Networks – filia.die frauenstiftung
Through our participation in national and international networks we connect the local with the global perspective. This inspires our work and lets us participate in global feminist debates.
International Networks and Memberships
Prospera – International Network of Women’s Funds
More than 40 women’s funds from all over the world are linked together in the Prospera network. Women*’s funds mobilize money for women’s rights and allocate them to women’s groups according to feminist principles – they see themselves as the fundraising arm of the women’s movements. Studies show that women’s funds are often the first donors to women’s projects – without them, many initiatives would not exist.
Prospera’s members work in their respective national and regional contexts and also form clusters according to their affiliation to world regions. filia is mainly active in the European cluster. Every other year, all funds meet for a joint conference. This is timed to coincide with the awid forum.
Since its foundation, filia has seen itself as a part of the worldwide women’s funds movement. Within the framework of cooperation, filia works closely with sister funds from Prospera.
awid – Association for Women’s Rights in Development
awid is a global feminist network connecting 5,000 activists, researchers and funders from over 160 countries. Sixty-three percent of its members are from the Global South, and nearly 40 percent are under the age of 30.
awid is a central driving force for collective feminist self-organization – monitoring trends, working on ‘More Money for Women’s Rights’, and creating spaces for meeting and collaboration, such as the international awid forum held every four years. The newsletters and publications of awid are an important source of information for all those who want to participate in the global issues of feminism.
For filia, membership in awid means looking beyond our own horizons; we use the insights to critically question our own positions and to learn more for our practice.
ARIADNE – European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights
Ariadne is a European philanthropic network of more than 600 foundations and philanthropists working for social change and human rights. Ariadne supports, on a peer-to-peer basis, those who use their funds for the common good, to improve our societies and give equal participation to all people in them.
National Networks and Memberships
VertrauenMachtWirkung
#VertrauenMachtWirkung (engl: #TrustPowerEffect) is an initiative whose members reflect on the future of foundations, shape it and learn from each other in the process. The network has developed nine theses for the sustainable work of foundations, which we see as the compass for this commitment. Through our actions, we approach the theses and engage with them. We invite other foundations to join the #VertrauenMachtWirkung initiative in order to actively participate in the discourse in the foundation world and to further develop themselves in the direction of the goals.
www.vertrauen-macht-wirkung.de (website only available in German)
Netzwerk Wandelstiften
Wandelstiften (engl.: Funding change) is an alliance of more than a dozen foundations that contribute to a socially and ecologically sustainable society. They promote human and civil rights, gender justice, peace, ecology, and economic and social justice worldwide and take a conscious approach to their investment policies.
The foundations in the network strengthen each other in their work and they together want to give social change a human face: “We advance social change by supporting actors with their projects and structures as well as in their own concerns. We want to bring about structural changes and in this way fundamentally solve problems at their roots and not just alleviate the symptoms. In doing so, we want to influence political and economic action, legislation and cultural attitudes.”
www.wandelstiften.de (website only available in German)
Netzwerk Regenbogenstiftungen
The Netzwerk Regenbogenstiftungen (engl.: Rainbow Foundations Network) is united by its commitment to the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer people. In order to coordinate our activities and initiatives, to learn from each other and to stay up to date, the network meets for regular exchange.
www.regenbogenstiftungen.org (website only available in German)
Association of German Foundations
The Association of German Foundations is a joint initiative of German foundations and philanthropists with the mission of representing their concerns to policymakers and the public. The association is committed to strengthening sustainable private engagement in and through foundations – through research, events such as the German Foundation Day, and publications.
filia is committed to greater transparency in the allocation of foundation funds according to gender criteria and was one of the initiators of the working group “Women and Foundations”.
