Leveraging Our Collective Power
This past year, Astraea strengthened its strategic alliance with three critical ally foundations in New York City. The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Ms. Foundation for Women, New York Women’s Foundation and Third Wave Foundation share core beliefs, values and practices.
Collectively, we are committed to a revitalized women’s movement that brings race, class, sexuality, age and nationality to the center of feminist organizing – a concept we call social justice feminism. Our work centers on the experience and power of historically underrepresented women and gender non-conforming people. We are also committed to building movements that bring a gender-focused lens to the center of progressive organizing, advocacy and public policy.
We have already made significant inroads toward resourcing our common agenda. We convened grantees at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta, Georgia; and framed and sponsored a symposium on Social Justice Feminism at the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) in Cape Town, South Africa. This summer, through the initiative of the Ms. Foundation for Women, we will bring together leaders, academics and donors in a two day symposium on the leadership pipeline for young women of color in social justice movements.
We are also working together to engage donors at every level through joint fundraising efforts such as the Women Moving Millions Campaign. It is a call for women to elevate their philanthropic giving and likewise their investment in gender justice. Through this effort, Astraea has secured a gift of one million dollars over three years and two legacy gifts of one million and two million dollars each.
Together we are building a seamless connection across issues and constituencies, and broadening our base of power for transformational change. Astraea’s Executive Director Katherine Acey said, “Working with our sister funds gives us a great opportunity to fashion a new model of cooperation that benefits not only each of our institutions, but the communities and movements we have come into existence to support.”
