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Donor Circle Grants
The Women’s Funding Alliance (WFA) facilitates a giving circle, the Ripple Fund, in which individuals contribute $5,000 to fund specific projects and/or organizations. WFA is committed to making this a successful, educational experience for each member. Members learn first-hand about issues affecting women and girls in our community, participate in the grant-making process, expand their personal philanthropy and extend WFA’s grant-making capacity to more women’s and girls’ organizations. Over the past five years, members have collectively raised and distributed over $134,500.
This year, the Ripple Fund Grants focus on the promotion of safety and prevention of violence towards women and girls with priority given to efforts on prevention, education and community outreach.
2008 grantees include:
Consejo Counseling & Referral Services - $10,000: This grant will fund a pilot project with goals of increasing Latina leadership, education and ability to lead organizations in the field of violence against women, as well as teaching the implementation of community engagement as a viable strategy to decrease isolation of abused Latina women and increase community support. Consejo will organize and implement a series of focus groups or “listening sessions” for women living in identified communities; these include South Park, White Center and Burien. Out of these sessions, Consejo will then identify community engagement strategies that might work effectively with these Latina communities.
New Beginnings - $6,000: WFA funding will support their “Owning Up” groups for girls at Denny Middle School, Pathfinder K-8, Whitman and Meany Middle School. These group sessions are designed to be a culturally competent violence prevention program for middle school aged girls. “Owning Up” is a gender specific, 16 week curriculum incorporating hands-on, interactive activities such as role play, journaling and interviews. Following the 16 weeks, girl participants may also lead an awareness raising, community service project. The goals of these groups include increasing understanding of the elements of gendered violence, increasing problem solving and decision making skills, and shifting attitudes and behaviors in positive way amongst peers and intimate partners.
Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA) - $10,000: These funds will be used to support ReWA’s work to provide extensive refugee and immigrant outreach and mobilization in order to educate about domestic violence and rights of women within the US. Their outreach work engages refugee and immigrant communities in a conversation about violence and works to shift individual attitudes and behaviors as well as community attitudes. Both women and men are being recruited to participate in these conversations. ReWA will use their learning through interactions with Somali and Vietnamese communities to expand its coverage to a larger number of refugee and immigrant communities in the King County area.
Youth Eastside Services (YES) - $10,000: This grant will support YES’s Violence Prevention Programs which address such issues as teen dating violence, domestic violence at home, bullying, harassment, and school violence. These programs are offered to youth in Lake Washington, Bellevue and Mercer Island School Districts. Counselors within these programs work in schools to address incidents of violence with the goal of stopping hostile and violent behavior. They also work to develop students’ problem solving, decision making and social skills by providing education on anger control, conflict resolution and moral reasoning. The programs also assist victims of dating violence as well as training teachers, medical personnel and law enforcement officers to help them identify and prevent youth violence.
For more information about our donor circle program, contact Sara Reyerson at 206-467-6733 or sara@wfalliance.org.
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