A legacy of movement building

Being a feminist fund in Europe

By Iulia Pascu, Officer for Philanthropic Partnerships, Mama Cash 

When Mama Cash was founded in 1983, women in the Netherlands were one year away from having abortion rights legally recognised, Czech born athlete Jarmila Kratochvílová set the 800m world record, which still stands today, and Madonna released her debut album, under the same name. In 1983, for the first time British women could pass their nationality on to their children. It was an era of breaking down barriers surrounding women’s sexuality, combating gender-based oppression within the family, marriage and sexuality, and of effervescent feminist movement building in the Netherlands and in many other European countries.  

The European feminist movement was feeling the influence of important historical events, such as the Paris uprisings in 1968, anti-colonialist theory and politics in some places and feminist anarchist movements in others, and the Dolle Mina (Mad Mina, a women’s liberation group) started in 1972 in the Netherlands. It was also a time of significant challenges and gender stereotypes. Women faced active and normalised political, social and economic discrimination. 

Mama Cash’s founders

In the early 1980’s there were very few women in formal leadership positions in the Netherlands. Financial institutions doubted women’s entrepreneurial skills and were reluctant to do business with them. More than three quarters of the European Parliament was made up of men (85%, 1979-1984). Homosexuality was still considered an illness, and was criminalised in most European countries. Abortion was criminalised in many European countries, including Belgium, Greece, Portugal, and Romania – where the ban on abortions claimed the lives of almost 10,000 women. But feminists were organising to achieve sexual and reproductive rights, full citizenship rights, to reform legislation on divorce, rape, including marital rape, and to claim the personal as political.  

According to many Dutch feminists active in that time, Mama Cash captured that radical spirit and message of social change. 

Read the full article ‘A legacy of movement building: 
being a feminist fund in Europe’>>

Influencing Philantropy

Persuading others
In the course of her history Mama Cash has influenced other organisations and funders to take the human rights of women and girls more in to account. During the 80s and 90s in the Netherlands she persuaded banks to see women entrepreneurs as valued clients. And during the 90s Mama Cash together with other women’s funds inspired institutional donors to set up their own programmes for women’s rights and gender equality.

In her first strategic plan 2004-2008, She makes the Difference, Mama Cash decided to put more emphasis on influencing the world of donors and philanthropy. Although a clear strategy was not developed at the time, she wanted to persuade others to invest more money in the rights of women and girls.

Helping the government get it right
In 2007, an opportunity appeared to put this plans into action. That same year, the Dutch government founded the MDG3 Fund in accordance with the third United Nations Milennium Development Goal: ‘Equal rights for women and girls in 2015’. Together with organisations such as Hivos, Cordaid and Oxfam Novib, Mama Cash worked to influence the MDG3 Fund’s criteria. While Mama Cash was not eligible for the MDG3 Fund’s subsidies, she was committed to making sure that smaller, marginalised groups within the women’s movement could qualify for the funds. The fund was a great success. Instead of the projected 50 million euros, in the end the Dutch government granted 70 million euros to 45 women’s rights organisations and women’s funds in 2008. Fourteen of them had been grantees of Mama Cash.

Human rights perspective

Lin Chew reviewing applications for the Red Umbrella Fund

In her strategic plan ‘On the Move for Women’s Rights’ (2009 – 2013), Mama Cash systematically described her role as an advocate and advanced the so-called ‘Influencing Philanthropy’ strategy. Her aim is to persuade other organisations and funders to invest more money in the human rights of women, girls and transgender people from the perspective of human rights and from the perspective of changing power relations and to tackle the structural causes of inequality and injustice. Lin Chew, member of the Mama Cash Board: ‘By working from the perspective of human rights you avoid discussions on the moral level, such as “this is good and that is bad”. You don’t have to beg for help, everybody is entitled to enjoy these rights’. (watch interview)

Eye opener
Mama Cash organised, for example, a workshop for the Oak Foundation, addressing the issue of how to evaluate grant requests using a gender lens. Nicky McIntyre, Executive Director of Mama Cash since 2008: ‘Our employees sought to train the Oak Foundation staff how to ask questions such as: “In what way will women and girls benefit from the money requested?” Or: “Why is it that women are not involved in decision making in your organisation?” (watch interview) Kathleen Cravero-Kristoffersson, President of the Oak Foundation : ‘Our staff was very excited. Much of what Mama Cash showed us was an eye-opener to them. We now have the knowledge to pose these questions ourselves to the organisations requesting grants from us. In this way, we can pass on the knowledge to our grantees. We have integreated this way of working into all our programmes’.

Untapped potential

Cover Funding for Inclusion

In 2010, Mama Cash conducted a research study that asked how much money was actually given to women’s and girls’ organisations by 145 foundations from 19 European countries. The results were rather shocking, but at the same time promising. Whereas in 2009, not even five percent of the budgets of European foundations had been dedicated to women and girls, ninety percent of the responding funds did indicate an interest in funding women and girls. The report, prepared by the Foundation Center in the United States and Weisblatt & associés in cooperation with the European Foundation Centre, was therefore titled Untapped Potential – European Foundation Funding for Women and Girls. Subsequently, Mama Cash joined with GrantCraft to develop the guide Funding for Inclusion: Women and Girls in the Equation. This guide outlines practical strategies for integrating a commitment to funding women and girls into grantmaking programmes.

Sharing experiences and expertise
Many organisations still have a long way to go before they will include women and girls equally in the distribution of funding. The philanthropic world is slowly realising how important it is to invest in women and girls. But this story is mostly told in terms of smart economics and not so much in terms of human rights and shifting power relations. Mama Cash will continue to stress the value of a human rights framework for the funding of women and girls and she is ready to share her years of experience in this field with other organisations.

Diversity

Diversity never comes easy
Right from the beginning, Mama Cash tried to maintain a diverse organisation with staff of various ethnicities, sexual orientations, age groups and social backgrounds. Founder Marjan Sax reflects: ‘I’m convinced this was, and still is, one of Mama Cash’s most important achievements. Our younger staff have a different world view and they have different contacts. They use Twitter and Facebook and show Mama Cash from another angle. To the groups requesting grants it is important they are represented in an organisation, understood and welcomed. Every organisation goes through a lot of trouble to maintain this level of diversity. Diversity never comes easy’. (watch interview)

Differences
As women of many and few resources, with and without children, lesbians and heterosexuals, white women and black women, discussions could get heated at times. In the 1980s, the women’s movement in the Netherlands thoroughly debated the differences between rich (known in Dutch feminist circles as ‘Mrs. Philips’) and less well to-do- (‘Mary goes to school’) women, and lesbian and heterosexual women. The term ‘black’ was used by feminists in a political sense to indicate people who were non-white and non-western in their origins. For instance, Turkish and Moroccan immigrants were considered black. Since then Mama Cash has used the term ‘black’ rather than ‘women of colour’, in keeping with the language used over the years by women involved in the diverse Mama Cash community in the Netherlands.

Founders Mama Cash

Founder Lida van den Broek came from a working-class background and often felt the distance between her class and that of the other Mama Cash women. Johanna, a major donor who lived in the countryside and a member of the network of Women with Inherited Wealth observes: ‘Mama Cash was so Amsterdam, I often felt provincial’.

Black and white debate
In the 1980s, the women’s movement had just started to realise that the ‘black and white’ distinction had also created an inbalance of power within its own ranks. When Lida van den Broek was asked to co-found Mama Cash, her one condition was that black women had to be a part of the organisation. Van den Broek: ‘I explicitly wanted to work with, and for black women. I wanted all women in the women’s movement to be represented in Mama Cash’. Tania Leon, a black woman from South Africa, was asked to join the Board, thus completing Mama Cash’s team of five.

Van den Broek and Leon initiated the ‘black and white’ debate within Mama Cash. ‘Breaking the socially accepted, white, western norm’, as formulated in the mission statement of Mama Cash, turned out not to be enough. Black women accused Mama Cash of thinking and acting ‘white’. They did not feel included in a women’s movement that was dominated and determined by white women. Tania Leon left Mama Cash in 1984 because she did not want to remain as the only black woman on the Board, feeling duty bound to keep the black and white debate alive.

Multi-culturalism
Leon’s decision to leave shook up her white fellow Board members. ‘Our differences of opinion kept revolving around the black and white issue’, says Lida van den Broek. ‘One of the problems we addressed was how to become aware of racism, and realise when women were being excluded. For instance, during job interviews, Mama Cash had to be aware of her racial biases’. Tjheng Hwa Tjoa, succeeding Tania Leon as Board member, remembers: ‘Even though we sometimes disagreed, there was a lot of room for debate within Mama Cash. The organisation was involved with multi-culturalism very early on’. Hwa left the Board in 1987 in protest because an article about Mama Cash was to be published in the Telegraaf, a right-wing newspaper. Hwa thought it would undermine Mama Cash’s ties with the left-wing movement, a view not shared by the other Board members.

Choices and concessions
Marjan Sax: ’With so much in-house diversity, we had to find an organisational culture and define feminist policies with which everybody could identify. At some point, we had an African employee who was against abortion and lesbianism. Some women wanted to be seen as a womanist instead of a feminist. For them, the word feminist had a negative connotation, as in their view, it was a term from the West’.

These were delicate matters. Entrenched positions, both among black and white volunteers and staff, tended to get in the way of coping with the differences. Many white women felt a sense of guilt because of the colonial history of the Netherlands and were ashamed of the air of superiority of the Dutch. Some black women referred to their historical role as victims, or struggled with a low sense of self-esteem. These conflicts forced the women of Mama Cash to make choices as well as concessions. Marjan Sax: ‘If we wanted to hire a specific person, we sometimes had to prioritise her colour over her opinions. One time we even published a brochure in which we used the word womanist instead of feminist’.

Priority to the requests of black women

Centre for Surinamese Women and Girls

During those first years, Mama Cash deliberately promoted herself with migrants’ organisations in the Netherlands. From 1984 onward, she had already started to fund many initiatives led by and for black women. The money funded radio and television programmes, March 8^th gatherings, health centres, helplines, festivals, courses and trainings. From 1995 onward, the Guarantee Fund gave priority to requests from black women. In 1997, Novib provided additional financial resources to recruit Turkish, Moroccan and other new entrepreneurs from sub-Saharan Africa.

Workshops on cultural differences
Mama Cash was also consciously looking for women of colour to hire as employees. The first paid employee ever was Jos Esejas, a Dutch Surinamese woman. Women of colour were represented on the Boards of the various funds that made up Mama Cash: the Guarantee Fund, the Culture Fund and the Fund for the Global South. These included Lin Chew, originally from Singapore, and Leila Jaffar from Palestine. Lida van den Broek gave workshops to volunteers and employees on ‘dealing effectively with cultural differences’. Her goal was to create room to work in a different way, based on cultural diversity. Van den Broek: ‘Mama Cash systematically turned her attention to what she first called multi-culturalism and later diversity. We thought this was important’. (watch interview)

Predecessor of diversity

Nancy Jouwe at the Powerlady Festival

The second generation of employees benefitted from the specific focus on diversifying staff. Nancy Jouwe, who became Manager of the Mama Cash Culture Fund in 1998, met at her interview four passionate witty women, both white and black women. Jouwe: ‘Skin colour, to me, is politically and emotionally charged, since I grew up in a family of political refugees. It was clear that consciousness about black and white had its place at Mama Cash. Even though the organisation did not work with quotas, she did make sure that black women were welcomed. I thought it courageous of Mama Cash, not to choose the easiest way out. She was one of the first organisations to embrace diversity. Mama Cash was really ahead of her time, and she did a rather good job’. (watch interview)

No cultural relativism
Mama Cash also had to deal with cultural differences within her worldwide network of advisors. Some matters, however, were not negotiable. Will Janssen, Manager of the Fund for the Global South during the 90s: ‘We did not want any cultural relativism. That was a slippery slope to us. For instance, we did not want to leave any room for doubt about our position on female genital mutilation: we were against it. A country such as Kenya criminalized homosexual relationships. We did not make any concessions there either. If we found out that Mama Cash had been supporting an organisation that refused to include lesbian women, that organisation would have a hard time receiving any more grants in the future’. She adds: ‘Of course it was not only about cultural differences, but also about power relations’.

Difference in power
The next generations of women saw cultural differences as less of a barrier. Jessica Horn, Board member of Mama Cash since 2006, points out that arguments about cultural difference are often used by conservatives to block a conversation about feminism. Horn: ‘It’s not about differences in culture, it’s about difference in power. Progressive women in Africa have their own platforms now, and they set their own agendas within their organisations. Take for instance the African women’s funds, they decide for themselves which issues to fund’. (watch interview)

Image

Mama Cass
The name Mama Cash still tickles the imagination and provokes curiosity. When Jessica Horn, Board member of Mama Cash since 2008, first heard the name Mama Cash, she thought: ‘What a fantastic name! Who is she?’ (watch interview) The name was created by Mieke van Kasbergen, who was working as a taxi driver in Amsterdam at the time. She was part of the extensive group of friends of the founders. The name was inspired by Cass Elliot, singer of the music group The Mamas and the Papas, and affectionately called by her nickname ‘Mama Cass’.

Magnet
‘Mama Cash attracted me as a magnet’, says Will Janssen, who in the beginning of the 1990s first joined Mama Cash as an intern and later as Manager of the Culture Fund and the Fund of the Global South. ‘A fund for women, that was unique. And her independence! Mama Cash invested her own money in the stock and bond market to create more income. This was just not done at that time in the feminist movement’. Janssen was also attracted to Mama Cash’s international scope. This was an essential aspect of the progressive and feminist struggle. In preparation for the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, Janssen visited several countries in the Global South. ‘Mama Cash managed to be known in all corners of the world’, Janssen says. ‘We were only a small fund, but wherever I went, women started cheering with enthusiasm’.

Lilianne Ploumen at Joke Smit Award Ceremony (Photo: Hendriksen Valk)

Joke Smit Award
Despite her pledge not to become a mainstream organisation, Mama Cash became popular with many different groups. She received a lot of media attention and appreciation. Not only was she appreciated by women receiving grants, but also by the general public and the Dutch government. In 1994, founder Marjan Sax personally received the Silver Carnation from Prince Bernhard.  She received the award in honor of her many contributions to the women’s movement, not just to Mama Cash.

In 1996 Mama Cash was awarded the Joke Smit-Award, as a token of appreciation from the Dutch goverment.

Exuberance, creativity and a sense of humour

Idelisse Malave

Among other funds as well Mama Cash took up a special position. Puerto Rico born Idelisse Malavé, member of the Mama Cash Board since 2007, met Mama Cash during a gathering of women’s funds in New York in the 1990s. ‘I thought the name was very catchy, not as oblique as those of some other funds. Mama Cash was playful’, Malavé declares. ‘She combined a serious cause with exuberance, creativity and a sense of humour. Mama Cash was unguarded and anarchistic. The joyfulness of the women of Mama Cash attracted me as a Puerto Rican’. Malavé was not the only one. During the meeting, the women’s funds had set up information stalls. They displayed piles of reports. Mama Cash’s stall, however, presented her information in the form of champagne glasses and other fun goodies. ‘Women swarmed to it, and in no time the table was empty’.

Sax appeal
From 1994 to 2001, Marjan Sax was part of the Board of the American sister fund, the Global Fund for Women. She, too, remembers the difference in style. Sax: ‘Being the ‘bad girl’, I was the one who brought up topics such as the position of lesbian women and sex workers’ rights. After one of our meetings, I invited the party to join me at a lesbian demonstration, a so-called dyke march. In American English, dyke doesn’t only refer to an embankment to prevent water from flowing in; it is also slang for lesbian. Confused, a woman from Nepal asked me where the dyke was. I also took the other Board members of the Global Fund for Women to Good Vibrations, a sex shop for women in San Francisco. This was great fun. They weren’t exactly bewildered, yet they were rather surprised. Compared to Mama Cash, other funds were more cautious. Some would note that Mama Cash had Sax appeal.

A visit from Máxima

Marjan Sax and Máxima

In December 2001, Máxima Zorreguieta, the then fiancée of crown prince Willem-Alexander, visited Mama Cash. She was doing an orientation tour and had shown curiosity about the way that Mama Cash supported women in the Netherlands and the Global South. Ten years later, during a speech for the National Postcode Lottery, the Princess still refers to the ‘most welcome reception’ she had received on that occasion. Mama Cash had become a leading and established organisation.

Mama Cash as a brand
Mama Cash’s first logo clearly captured the founders’ intentions: a cash register’s keys displaying the letters M A M A C A S H. This logo was soon replaced with the possibly less inspiring middle of a statue of a Greek goddess. Sax: ‘Mama Cash’s first logo has always been my favourite. At a certain moment, people thought it ‘old fashioned’ when a logo contained letters. They wanted to have a new logo showing an image. That’s how that silly belly came up’.

Who is S/he?
In 1999, graphic designer Esther Noyons designed the current letter logo and tag line. Below the words Mama Cash, it reads between brackets: (she changes the world). This is how the playful she-brand got started. Other tag lines included (she reports) on the cover of the annual report 1999, (she inspires you) on the annual report 2004, and (she has impact) on the annual report 2005. In 2001, the new house style won the prestigious House Style Award of the Foundation for Graphic Culture. In 2004, the posters for the Documentary Festival with the theme (Who is S/he?), and also designed by Esther Noyons, were purchased by the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum for contemporary art.

Forceful
Her new house style inspired Mama Cash to maintain a high bar in terms of her visual brand. In 2005, for instance, a series of silhouettes of women’s heads in pastels was created. These were used for the 2006 annual report. When developing the new website in 2007, the organisation chose bright colours and photos of powerful women. When executive director Nicky McIntyre took office in 2008, Mama Cash displayed her forceful side. From that moment on, the covers of the annual reports show demonstrating women, loudly and clearly claiming their rights.

Learning and Accountability

No retrospective monitoring
During the first years of her existence, Mama Cash only spent the interest of the loan that founder Marjan Sax had offered at the organisation’s birth. Mama Cash had never been called to justify the way that she spent that money. The 1987–1990 ‘annual report’ declares: ‘As soon as the money is granted, Mama Cash’s work is done. We don’t do retrospective monitoring. We are principally against it. We are not willing to do a police officer’s job by checking whether “the money was spent the way it was intended”’. Women’s groups reported to Mama Cash by sending letters, making phone calls or organising meetings to share their experiences. They would sometimes send books, films or magazines published with Mama Cash’s support.

The monitoring system begins
When Mama Cash started receiving donations from individual donors in the early 1990s and from large private funds and governments during the second half of the 1990s, she had to revise her initial principles. She had to account for every guilder. In 1994, her financial administration was evaluated by an accountant for the first time. During that time, Mama Cash also started setting up a basic monitoring system in which basic information was registered about the way groups spent the money that they had received.

Forms

Lin Chew reviewing applications for the Red Umbrella Fund

The first few attempts at evaluating the way women’s groups spent their subsidies, were not always well-received. Lin Chew, former Board member of the Fund for the Global South: ‘There was a lot of pressure on groups to fill out many forms in order to account for their spending. As an organisation with an office space and employees in a city such as Amsterdam, it is sometimes hard to imagine things elsewhere are organised in a less sophisticated manner. One can justify having high requirements for grant requests. But one can’t expect organisations with few paid employees to meet all those criteria for monitoring their activities’.

Easygoing
Monitoring and evaluation were not Mama Cash’s strong points for a long time. Former Executive Director Lilianne Ploumen: ‘We didn’t have sufficient resources, time or personnel to do so. Being part of the women’s movement, we weren’t keen on having to monitor either. We reviewed requests meticulously, after which we put our trust in the women’s organisations involved. We were convinced of their good intentions’. Luckily, in the 1990s, donors were willing to tolerate Mama Cash’s imperfect reporting skills. They liked working with an organisation that they perceived as innovative and taboo-breaking as Mama Cash.

Making social change visible
During the first years of the new millennium, however, the necessary adjustments had to be made. Evaluation by telling stories had become insufficient. Former Executive Director Ellen Sprenger: ‘Our donors became more demanding. They wanted to see actual results’. But how to make social change visible? And to whose benefit: groups receiving money, large investors or Mama Cash herself? Mama Cash was not the only one to struggle with these questions. Other women’s funds were also facing the prospect of having to make more transparent their results in order to remain eligibile for funding from institutional donors. The Women’s Funding Network (WFN) in the United States then developed an evaluation tool: Making the Case.

First brave attempt
Mama Cash tested Making the Case with her grantees and used it to evaluate groups supported between 2005 and 2008. The evaluation tool, however, turned out not to be fully applicable in practice. Annie Hillar, Director of Programmes from 2008 till 2012, recalls: ‘Many groups were overwhelmed by our questions at the end of a grant period. They didn’t know how to deal with them. The questionaire was an academically written document in English that ran for seventeen pages. Many activists didn’t have sufficient knowledge of English to be able to understand the questions’. The tool also put a strain on the link of confidence between the activists in the field and Mama Cash: What would happen with the information gathered? Who else had access to it? For Mama Cash, it was an impossible task to process the amount of information gathered from the more than 200 groups she was supporting at the time. Hillar: ‘Making the Case was a brave first attempt to make social change visible within a feminist framework. It became evident that we needed a different way of evaluating the groups, one that would benefit all of the parties involved: the activists, the donors and Mama Cash’.

Evaluation part of the grants process

Annie Hillar and Alejandra Sarda

In her new strategic plan, 2009 – 2013 On the Move for Women’s Rights, Mama Cash decided that she would support fewer groups with larger and multi-year grants. Also, evaluation would become an integral part of the process of requesting and granting funds. Annie Hillar: ‘Nowadays, groups request grants from us by submitting a concise Letter of Intent. If we think that we will support a particular group, we proceed by setting up a work plan together. The work plan concerns both the process and the changes and results an organisation wants to achieve. If a group and Mama Cash agree to work together, the work plan, budget and a specific evaluation plan will be part of the contract’.

Learning for Change
During the course of the year, as well as near the end of a group’s grant period, Mama Cash provides the group with feedback at specified intervals. Also, the groups evaluate their own activities by answering questions with which they are already familiar. Hillar: ‘We call this process of evaluating Learning for Change. It does not mean we over-exert groups. On the contrary, the groups experience it as a learning process, while at the same time, they get to demonstrate accountability for their activities. The evaluation has become part of their process. It gives them information about their own development. We do not just ask groups to commit to Learning for Change, Mama Cash herself has to commit to this process of evaluation, too, and to continuously learning about her interaction with the groups’.

Women’s Funds

Revolutionary innovation

Mama Cash workshop in Beijng

The increase in the numbers of autonomous national and regional women’s funds in Latin America, Africa, and Asia during the second half of the 1990s represented a revolutionary innovation in the international world of women’s rights movement. At the 1995 International Conference on Women in Beijing, Mama Cash and several women’s funds from the U.S. organised workshops during which African women in particular accused the West of forcing African countries into accepting a Western capitalist development model. The flow of financial resources from the Global North to the Global South contributed to maintaining the unbalance of power. Mama Cash agreed: ‘Sending money from the North to the South was missionary work, even if we tried to uphold our non-conventional strategies’, founder Lida van den Broek says. ‘The women from the South wanted things to change as much as we did. Women should set up their own funds in the South’.

Ambition
As a consequence, Mama Cash and the U.S.-based Global Fund for Women decided to start financially supporting initiatives focused on the creation of regional and national women’s funds worldwide. ‘Autonomous women’s funds in the regions were still a great dream back then’, Will Janssen, former Manager of the Fund for the Global South says. ‘Local women were better informed about the quality of, and the necessity for, the requests’. From that moment, Mama Cash and the Global Fund for Women dedicated a portion of their money to catalyse and strengthen new women’s funds.

The big sister you never had
‘Our strategy of stimulating women’s funds turned out to be an important development in Mama Cash’s existence, it became our new niche’, former executive director Lilanne Ploumen[Doorklik biografie directeuren] affirms. ‘We had to convince our own financiers of the value of autonomous women’s funds worldwide. Novib was the first to finance our plans, which was a major step forward’. (watch interview)

At first, women’s funds were supported by their sister funds in the ‘North’ with advice and money for overhead expenses. Marjan Sax, one of Mama Cash’s founders: ‘Women started to take responsibility for their money, and learned how to do fundraising in their own countries instead of depending exclusively on donors abroad. This helped them feel proud and independent’. Amalia Fisher, one of the founders of the Angela Borba Fund (now Fundo Social Elas) in Brasil: ‘Mama Cash taught us how to build a fund. We have an equal and respectful relationship. Mama Cash is like the big sister you never had’.

Worldwide network of women’s funds

Semillas

The first women’s fund in the Global South was Sociedad Mexicana Pro Derechos de la Mujer (Semillas), founded in 1990. A few years later, in 1996, Tewa in Nepal was founded. In 1998, during Mama Cash’s 15th anniversary celebration in Amsterdam, an international umbrella organisation for women’s funds was created: the International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF). From that moment, things developed rapidly. By 2001, women’s funds had emerged in South Africa, Ghana, India, Nepal, Mexico, Brazil, Mongolia and the Ukraine. More than ten years later, this worldwide network consists of 45 feminist women’s funds. Each fund focuses on the needs of women in a unique way. But what they all have in common is the will to do their own fundraising, and to decide for themselves which women’s, girls’ and transgender groups to support in their country or region.

Stricter criteria
Mama Cash’s commitment to women’s funds is evident. Since 2004, anywhere between one-fifth to one-quarter of her funds have been dedicated to women’s funds. The 2009-2013 Strategic Plan On the Move for Women’s Rights marked the beginning of a separate portfolio for women’s funds with its own dedicated staff. Mama Cash developed stricter grantmaking criteria, began giving larger grants and entered into much closer partnerships with its partner funds. Mama Cash now assists its grantee partner funds with varied organizational needs such as fundraising, communications and strategic planning. Mama Cash’s goal is to discourage dependence and to build the capacity of national and regional funds to do their own fund raising, both at home and internationally. Some examples of women’s funds supported by Mama Cash:  Semillas in Mexico, the Mediterranian Women’s Fund en the South Asian Women’s Fund.

Coaching each other
Most women’s funds still face problems raising money in their countries and regions. Many people are not used to giving for women’s rights, or to fund women’s organising. To support regional and national funds in their fundraising efforts, Mama Cash launched the ‘Strengthening Local Fundraising Initiative’ in 2011. Through the initiative, women’s funds can work with experts from various fields, such as marketing, communications and fundraising, and also coach each other. Fund staff visit each other to exchange knowledge and experience, and they teach each other how to diversify their sources of income. Antonia Orr of Semillas: ‘People in our country still have many misconceptions about what it is that women’s funds do. We also find it is difficult to raise money for issues such as safe abortion, or support for indigenous women’s groups. We have had other women’s funds visiting us, such as the Women’s Fund in Georgia. We showed them, among others, the importance of investing in donor relationships. In the near future we will visit Mama Cash and the Global Fund for Women. Based on what we will learn from them, we hope to raise more money here in Mexico’.

Women with Inherited Wealth

Network of wealthy women

Marjan Sax en Tracy Gary in 1999

The network of Women with Inherited Wealth was inspired by a model from the United States in which women with inherited wealth are given opportunities to network and deepen their involvement with the women’s movement. During the early 80s, Marjan Sax met feminist philantropist Tracy Gary at a congress in the United States. Gary had founded Resourceful Women, a network for women with inherited wealth. This made Sax think about initiating something similar in the Netherlands. Given that ‘coming out’ as a wealthy woman within the women’s movement was not an option for her at the time, she wondered how she would be able to reach out to these women.

Poster shift
This problem solved itself over time. Marjo Meijer, co-chair of the Mama Cash Board since 2007, was one of the founding members of the Women with Inherited Wealth network: ‘On a February night in 1985, we were postering for the Hooker’s Ball, a part of the First World Whores’ Congress in Amsterdam. I made sure I was alone with Marjan Sax on the Rokin across from the Bonneterie so nobody else plastering posters could hear us. I had heard rumours within the women’s movement that she had financed Mama Cash with the money she had inherited. While very nervous, I asked her about this. She said she knew two other women with inherited money and that she’d love to get together’. That is how it started.

Self-confidence

Marjo Meijer

‘The group for Women with Inherited Wealth was the only place where we could talk about money confidently’, Meijer says. ‘I felt isolated because of my wealth’. ‘People don’t realise that having money not only brings you advantages, but also prejudices’, Marjan Sax adds. ‘Everybody’s dream is to have a lot of money, but nobody knows the downside. Grieving over the loss of your parents, the responsibility that comes with that money, the sense of guilt. Inheriting money is completely unlike earning it yourself’.

Myriam Everard says: ‘I was never taught to deal with money, I had no idea how to manage it’. Together, the women with wealth were able to improve their financial knowledge and their self-confidence. Sax suggested that the group be accommodated in Mama Cash’s office. ‘Mama Cash of course wanted us on board as valuable financial donors’, Everard jokingly says in 2010. Everard became the first private donor to Mama Cash when she donated a substantial sum of money through a multi-year legally binding donation in 1989.

New groups
When Sax revealed in an interview with magazine Vrij Nederland in 1989 that she was Mama Cash’s financier, it became easier to find out about Women with Inherited Wealth. As more women started to join, Marjan Sax decided to initiate a second Women with Inherited Wealth group. Over the years, the number of groups has gradually grown. As of 2012, Sax has convened twelve groups of twelve to fifteen women each. During the first year and a half Sax manages the programme for each newly formed group. After this period, the group members decide if they want to continue meeting on their own. The first group of Women with Inherited Wealth, created in 1985, still gathers regularly.

No complaining          
Johanna, who wants to remain anonymous, is one of the women who inherited her wealth. She always hated the idea of others knowing about her money. ‘I was afraid people and institutions would approach me for financial contributions.’ (watch interview) Myriam Everard adds: ‘I was active in the women’s movement through the Pacifist-Socialist Party. That part of the women’s movement was very inflexible. Money was considered shameful. I did not like always having to account for it’. Johanna: ‘You weren’t supposed to complain. “You’ve got all the money you need”, they would say’.

Icing on the cake

New Server

Over the years, Johanna has donated a total of almost six million euros to Mama Cash. This makes her the largest individual donor in Mama Cash’s history. On Johanna’s initiative, and with her money, Mama Cash set up the Fund for Central and Eastern Europe. Johanna also financed most of the the art exhibitions related to the Mama Cash Art Award. Thanks to her, Mama Cash acquired a new server and new PCs in 1999. As the icing on the cake, Johanna donated five million guilders (2,4 million euros) to Mama Cash in 2000. She intended the money to become a part of Mama Cash’s own capital, of which only the interest was to be used.

Things went differently, however. ‘At the start of the new millenium, our income and therefore our spending experienced a large setback. We had to make some extensive financial cuts’, former Treasurer Louise van Deth recalls. ‘The five million guilder gift meant our survival. We were able to continue what we were doing’. The decision to spend the money in a different way than originally planned caused a breach of confidence between Johanna and Mama Cash.

Next generation

Johanna was also the driving financial force behind the production of five Dutch

who is s/he poster

documentaries focusing on ‘Who is S/he’. The documentaries were shown during the Mama Cash documentary festival in 2004, organised on the occasion of Mama Cash’s twentieth anniversary. Dutch television broadcast three of the documentaries.

Johanna is still part of her group of Women with Inherited Wealth—a safe place where she can discuss her capital. ‘Unlike banks, they are not out to get my money’. Sharing experiences caused her self-confidence to grow. She says: ‘I’m not afraid anymore when people approach me about my wealth. I don’t feel guilty anymore either when I have to say no to them. I am transferring my knowledge onto the next generation, my own daughter, who will inherit my wealth’.

Money as a means for change
Myriam Everard first tried to support the International Information Center and the Archive for the Women’s Movement, now Atria. ‘They did not quite know what to do with me. At the time everybody used to receive government funding. That’s how I ended up with Mama Cash, a brilliant initiative’. Marjo Meijer never hesitated about Mama Cash. ‘Her activities were in line with mine. Mama Cash was on the frontline of investing in women’s rights. Money was used as a means for change, I liked that’. Marjan Sax: ‘By exchanging experiences and knowledge, women took control over their money and started to invest it more consciously. From this perspective the Women with Inherited Wealth was, and still is, a school and a springboard for change’.

Fierce debates
In the early days of Mama Cash, all substantial individual gifts were donations made by women with inherited wealth. Anonymity and privacy are two important conditions for women who donate their wealth. Mama Cash decided to guarantee her generous donors’ anonymity by setting up a separate administrative system to guard their personal information. Mama Cash maintained a high level of personal contact with her wealthy donors, informing them about her activities. She organised meetings in the 1990s to which she invited major donors and offered them the opportunity to participate in deciding which women’s and girls’ groups would receive extra support. This sometimes led to fierce debates. More recently, donors have been invited to come together in groups and to connect via skype with activists from around the world.

Making the difference

25th year jubilee Women with Inherited Wealth

The groups for Women with Inherited Wealth are empowering their members. The women know about each other’s family histories, and they advise each other in difficult situations. ‘Women with Inherited Wealth and Mama Cash made me see that my money is part of who I am. I cannot tell the difference anymore. I am that money’, Marjan Sax says. Everard: ‘Thanks to Women with Inherited Wealth, I extended my own possibilities. I learned one can use one’s money to make a difference’.

Inspired by the lessons learned by the members of Women with Inherited Wealth, from 1997 to 2012 Mama Cash organised financial courses for women. Regardless of their wealth or income, Mama Cash taught participants about financial planning, inheritance law, taxes, investing and donating money, among other topics.

Ahead of her time
The Women with Inherited Wealth network is still well connected to Mama Cash. It makes Sax smile when she hears about expensive fundraising congresses where people gather to find the best way to approach wealthy donors and how to keep them on their side. ‘We developed our own approach, Mama Cash and her Women with Inherited Wealth together’. Like other women’s funds, Mama Cash showed herself to be ahead of the times in terms of engaging with women of wealth.

Abortion

Safe and accessible abortion
During the 1970s, women activists and their allies campaigned for the right to access to safe and legal abortion in the Netherlands. They used the slogans ‘the woman decides’, ‘boss of my own belly’ and ‘remove abortion from criminal law’. After the spectacular occupation of the abortion clinic Bloemenhove in 1976 and years of activism and lobbying, abortion was legalised in the Netherlands in 1981. From that moment, many Christian politicians have been trying to weaken the Dutch abortion law. They want to narrow the time frame in which surgical and medical abortion are legally permitted and reduce the accessibility of the procedures. Despite these efforts, Mama Cash, has received very few requests for initiatives on this issue in the Netherlands.

Leading role

Anti SGP demonstration in 2007

While activists succeeded in changing the law in the Netherlands, there are still many countries in which women have hardly any, or no voice when it comes to preventing or ending pregnancies. In many countries, abortion is illegal, and contraceptives and information on sexuality, safe sex and preventing pregnancies are taboo and are not accessible, or are difficult to obtain. Worldwide, every six minutes somewhere in the world a woman dies because of an unsafe abortion. Mama Cash has supported numerous organisations fighting for the reproductive rights of girls and women. Board member Jessica Horn praises Mama Cash’s persistent role in this field: ‘Mama Cash stayed the course. She always supported the most progressive activists’. (watch interview)

Religious feminists’ activities
Mama Cash as a secular organisation did not initially fund religious women’s organisations, but it decided in the 1990s to support some progressive religious women’s initiatives that advance feminism and women’s rights.

In many countries, the Catholic Church works against women’s rights by influencing lawmakers. In Ecuador, where abortion is illegal unless a pregnancy endangers a woman’s life, Mama Cash supported women to establish an underground clinic offering safe abortions in the 1990s. In 1998, the Federation for Women and Family Planning in Poland received money for education about reproductive rights and abortion. In 2003, Mama Cash supported the feminist organisation Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir Argentina. This feminist organisation of Catholic women disagrees with the dictates of the Vatican on matters related to sex, sexuality and reproductive health and rights. It advocates that women should have access to safe and legal abortion services and affordable and reliable forms of contraceptives.

The abortion boat
Near the end of the 1990s, the Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts asked Mama Cash for help. Gomperts wanted to draw both political attention and the attention of the media to a woman’s right to legal and safe abortion. She was determined to support women’s rights organisations in countries where abortion was illegal, to expose the dangers women face while having an illegal abortion and to force a national discussion about the issue.

Gomperts needed funds to conduct a study about the feasibility of housing an abortion clinic on a ship. In international waters, a Dutch ship would be treated as being in Dutch territory and would only answer to Dutch laws. Mama Cash and members of Women with Inherited Wealth supported Women on Waves, as the initiative was called. At first, they supported the project development and research about the legislative implications. Later they also supported the ship to set sail to countries that prohibited abortion, where crew provided sexual education and offered the abortion pill to pregnant women outside of territorial waters.

Spotlight

Women on Waves in Spain

At the request of local women’s organisations, the abortion boat has sailed to Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Morocco and Spain, among other countries. On several occasions, governments, including the Dutch government, have tried to ban the activities of Women on Waves. The international press has followed every move of the boat, and this put abortion in the spotlight and on the political agenda.

In 2007, the Portuguese organisation Médicos Pela Escolha (‘Doctors for Choice’) received a grant from Mama Cash to train doctors in the provision of abortion care. This came after many successful actions of local women’s groups working together with Women on Waves. Today, both in Portugal and in Spain, abortion is legal. In Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Pakistan, with Mama Cash’s financial support, Women on Waves has helped to set up ‘Safe Abortion Hotlines’.

Online abortion pill
The organisation Women on Web, founded by Women on Waves, set up an online abortion service to help women get the abortion pill, even in countries where medical abortion is illegal. Johanna, a member of the network Women with Inherited Wealth, still has a smile on her face when she thinks about how her donations helped women to get the abortion pill and tricked the authorities and subverted their objections to the abortion boat. (watch interview)

Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuitoin Argentina

Latin America
The movement for the right to safe abortion has been growing in various parts of the world. In Latin America, there are initiatives fighting for both better laws and offering information and services. This way the lengthy political lobbying process continues, while women and girls who need a safe abortion can now get help. In place of a ‘normal’ abortion, the abortion pill may be prescribed as a safe means to terminate a pregnancy. Many of the organisations that start these initiatives are run by young women. For example, the Coordinadora Juvenil por la Equidad de Género in Ecuador and Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuitoin Argentina, both supported by Mama Cash. Their fight for safe and legal abortion is a part of the broader movement to secure women’s rights to bodily autonomy and choice.

Asia and Africa

ASAP Pakistan

In 2008, the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership  was founded with members in fifteen Asian countries. The members of Asia Safe Abortion Partnership have a double strategy as well: they lobby for legal abortion by putting abortion on the agenda of regional sexual and reproductive rights and health movements, and they set up structures and networks that can help women access safe abortion even while legal changes may be long in coming.

In Africa an abortion movement is gathering force. In Gabon, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, the Réseau d’Afrique Centrale pour la Santé Réproductive des Femmes works together with midwives and local women’s groups to provide information and set up an infrastructure for safe abortion. In the meantime, Women on Waves is extending her networks: she has started working together with women’s organisations in Kenya, as well as Uganda and Malawi.

Sex workers

Bridging the gap
At the time of Mama Cash’s founding, prostitution and pornography were most often interpreted by members of the women’s movement solely as forms of oppression and the exploitation of women. (During the 1980s, people mostly used the word ‘prostitute’. After the publication in 1987 of Carol Leigh’s anthology Sex Work: Writings By Women In The Sex Industry, the broader term ‘sex worker’ gained in popularity within the women’s rights movement). Mama Cash’s position was that women in the sex industry have the same right as all other women to sexual and economic self-determination, an independent and legally accepted existence and protection against discrimination and violence. This position has always guided Mama Cash’s activities and has led her to support both Dutch and international sex workers’ rights movements. Over the years, she has managed to bridge the gap between activists in the field and the international donor community and has continued to be a leader in the discussion about sex work.

Margo st James at 1st Whore congress. Photo courtesy Gail Pheterson

Whores Conferences
In the 1970s in France and the United States, the first prostitutes began speaking up against hypocrisy and the denial of their human rights. Colleagues from various parts of the world followed suit. Advocates of the issue, such as the American ex-prostitute Margo St. James and the Netherlands-based American feminist Gail Pheterson managed to bridge the gap between prostitutes and feminists. Instead of being stigmatised, they wanted empowerment. Prostitutes began reclaiming the word ‘whores’, imbuing it with dignity.

In 1985, the International Committee for Prostitutes Rights, together with Mama Cash, organised the First International Whores Conference in Amsterdam. The conference concluded with a Hookers’ Ball in Krasnapolsky. The following year the Second International Whores Conference[foto’s] attracted a lot of media attention from the international press when it was organised by the European Green Party in one of the buildings of the European parliament in Brussels. As part of its support, Mama Cash covered travel expenses of black prostitutes from the United States and feminist allies from countries such as Thailand and the Philippines.

Sex workers are part of the women’s movement
At first, the ‘whores’ movement focused on human rights in the broader sense, but in the 1990s, they explicitly demanded that sex work be acknowledged as actual work, and they began organising for labor rights. The word ‘sex worker’ replaced the more activist ‘whore’.

COSWAS demonstration in 2004

Over the years, Mama Cash has supported numerous organisations for and by sex workers all over the world. Some examples of sex workers’ organisations supported by Mama Cash are: Asociación de Mujeres Meretrices de la República Argentina in Argentina, Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS), in Taiwan, Danayo So in Mali and Zi Teng in Hong Kong. A member of Zi Teng says: ‘Mama Cash’s support meant a lot to us, especially when we first started. Thanks to her support, many other funds were convinced of the importance of our endeavors to take sex workers out of their isolation. Also, Mama Cash introduced us with her partners. To Zi Teng it was important that the subsidy had been granted by a feminist women’s fund: ‘It showed our public that sex workers shouldn’t be excluded from the women’s movement, they are indeed part of it’.

Lin Chew

Sex work versus trafficking
Mama Cash has always explicitly communicated and acted upon its point of view about sex work as well as the trafficking of women. ‘That was very courageous’, activist and former Board member Lin Chew says. ‘Women have the right to choose sex work, but also they have the right to be protected against forced labour and exploitation, both in the sex industry and other sectors. Their human rights are two sides of the same coin’. (watch interview)

In 1987, Mama Cash granted its first subsidy to fight the trafficking of women to the Dutch Foundation against Trafficking of Women (STV). Over the years, Mama Cash has supported numerous conferences on the trafficking of women. Mama Cash also financed the travel expenses of many participants to conferences, such as the gatherings organised by the Thai Global Alliance against Traffic in Women. In Europe, Mama Cash financed, among other organisations, La Strada International, a network of organisations in eight Central and Eastern European countries, as well as CoMensha in the Netherlands, an organisation that focuses on research and provides information on human trafficking.

The Red Umbrella Fund
The Red Umbrella Fund is a unique collaboration between sex workers and social justice funders. It has been housed at Mama Cash since its inception in 2012. The Red Umbrella Fund is a direct result of years of cooperation between sex workers activists, Mama Cash, the Sexual Health and Rights Project of the Open Society Institute (OSI-SHARP), other international donors and the worldwide network of sex workers, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP). The fund works to strengthen sex workers’ rights movements by catalysing new funding for their fight for self-determination, health and labour rights.

Nicky McIntyre, Executive Director of Mama Cash since 2008: ‘Creating this fund is an historical step. The Red Umbrella Fund is shifting the relationship between donors and sex workers. It is generating expertise and knowledge in the field of activism and fundraising for both parties involved. It is strengthening the sex workers’ movement on a scale we previously never could have imagined.’.

ATSMS

Nothing about us without us
The Red Umbrella Fund aims to raise new resources for sex worker rights movements by funding sex worker-led organisations and their national, regional and global networks. The fund embraces the motto of the international movement of sex workers: ‘Nothing about us without us’ and, therefore, sex workers comprise a majority in the fund’s governing bodies. Ana Luz Mamani Silva of the Asociación de Sexuales Trabajadoras Mujeres del Sur of Peru, and also a member of the International Steering Committee of the Red Umbrella Fund: ‘Why would we only be in the streets at night? Sex workers should be actively involved in the decisions that are made about them by parliaments, non-governmental organisations, and funds. They should participate in the discussions that involve decisions about themselves.’

Lesbian women

Challenging the heterosexual norm
Since the founding of Mama Cash in 1983, groups challenging the heterosexual norm have always received Mama Cash’s priority attention. In the Netherlands during the 1970s and the 1980s, there was a lively activist lesbian subculture. Many lesbians were at the forefront of the women’s movement, fighting violence against women, fighting for abortion rights and freedom of sexual choice.

All five founders were lesbians and their activism was deeply influenced by their own experience of discrimination and marginalization. The annual report 1994-1995 states: ‘Mama Cash supports women with a non-traditional and anti-patriarchal lifestyle. By looking at society from a radical point of view, many lesbian groups influence other women’s groups. Lesbian groups are fighting for human rights because they themselves have always had to endure more violence and intimidation than many other groups.’

Commitment

SKUC-LL in 2000

From the beginning Mama Cash supported lesbian activism. In the Netherlands, Mama Cash mainly funded the lively lesbian subculture, like theatre, magazines, archives, pink film days and travelling exhibitions about and for lesbian women. She also supported initiatives focusing on older lesbians. In 1989 the first grant was given to a lesbian rights group abroad: ŠKUC-LL, in Slovenia. It was the beginning of a commitment to significant and consistent support of lesbian rights groups and movements worldwide, which continues into the present.

Invisible
The recognition of the human rights of lesbians and bisexual women is far from assured. The policing of sexuality is a major force behind continuing gender-based violence and gender inequality. Many states, societies, communities and families impose gender and sexual orientation norms on individuals through law and custom. While women and girls often depend on their families and have a symbolic role of bearers of family or community ‘honour’, all women, including lesbians and bisexual women, are supposed to comply with norms about ‘appropriate’ behaviour. They face repercussions if they do not, such as rejection by their families and communities, ‘corrective’ violence by family members, strangers, and those who are supposed to enforce the law, forced marriage, and denial of the right to organise and speak out. These violations are mainly invisible and are not recognised or addressed by society. The effect is that lesbians and bisexual women often do not dare to ‘come out’ and live their lives in secrecy and isolation.

Hurdles
While creating safe spaces, building community and a movement are extremely important for lesbians and bisexual women, invisibility and isolation form substantial hurdles in organising. Additionally, their organisations are threatened to be banned by authorities, declared illegal or are raided by the police. The rise of religious and political extremism makes it increasingly difficult for lesbian groups in countries ranging from Uganda to Ukraine, from the Philippines to Serbia, to organise and do their work.

Rompiendo el Silencio

Finding allies
Lesbian groups around the world are trying to find allies in feminist movements, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movements and human rights movements. And increasingly in the anti-censorship movements that are emerging in response to growing repression in countries like the post-Soviet states and Africa. Lesbians and bisexual women are challenging these movements to include them and their issues.

In many women’s movements being lesbian and openly discussing sexuality and one’s sexual orientation apparently remains a sensitive matter. Lesbians are not always welcomed and that is why the roles of lesbian women within feminist movements vary strongly across regions. Also, lesbian women are often marginalised by LBGT movements, in which men are usually more visible and active. Despite not being openly welcomed everywhere, lesbians in various regions and countries in the world are making huge advances in taking up leadership and changing agendas in the various movements.

Europe
Lesbian activists have played, and continue to play, significant roles in the struggle for abortion rights, anti-discrimination legislation, and equality in marriage and partnership rights. Mama Cash has supported lesbian groups in Eastern as well as Western Europe throughout the years to start their organisations, build and support networks of lesbians and bisexual women, create safe spaces for girls and women of all ages, and engage in advocacy for justice and equal rights.

A particularly strong lesbian feminist movement has developed in South East Europe. Mama Cash supported lesbian groups in the former Yugoslav countries where lesbians play a key role in the building of the feminist movements and are taking up leadership roles in the LGBT movements. Grantees in the new millennium include Labris Belgrade, Novi Sad Lesbian Organisation and Rromnjako Ilo, a lesbian rights group formed by Roma women, all in Serbia. And in Croatia Mama Cash supported the groups Lori and Kontra. Young lesbian feminists also organise within the queer movements, and Mama Cash supported Queer Beograd and the SEE Q Network, a queer feminist network covering South East Europe.

The Commonwealth of Independent States
In the new millennium lesbians from countries from the Commomwealth of Independent States (former Soviet republics) started to organise. Mama Cash provided support in Ukraine to the mixed lesbian and gay organization Nash Mir for their activities for lesbians and bisexual women, and also to Insight, a feminist group formed by lesbians, bisexual women and ‘gender non-conforming feminists.’ Mama Cash gave grants to Labrys Kyrgyzstan, the first lesbian, gay and transgender organisation in Central Asia and the Women’s Initiative Supporting Group in Georgia, which fights violence against lesbians and bisexual women. Recently, new initiatives by queer feminists are being founded and queer women are taking up a central place in the building of a renewed and young feminist movement in the diverse countries.

Latin America

Latin American Lesbian Conference 1987

In Latin America, specifically in Mexico, Brazil and Peru, lesbian groups have been active since the 1970s. They have been fighting for their human rights for decades, despite discrimination and exclusion on all fronts, even from within the women’s movements. In the 1990’s, large conferences by and for lesbian women were organised throughout Latin America and a powerful and dynamic movement of lesbian feminists emerged. Lesbian, trans and other feminist groups, many of them supported by Mama Cash, are working together in alliances, strongly influencing the character of the feminist movements in the region.

Rompiendo el Silencio
Since the mid-90s, Mama Cash has supported a large number of groups in Latin America. For example, the Brazilian Coletivo de Feministas Lésbicas received money to organise a meeting of local lesbian women, and Machada Coelho from Brazil got a grant to conduct research into lesbian women’s experiences with gynecologists.

Culture and art have always been important vehicles for building lesbian movements, one of the groups that received a grant is the Mexican group Nocturnal-les for the publication of lesbian poetry.

In the new millennium Mama Cash supported the Chilean periodical Rompiendo el Silencio (Breaking the Silence), the country’s first lesbian magazine and Desalambrando in Argentina, a group that addresses violence between women living in intimate relationships.

Africa

Coalition of African Lesbians

In Africa, lesbian sexuality remains taboo in the eyes of many feminists. Lesbian women are often excluded from mainstream women’s movements, or are confronted with discrimination within their activist communities.

In many African countries, it is safer for lesbian women to organise within mixed gay and lesbian groups, so Mama Cash has supported women who are involved in mixed initiatives. The Rainbow Project, for instance, received funding in 1999 to organise a Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week in Namibia. The National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality also received support for the organisation of the International Gay and Lesbian Association World Conference that took place in South Africa the same year.

After the turn of the millennium grant making shifted towards autonomously organised groups of lesbian and bisexual women, specifically organisations based in Eastern and Southern Africa. Mama Cash funded the Gunyaki Lesbian Development Group in Kenya to organise meetings and training sessions for lesbian women, as well as the publication of a magazine. Mama Cash has also supported feminist platforms, such as the African Feminist Forum, that welcome a diversity of women and have an explicit political position in support of sexual rights. Mama Cash also gave financial support to the Coalition of African Lesbians, a group of African lesbian feminists that is building alliances across movements in Africa.

GALANG

Asia
In Asia lesbian groups were, and still are, not always welcomed in women’s movements. From the 1990s onward lesbian groups and initiatives began to form in many of the countries all over Asia, with a strong lesbian movement in India and many ground-breaking initiatives in other countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia. One of the greatest strengths of Asian lesbian organising is the continuous growth of national and international networking.

After 2000, Mama Cash gave grants to the Philippino group Gay and Lesbian Activist Network for Gender Equality, GALANG, that works to raise the self-esteem of lesbians, bisexual women and transgender people from the slums of Manilla by building their knowledge about discrimination and human rights. (watch video) GALANG also created a comic book starring Pamboy, a contemporary heroine who has lesbian feelings. Mama Cash also gave grants to the Lala Alliance, which is made up of lesbian groups in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, including the Chinese lesbian group Common Language.