How The Resilience Fund Is Flipping the Script in Corporate Philanthropy

Women’s equal participation in the workforce and the world hinges on their ability to make their own decisions. Yet deep systemic inequities — gender-based violence, widespread lack of workplace protections, poor access to health services — still stand in the way.

And though health and safety are crucial for economic resilience, roughly half of women in 57 low-income countries still cannot freely make their own decisions regarding whether to have sex, use contraception, or seek health care, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and its particularly devastating impact on girls and women, a group of forward-looking foundations, women’s funds, civil society organizations, and companies came together to shift power in traditional funding models. Co-created with Women Win/Win-Win Strategies and BSR and founding corporate partners Gap Foundation, H&M Foundation, PVH Foundation, Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation, and the VF Foundation, the Resilience Fund brings together a powerful and diverse coalition of stakeholders. These were joined by feminist organizations like Women’s Fund Asia, Maitrayana Charity Foundation, the Global Fund for Women, and Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds.

Together, they are flipping the philanthropic script through democratized governance, power shifting, and participatory grantmaking. Here, local feminist leaders aware of community needs help determine who receives grants and where grantee-partners can play a leading role is shaping a learning agenda and impact measures. Instead of an outdated, top-down model of giving, the Fund is investing in grassroots, women-led organizations that know best which solutions meet their communities’ challenges.

“Being part of such an initiative really shows us that we have allies across different boards,” said Anisha Chugh, Executive Director of Women’s Fund Asia and a member of the Fund’s Advisory Board. “The Resilience Fund has been a learning experience in how you really effectively undertake resource justice advocacy and build the feminist funding ecosystem.”

Building a Safe Space for Women Workers

This shift toward a feminist funding ecosystem centered on local leaders is emerging through such women-led nonprofit organizations as Karmojibi Nari (KN) in Bangladesh. Its name, which translates to “Working Women” in Bengali, has created 13 Women’s Cafés across the capital city of Dhaka, as well as Gazipur and Narayanganj districts, one of which was established with support from the Resilience Fund. These cafés serve as sanctuaries where women workers can gather, share their experiences and knowledge, and access vital services, including legal advice, career counseling, psychological support, and basic health care. Between February 2023 and July 2024, nearly 750 women received checkups from a certified doctor from the Women’s Café.

Sunzida Sultana, Additional Executive Director at KN, emphasizes the importance of drawing on lived experience for effective philanthropy, “If I cannot have the root-level experience knowledge, how can I effectively use the money?” she says.

Anisha agrees. “If funding is not well-informed and not led by the concerns and analysis of the movements on the ground, it can also be detrimental. With the Resilience Fund, it’s these voices and these experiences that are guiding how resources should be invested,” she says.

In addition, KN provides advocacy and leadership training for women in the apparel and seafood processing industries, as well as various informal sectors such as domestic, migrant, home-based, and agricultural workers. This includes conducting workshops on gender equality, labor protection, civil rights, and other topics — all of which are central for a sense of agency and well-being. Over the past year, the Women’s Café under the Resilience Fund has educated some 300 garment  factory workers about gender-based violence and about sexual and reproductive health and rights.

These cafés also help tackle domestic violence by providing legal aid and counseling support. As a result, all 40 complaints that KN has assisted with from 2023 to July 2024 have been resolved.

By providing such comprehensive services, these cafés help women understand their basic human rights and develop the confidence to assert them.

A Broader Strategy for Women’s Empowerment

KN was launched more than three decades ago to help women confront persistent — and often devastating — challenges in post-independence Bangladesh with dignity and power. Today, there’s a powerful strategy underpinning it all: to organize women, build coalitions, and advocate for better policies. KN’s work and impact reach far — from the Women’s Cafés to safeguards for women on the job. The nonprofit, nongovernment, women-led organization has established Anti-Sexual Harassment Committees in 46 garment factories to protect women from sexual and gender-based violence at work, an effort that has benefited more than 100,000 women in the sector.

Decades of tireless advocacy have delivered even more wins for women in the workplace. In 2013, for example, KN successfully lobbied the Government of Bangladesh to recognize agricultural workers as “labor” in the amended Bangladesh Labor Act of 2006. This victory, Sunzida says, illustrated what can be accomplished when grassroots groups come together on a national level. “We can help women raise their voice and become leaders who will be a standard for other workers,” she adds.

As part of the broader strategy for women’s empowerment, Anisha often considers what the long-term outcome should be. “Are we looking at systems change? Are we looking at process change? Are we looking at movement building and strengthening that movement-building?”

This is especially critical in light of the latest Gender Snapshot by UN Women, Women Count, and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. According to the report’s projections, it will take 300 years to achieve gender equality — and that’s way too long.

“If we look at whatever progress that we have achieved, it has been on the shoulders of a lot of the feminist activists, especially those from the Global South and feminist activists of color,” Anisha explains. “And if we don’t act now, we’re going to be pushed back a few hundred years.”

A Collaborative Approach to Investment

The Resilience Fund’s collaborative approach is helping more local, women-led organizations access funding opportunities and share learnings by investing in language justice and accessibility. As part of its ethos of power shifting, the application process provides free translation and application support and advice in the communities’ local language. The Fund recognizes that for organizations to have a more equal footing with other stakeholders and the greatest impact, they need to be able to communicate in their preferred language.

Beyond the founding investors, the Fund’s diverse partners who are providing essential support include Amazon, Lululemon, the Avery Dennison Foundation, and the Levi Strauss Foundation. By pooling their resources, these partners can support local and regional women’s funds, women-led organizations, and feminist leaders with unrestricted core flexible funding for locally led solutions.

“We hope the Fund is an opportunity to inspire and educate stakeholders and potential donors about this concept of flipping the approach to traditional top-down philanthropy,” says Gloria Schoch, Senior Director of Global Impact at VF Corporation and Executive Director of the VF Foundation. “We want to show how powerful it can be to place trust and resources directly into the hands of women-led organizations on the ground.”

The Fund’s Advisory Board, made up of corporate investors, women’s funds, and civil society organizations, ensures that non-corporate members represent 50% or more of the voting members so no one sector controls board decisions. As Anisha explains it, the Fund helps with bridge-building where participants can facilitate conversations and share learning that “cuts across borders.”

“When women thrive, our communities thrive and our businesses thrive, which is a powerful formula for meaningful economic development and positive change,” Gloria says. “When we work together, our investments grow, our resources grow, and there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.”

Looking Ahead: The Future of the Resilience Fund

As the Resilience Fund moves into its fourth year, it’s got three major priorities: To continue empowering women-led organizations, driving community-level change, and fostering resilience in global value chains. The Fund’s Learning Hub and other safe spaces facilitate ongoing dialogue and real-time learning among corporate investors, women’s funds, and women-led organizations. These interactions are helping address challenges jointly and co-create new metrics of long-term impact.

“What has been really valuable is being able to learn together, stretch our perspectives, and challenge our assumptions,” Gloria says. “The Hub provides unique and firsthand insight into how we can best support women as agents of change in their own communities and in their own backyards.”

The next years will be the most exciting for the Fund, as it seeks to increase long-term, flexible funding opportunities with women-led organizations; deepen, document, and share its approach to trust-based giving; expand real-time learning and engagement across sectors; and elevate the role of women-led organizations in the fight against climate change.

The Resilience Fund is emerging as a transformative corporate funding initiative. But it is also building a movement toward a more equitable and sustainable future — thanks to the “unlikely partners” that lead it.

“The bottom line is that women know what their communities need,” UAP’s Executive Director Dilly Severin says. “We believe the Resilience Fund’s trust-based, democratized approach and pooled investment model is the future of corporate philanthropy. No one sector can tackle these issues alone.”