It’s already 2017 and we feel we barely got the time to pause and reflect on the year that went by. It was a significant year of some key advocacy and engagement moments, fresh content sharing and strategic partnerships. We want to take this opportunity to share a quick recap of how the year was and all that we were able to achieve in it. Enjoy!
Quarter 1: January, February, March
- We welcomed FRIDA’s new and first-ever Board!
- FRIDA’s Resource Mobilization Officer, Nevin, co-wrote a blog on participatory grantmaking, along with members of Disability Rights Fund, Red Umbrella Fund and Wikimedia Foundation.
- To mark International Women’s Day, we highlighted 8 verbs that young feminist activists must perform. FRIDA Co-Director, Ruby, and Comms Officer, Deepa, co-wrote an op-ed for OpenDemocracy on young feminist organizing, with inputs from FRIDA advisors from different parts of the world.
- Former FRIDA advisor Semanur interviewed OpenStadium.
- We published a statement of solidarity #BertaLives in the aftermath of Berta Cáceres’ murder. FRIDA advisor Ayesha Constable wrote about the risky lives of WHRDs.
- We also shared our blog about 2016 being FRIDA’s fifth year!
- We launched FearlesslyFRIDA inviting artists and activists from all over the world to contribute posters and images on the theme of coloring outside the lines. We received and published nearly 40 different posters received from all over the world on our joint tumblr page and shared them via our social media pages.
Quarter 2: April, May, June
- FRIDA was in NYC for CSW! We published an interview with Juliet of Crested Crane Lighters, Uganda. We cross-posted the 2016 Young Feminist Caucus Statement.
- We published an interview with Barbora, FRIDA’s long time supporter and donor to encourage people to pledge their birthdays. We also created a ‘Get Involved‘ section on our website to let our audience know of different ways in which one could contribute to FRIDA.
- On May 17, International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia, we launched our second impact report on LGBTQI issues. At the time of release, it reached over 600 people through our FB & Twitter posts. We also ran our first engagement campaign to generate and share responses from our followers on #feministsolidarity for our LGBTQI friends. We cross posted several messages of support on Twitter. The email had one of our highest open rates and the hashtag #feministsolidarity reached over 77000 users on Twitter with an impression of 305,704. We gained over 50 followers on May 17, mostly from individuals and organizations working in and around feminism, human rights and LGBTQI issues.
- We published a blog by Shazia ‘Young Fijian Lives Matter‘.
- Chapter 1 of FearlesslyFRIDA began in Indonesia.
- We published a statement by LAC advisors on May 28, International Day of Action for Women’s Health.
- We shared a grantee partner update in English, French and Spanish.
- We published our Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Officer Boikanyo’s blog piece about visiting and learning from Copper Rose Zambia.
- We published our solidarity statement with the LGBTQI community as a response to the Orlando shootings in the US.
- We cross-posted our Comms Officer Deepa’s blog published on AWID’s Young Feminist Wire website, as part of #PractiseSolidarity The post reached over 800 people on FB and was tweeted, retweeted several times on Twitter.
- We published our annual report and reflected at 2015 as the year of blooming! Along with our fieldscan report and selfcare article, our annual report has been the most shared content piece by other organizations.
Quarter 3: July, August, September
- We launched our fundraising campaign ‘Feminist Friendship Fortnight’: from July 31 to August 10 and mobilised close to USD 5000. This was also a significant time of acquiring new donors, with donations coming from people who had never donated before.
- We published a photo essay from our birthday celebration and fundraiser event in San Francisco.
- We published Mandarin translations of our grantmaking report infographics and an earlier article on participatory grantmaking, as part of our Chinese outreach.
- We shared details about FRIDA’s engagement at the 13th AWID Forum in Bahia, Brazil.
- We launched our joint fieldscan report with AWID’s Young Feminist Activism Program at the AWID Forum + on our website. Through our social media channels, we continued to share statistics from the report, which have helped us generate maximum engagement and impressions consistently on Twitter and Instagram.
- We shared some #YoungFemVoices as part of those emerging from the AWID Forum: video interviews of Copper Rose Zambia’s Faith & Chouf’s Bochra, viewed over 200 and 150 times on Facebook, a photo essay of our participation at the AWID Forum, FRIDA advisor Sarah’s blog on reproductive rights, Holaa! Africa’s blog on sexual rights and pleasure.
- We published blog post on FRIDA’s working style and principles. Woot! Woot! 🙂
- We published a statement of protest penned by Fe-Male members against Lebanese MP’s misogyny.
- We held an engagement campaign on September 22, Global Day of Action for Access to Safe Abortion, inviting feminist activists to tweet their stories.
- We launched our #FRIDAisFive celebration video made by The Fearless Collective. The Facebook video has been viewed over 4000 times, with over a 100 reactions.
Quarter 4: October, November, December aka our best online engagement period
- We shared stories of our grantee partners working to advance girls rights on International Day of the Girl.
- We published our co-written blog piece on individual and collective self care and how FRIDA practises it. This has been one of our most popular content pieces that was shared the most on social media.
- Chapter 2 of FearlesslyFRIDA in South Africa: most liked and commented on Instagram.
- We published reflections from our grantee partners on attending the AWID Forum.
- We published Gopika’s blog on her visiting and learning from Red Brigade Lucknow, India.
- We shared 16 stories of resistance against different kinds and forms of violence as part of 16Days of Activism #NotBackingDown, during which we also published a statement of solidarity from LAC feminists on International Human Rights Day.
- We took part in a twitter chat on #NationalPhilanthropyDay organized by Foundation for a Just Society. We hit the 10000 follower base on Twitter and over 17000 likes on our FB page! We also had the best Instagram growth period during this time, gaining over 100 followers in a single month. We gained 142 new subscribers during this period: our highest in a single time frame!
- We continued the theme of #NotBackingDown to build stories and narratives of young feminist activist work that FRIDA funds, as part of our End of the Year fundraising campaign. We shared an inspiring poem by Revolt Social Workers to encourage people to donate. This was the most read email on our newsletter during this time. We also extended our fundraising outreach to our Spanish audience for the first time.
- We surpassed our fundraising goal of USD 10000 and were able to raise a total of USD 11,045 in the month of December. In 2016, we raised a total of USD 23,776 with 206 donations: equivalent to resources for at least 4 more young feminist groups to strengthen their activism with FRIDA money. Compared to 2015, the total money raised through individual donations is not just higher in amount but also in the number of individuals who donated.
That’s it, folks! Thank you for helping FRIDA community build and grow bigger, better, brighter and, of course, more colorful. We promise to bring more joy, cheer and reason to celebrate young feminist organizing in 2017.
We love you too!
Hugs,
Team FRIDA 🙂
