I recently had the pleasure of attending the annual fundraising breakfast for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. This is an organization that I had only heard of recently, but has actually been around for almost 20 years. The mission of the CWF is to raise money to “research and share the best approaches to ending violence against women, moving low-income women out of poverty and empowering girls with confidence, courage and critical thinking skills.” A foundation that focuses on helping women and girls? At the grassroots level? And influenced by research and best practices? CWF, where have you been all my life?!
Getting acquainted with the Foundation has been, for me, a matter of finding out about an exciting, pan-Canadian organization that is actually really doing something for women and girls. Of course, a national organization serving women that is charity-based is a completely different kettle of fish from the publicly funded (and now dead as a doornail) NAC (National Action Committee on the Status of Women). The expectations are different, the politics are different, and the accountability is different.
Yet the criticisms that one can make of charities in general don’t really apply, I think, to the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Sure, you can make the blanket argument that charities prop up our current unequal social and economic system by plugging–and therefore sustaining–gaps that are actually inherent in the model. But in the absence of signs that that system is on its way out (and I mean sooner rather than the long, slow, troubling economic times we’re living in now), it seems to me that throwing my support behind an organization like CWF only makes sense.
After all, they are actively working towards that vision of the future that I have–the kind where women would no longer be the face of poverty, where girls didn’t start the body-loathing campaigns by the time they were seven, where violence wasn’t a reality of the daily lives of so many Canadian families.
Although it is a foundation–an organization that raises and distributes money–and therefore has the appearance of being merely a charity, it’s clear that it’s not. It’s actually a change agent, leading the way in helping Canadian women’s organizations do their work of improving the lives of girls and women. It’s concrete. It’s real. And if you’re looking for a place to put your money where your politics are, I’d suggest CWF might be the place.
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