a Christmas card, and put $300 in it, and brought it down to the restaurant and gave it to her. And she just was in tears, and telling him, you know, My son is going to have the best Christmas ever. And he was saying, I was the least I could do for you. You know, I know that in COVID, you're not making as much money. And, you know, stories like that, just really, those are the true gifts. Those are the moments where people rise above and they say I'm going to do something extra special. And I know I'm not going to get anything from it. But I just want to do it in being able to see people who think that they're invisible. Yes, such a gift in this world. If

you are someone who can open your eyes and see everyone, I mean here, you know, everyone matters. We talk about that all the time, everyone matters. And I just think that that is a great story. And for anyone that's just listening to it, if you get on our YouTube account, I mean, you just see the vibrancy, kearson space while she's telling that story, because it just tells me how powerful one person's kindness can be to another person. And that's inspirational. And that's what we want to amplify and raise up. So you've given us a lot of good tips today. And I wonder if, you know, our last question is always what is your one good thing, something that you could give our audience that they could take with them today?

Yeah, when I came to thinking about this, you know, of course, my therapist rose right to the surface. And I guess the one thing I would say is reflect on your feelings. And be your own best friend. I think we don't recognize how important that piece is in our lives. And maybe you have to find a special way to prompt yourself towards that one, I have this little thing I do, I sort of squeezed my middle finger to remind myself, if I feel like I need to reflect on my feelings for a little bit. Because when you do that, I think you develop this sense of curiosity about yourself. And rather than judgment, you can come to a place of understanding from which you can advance and, and really live, live a better life.

So that would be my one thing is just reflect on your feelings. Okay, that really resonates with me. And as much as we have loved on women in this discussion, I will say this is something that women are terrible at. And I mean, I will say I am awful. At the self care aspect. I mean, Julie and I are enneagram two. So of course we can't ask for help, you know if our life depended on it. But this is that was a really good tip to just create some time for yourself, because we want to grow ourselves, you know, we want to evolve, we want to continue listening to other people. We want to we want to understand someone else's perspective. I look at the world right now. And I think we have got to do better at listening to each other and not reacting and understanding where these things come from. Storytelling is a huge part of that. But self care is so, so important. Thank you for saying that.

Absolutely. And as much as it's true for women and women can be not great at it. I do think men really struggle in the category of reflecting on their feelings and

watch it. You're right.

And so I just, you know, I like to put that out there as this part of emotional intelligence that men really can develop. It's true. And when they do, they just naturally come over to the side of lifting women up. So it all comes together.

Okay, Kiersten. So you, thank you for literally everything that you've said, I feel like you've given me many moments to pause and I want to like go back and reflect on somebody that tidbits you brought today. But I don't want to miss an opportunity for you just to share with our listeners about philanthropy, women, how can they engage with your content and SUBSCRIBE and find you online? Can you kind of point us to all the channels that you're on?

Yeah, or any places where they could go to get information about to learn more about women and philanthropy?

Yeah, sure. So we're at philanthropy women.org. And we are I can give you three articles a month for free. But after that, we hope you'll subscribe for 999 a month, you can also just subscribe to our knowledge base, which, as you mentioned, has over I think 650 listings of gender equality funders. Now, I believe we're the largest funder data database in the world for gender equality, I've, you know, I spend time combing these things, because that's how we find the the new resources. So for sure, if this is your specialty, looking for money for women and girls, for 495 a month, you'll find something valuable in our database. And beyond that, we spend a lot of time just promoting on social media, the ideas of gender equality across the culture, particularly on Twitter. So we have a really lively Twitter update that we keep about 11 to 15 tweets a day relating to women and girls, and the movement activity across a new kind of a widespread span. So if you just want to get some free content, that's a great way to just get into the kind of mindset that we're coming from. And beyond that, we're we're always looking for that next level. So, you know, I have some funders, but not very many. And our real goal is to trend toward being on the not a nonprofit market, but being able to be a for profit product. So I'm actually hoping to fund reduce donor funding, and maybe be able to move into another platform that really wants to take this content mainstream. So that's what I'm kind of looking at for our vision for now. I don't see that coming down anytime soon. So we're just gonna keep going with our platform and keep producing, we produce between eight and 10 new stories a week. Some of them are just pieces that we're reprinting from press releases, because we just don't have the bandwidth to do journalism on every story. But there is just so much information coming out about this sector that we at least, you know, create the posts that that get you the information. And then a lot of our stories also do the analysis, and the larger picture, contextualizing of these new events for forgiving for women and girls.

And these conversations are only going to get bigger. And they're I mean, I again, the snowball is coming down the hill on this issue, and I am very excited that you're in the space. I think this is really important work. Thank you for coming on today. And for everything you brought our community. We appreciate it.

We appreciate you kearson.

Thank you. Thank you so much. This is a wonderful opportunity. Have a great day.

Thanks so much for listening to today's conversation with Kiersten We hope you enjoyed diving into the journey of women in philanthropy. We've curated some additional resources to help you better engage women in giving over at our show notes page for this episode. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. Every Monday we send a weekly roundup of our best content and resources to our good community sign up for free at weird for good calm slash Hello. One more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and Your support helps more people find and join this community. Thanks so much friends. Our production hero is the fighter for quality and all things Julie Confer Hello. And if the song is sunray by rating boys boom