This year marks 15 years of FRIDA! A young feminist fund conceived by young feminists who boldly envisioned a dream and brought it to fruition. Now 15 years later, FRIDA continues to deepen its roots in the visions of our origins while embodying the flexibility captured in our name that allows us to move, change and meet young feminists where they’re at.
Over the last 15 years FRIDA has provided long-term support rooted in the sustainability of young feminist movements worldwide.
Over the last 15 years FRIDA has developed an outstanding participatory grantmaking model that has at its heart, in both form and function, centered young feminists and the values of intersectionality at its core. A model that has inspired participatory grantmaking throughout the sector!
Over the last 15 years FRIDA has agitated and spoken truth to power in the philanthropic sector. FRIDA has made great strides in not only advocating for greater resources to be provided to young feminist activists, but also in challenging traditional modes of philanthropy that have failed to embody the role of an ally truly dedicated to the liberation of the constituencies they serve.
Over the last 15 years FRIDA has grown and shrunk, moved backwards, forwards and side to side – always with the heart of young feminists activists with passion, love and care for feminist movement building at the centre
15 years later, the dream and creative vision brought forward by the activists who created FRIDA is still so evident and necessary!
We have a lot to celebrate! But we also have a lot to do. Join us for the rest of the year as we hear from our grantee partners, bring back into the spotlight some of our crucial works, thoughts and ideas, and continue to advocate for the meaningful and intentional resourcing of young feminist activists across the global majority.
FRIDA has seen many phases and embarked on a number of important journeys in its young lifecycle. But by far one of the ones we are most proud of is our participatory grantmaking – from model, to implementation – to evaluation and redesign. FRIDA has been a pioneer in resourcing young feminists with the flexibility, care, intention, integrity and respect they deserve.
What better way to kick off our 15 year celebration, than to revisit our most important ship – Participatory Grantmaking at FRIDA
In 2022 FRIDA launched Resourcing Connections – the culmination of a three year process of documentation and inquiry into our grantmaking model. This report attempts to capture the pieces of FRIDA’s participatory grantmaking process and the vastness of young feminist knowledge and experience. It goes beyond a participatory funding toolkit and instead dives deep into collective reflections about the politics, principles, and values that are built into our participatory grantmaking practice.
This year we are looking back at this milestone project. Together with our Communications and Advocacy and Programmes teams and Mrinalini Godara, our amazing graphic designer for this project, we are offering a revamped design of the report as well as its content. We are reintroducing FRIDA’s grantmaking in various accompanying products to the young feminist pluriverse so our community can choose which aspect of FRIDA’s grantmaking they want to focus on.
You can read about our grantmaking in:
The full Resourcing Connections Report: This version of the report contains a deep dive into FRIDAs participatory grantmaking values and practice; FRIDA’s participatory grantmaking model; a summary of an evaluation of FRIDA’s grantmaking model and concludes with reflections, learnings and possible ways forward.
The Evaluation of FRIDAs PGM model: This version of the report contains the full evaluation of FRIDAs grantmaking practice and model conducted by young feminists activists who have participated in FRIDAs Call For Applications at various levels including as FRIDA staff, advisors and young feminists collectives who have applied for FRIDA funding.
A Summary of the Resourcing Connections report: and contains summary versions of FRIDAs participatory grantmaking model; an evaluation of the model and reflections and possible ways forward. The summary report will soon be available in Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, and French
These lessons, this growth and this work is all done in service of the movements we support. Our continued growth is a love letter to our community.
Join us over the next few weeks as we revisit our grantmaking journey AND share what FRIDA’s grantmaking looks like in 2025!
