Rebecca Gill, executive director of Rosa, shares her thoughts on some of the funding biases that exist within the women and girls’ sector, and how Rosa aims to combat this.
International Women’s Day this year invites us all to raise awareness of gender bias in order to create a more equal world. But within the women’s sector, it’s the very organisations who are working to address the impacts of this societal inequality that are experiencing a bias in funding which threatens the long-term sustainability of their work, and the lives of the women and girls that rely upon it.
Many of the charities Rosa funds exist at the axis of oppression – they are supporting women affected by poverty, inequality, sexism and racism; women facing destitution, women with no recourse to public funds, women on low income, women whose labour is invisible. Much of what they do is undervalued and under resourced – mirroring the lives of the women and girls they work with and advocate for. It is unacceptable that this should be the case, especially at a time when many women’s organisations are facing an unprecedented demand from women and girls for their services, due to the knock-on impact of the pandemic.
It is often the case that big funding is allocated to ‘gender neutral’ organisations, which then subcontract to women’s and girls’ organisations to deliver services, including refuges, helplines and support groups. This funding is piecemeal and the delivery model unsustainable. It also indicates a worrying lack of understanding on the part of local and national government and other statutory funding institutions of the ways in which these specialist women’s organisations operate and of how critical they are to the lives of women and girls and to the fabric of our society.
Our own research with over 320 organisations that Rosa works with, has shown that there has been an increased demand in everything from counselling and mental health support (62%) to help with housing issues (16%) and legal assistance (12%) from their service users, and yet these vital organisations are still competing for the same pot of insufficient funding. Women’s Aid have estimated that there will be a £200 million shortfall in funding over the next year alone for services to support women and girls affected by male violence. The stark reality of this is that, without additional funding, women and girls will be turned away from the lifesaving support they need.
Over the last year alone, Rosa distributed £2m in grants to support women’s and girl’s organisations. In Spring this year, we are aiming to open our Stand With Us fund for organisations that support women and girls whose lives are devastated by male violence. But we know that this is an issue we cannot tackle alone. The women’s sector needs more long term, non-competitive funding, the removal of barriers to access this funding for smaller, specialist organisations including those led by and for black and minoritised women and girls, and a commitment to addressing some of the bias that exists within mainstream charitable funding.
The first step towards achieving this is acknowledging the enormous value of the women and girls’ sector and the profound benefits of the work they do with those in greatest need.