Community Voices Blog

The Stories We Can and Can’t Tell: Five Years of Mapping Human Rights Funding

By Anna Koob (Knowledge Services Manager), Foundation Center and Rachel Thomas (Director of Research Initiatives), Human Rights Funders Network

Advancing Human Rights, a partnership between Human Rights Funders Network and Foundation Center, in collaboration with Ariadne and Prospera, is one of the most ambitious quantitative research projects to date focused on human rights philanthropy. The five years of data featured on the research hub captures almost 100,000 human rights grants from 1,193 funders located… Read more

Data at the Intersections: Advancing environmental and climate justice using a human rights lens

In February, in San Francisco, a group of funders gathered for a day-long discussion of funding trends in human rights. The discussion offered opportunities for a deeper dive into funding shifts, what they mean and what we, as funders, can do to advocate for funding growth where it’s needed. Those of us who use a… Read more

From Dark Ages to Enlightenment: A Magical Tale of Mapping Human Rights Grantmaking

By Mona Chun, Executive Director at Human Rights Funders Network, published April 4, 2018

Once upon a time, back in the old days of 2010, human rights funders were sitting alone in their castles, with no knowledge of what their peers in other towers and castles were doing – just the certainty that their issue area, above all others, was underfunded. Each castle also spoke its own language, making… Read more

Why International Human Rights Funders Still Have a Role to Play in Brazil

By Maíra Junqueira, Deputy Executive Director at Brazil Human Rights Fund

Data from the Advancing Human Rights initiative gives us at the Brazil Human Rights Fund a better understanding of where Brazil is situated in the context of global human rights philanthropy. This knowledge helps us to be more strategic in our work as we consider how to best support civil society organizations and develop domestic… Read more

Are You Over or Under-Protecting Your Grants Data? 5 Ways to Balance Transparency and Data Protection in Sensitive Contexts

By Laia Griñó, Director of Data Discovery at Foundation Center

Over the last few months, this blog has presented insights gained from the Advancing Human Rights initiative’s five-year trend analysis. Getting to these insights would not have been possible had not a growing number of funders decided to consistently share more detailed data about their grantmaking, such as through Foundation Center’s eReporting program. In a… Read more

Where are the Gaps, Opportunities, and Challenges? Comparing funding trends from the women’s funds community

By Augusta Hagen-Dillon, Program Officer at Prospera, published March 8, 2018

Prospera – International Network of Women’s Funds brings together 37 women’s funds located in 33 countries. Together these funds give grants in 173 countries to support organizations, groups, and movements that seek to advance the rights of women, girls, and trans* people globally. They share a set of values and approaches based in feminist philanthropy,… Read more

Funding and Building Power Across Movements

By Yumi Sera, Director of Partnerships and Communications at Disability Rights Fund, published February 21, 2018

  With support from funders and with the groundswell of one billion persons with disabilities demanding their rights, I am confident we can redefine how we talk about rights, inclusion, equity, and diversity. Last week, I was invited to a conversation at the Human Rights Funders Network to give context to five years of funding… Read more

Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals: Are the SDGs living up to their promise to leave no one behind?

By Inga Ingulfsen (Research Analyst, Global Partnerships) and Anna Koob (Knowledge Services Manager) at Foundation Center

Much has been made of the commitment to human rights principles reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals covering a range of social and economic issues to guide the global development agenda through 2030. Rooted in a promise “to leave no one behind” and seeking to “envisage a world of… Read more

A view from London: three questions to answer from the Advancing Human Rights trends data

By David Sampson, Deputy Director at The Baring Foundation

The Baring Foundation is based in London, and two-thirds of its funding goes to organizations in the United Kingdom. When we are thinking about human rights, our focus can often be local: how do we engage with the politics of Brexit to ensure a robust human rights framework? What is the future of the Human… Read more

The Missing Piece of the Puzzle – Using Data to Improve Funding Practice

By Lorena Klos, Communications and Events Manager at Ariadne

Marie Curie once said, ‘’You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most… Read more