Grants for Reproductive Health

NOTE: Organizations that believe they meet these criteria can submit an organizational profile at any time. If your organizational profile falls within our priorities, selection criteria, and funding availability, we will follow up to learn more about your organization. Due to the volume of inquiries, we cannot respond to each organization individually.

Global Fund for Children invests in grassroots organizations around the world to help children and youth reach their full potential and advance their rights.

Our Model

We find.

• We research, explore, and identify innovative groups working with children and youth around the world.

We fund.

• We invest wisely, funding our partners’ life-changing programs for children and youth and keeping a watchful eye on how those funds are put to use.

Together we strengthen.

• We advise, mentor, and guide our partners. We build mutual trust, accountability, and enduring relationships. We provide tools for self-assessment. We support and help our partners grow.

We build networks.

• We connect our partners to each other and to national and regional networks. We bring together brilliant minds to share knowledge, fuel advocacy, and build movements of social change.

And when our partners graduate, we stand proud.

• Our greatest joy comes from knowing that we played a part in helping our partners grow strong enough to continue their important work for children without us.

Eligibility Criteria & Selection Guidelines

At Global Fund for Children, we invite you to join our growing grassroots network if you have shown great potential to improve the lives of children and youth who face poverty, injustice, and discrimination. As we embrace learning and collaboration, we hope you will serve as a model and resource for other community-based partners dedicated to the same big goals.

Focus Areas

Together with our partners, we are building a future where all young people enjoy equal resources and opportunities in society and can live to their full potential.

Our work advances the rights of children and youth across four focus areas and five regions. We have a deep commitment to courageous organizations that support young people facing poverty, injustice, and discrimination.

We support grassroots organizations that are not afraid to tackle the root causes of poverty with innovative, local solutions. Most offer holistic care to comprehensively address the needs of each child. Many become regional and national leaders in children’s rights—raising awareness, influencing policy, and ultimately impacting thousands of children and youth beyond their doors.

Education

Poverty and injustice—and the many hardships that accompany them—deny millions of children the opportunity to learn. We promote the right of all children to access high-quality education, regardless of their circumstances.

Worldwide, 124 million children and adolescents are out of school. Millions more who do attend school do not acquire basic skills in mathematics and reading. And every day, conditions beyond their control—gender, ethnicity, economic status, geography, conflict, disaster—force children and youth to drop out. But giving up on them isn’t an option.

At Global Fund for Children, we believe that educating children and youth is the key to building a more peaceful and just society. When we equip young people with education and skills, we unlock their potential to contribute to their families and transform their communities.

We support education from children’s earliest years to secondary school and on through university or vocational training. We place a strong emphasis on girls’ education to address the current and historical disadvantage for girls, improving access and quality and ensuring that girls have safe, girl-friendly places to learn. For refugees, children with disabilities, child laborers, and more, we prioritize inclusive, innovative educational programming that meets children and youth where they are and addresses their unique needs. For older youth, we support life skills, vocational, and entrepreneurship education so that they are empowered to make smart decisions, build financial resilience, and shape their own futures.

Gender Equity

Young people have the right to protect their bodies, raise their voices, and define their futures. But millions are denied these rights every day. We work to ensure that all children—regardless of their gender or their sexual identity—can be safe, learn, lead, and thrive.

Around the world, girls, young women, and LGBTQ youth—particularly those who are ethnic minorities or refugees, live in rural areas, or belong to other highly marginalized populations—face exclusion, violence, and discrimination. Too often, they are left out of decisions that determine their futures. At Global Fund for Children, we defend the right of all children to live free from discrimination and harmful gender-based attitudes and practices.

We believe that investing in girls delivers invaluable returns to the girls themselves, their families, and their communities, while confronting historical inequalities in societies worldwide. In fact, it’s essential to ending poverty and injustice. We also believe that traditional gender norms limit the full range of possibilities for boys and young men.

Through the work of our grassroots partners, we support girls’ education, sexual and reproductive health and rights, redefining masculinity, and the eradication of gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting. Our strategies engage entire communities—including parents, schools, community leaders, and local and national governments —to work collectively toward gender justice. We equip girls with knowledge and skills that will help them lead independent lives and empower them to become agents of change, while ensuring the men and boys in their lives are engaged in building a more equitable world.

We also support programs that specifically address the needs of LGBTQ youth and help them achieve equal rights around the world.

Our grassroots partners provide shelter to LGBTQ youth who are fleeing violence or persecution, run LGBTQ support groups and summer camps, and offer essential health information and services. Our commitment to gender equity also values advocacy on sexual rights and sexual and gender identity, helping to create a safe and welcoming world for all children and youth.

Youth Empowerment

Right now, the largest youth population in history is coming of age, and most of these young people live in the developing world. It’s a challenge—and an opportunity—we can’t ignore.

According to the United Nations, 89% of the world’s youth live in developing countries. At the same time, youth unemployment is on the rise. And work alone does not mean prosperity: nearly 40% of working youth live in poverty. Together, these challenges pose an enormous threat to our global economic and political stability—unless we seize the opportunity.

By investing in young people, we advance youth rights and work to transform the youth “bulge” into a powerhouse of innovation, opportunity, and social change.

At Global Fund for Children, we empower thousands of youth by equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to lead lives of dignity, purpose, and economic stability. Our approach involves engaging young people who are also the least likely to have access to mainstream education and training, including girls, refugees, young people with disabilities, and youth engaged in hazardous work.

But economic opportunity is only part of the picture. We prioritize programs that advance young people’s political and civil participation and rights; that amplify youth voices, increase their decision-making powers, and raise awareness of their rights and needs; and that empower young people to educate and inspire their peers to act.

Freedom from Violence and Exploitation

All children deserve to grow up free from danger and harm—yet millions are threatened by war, trafficking, violence, and abuse. For survivors and children at risk, we work to bring safety and dignity to their lives.

Children and youth who live outside of mainstream society—and who are therefore most at risk of violence and exploitation—are often overlooked. Physical, psychological, and sexual abuse happen behind closed doors; poverty and inequality make children more vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking; war and community violence uproot children and youth from their homes and families. Their physical and psychosocial well-being is threatened. And too often, cultural norms make it acceptable to ignore their suffering.

Not on our watch. Global Fund for Children is dedicated to creating systemic change to end violence and exploitation for children and to help young survivors rebuild their lives.

Our grassroots partners provide protection and holistic care to trafficked children, migrants and refugees, child laborers, and survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation. They work to secure children’s legal identities—a critical step toward ensuring children’s safety and access to social services. They prevent future abuses by educating the public, training service providers, and combating harmful cultural norms and practices. And by pushing for better laws and policies to protect children and youth, they contribute to a growing movement that will not accept anything less than safety and security for every child.

Established in 1992 by Lisa and Douglas Goldman, the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund is a private foundation committed to providing support for charitable organizations that enhance our society.  Within its grantmaking areas, the Fund strives to be responsive and flexible as well as to make informed and responsible grants to support qualified projects.  We invite you to review the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund’s newly stated Interests and Priorities.

The Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund supports organizations that are making valuable contributions in the following fields:

Democracy and Civil Liberties

• Goal: Ensure informed, active, and equal citizen participation in the democratic process and protect civil liberties from emerging threats (Geographic Area: National).
• Strategies:
• Protect and expand access to voting.
• Ensure political equality for all by reducing the influence of money in politics.
• Strengthen policy and education efforts to prevent gun violence.

Environment

• Goal: Address the environmental impacts of producing, consuming, and disposing of goods.
• Geographic Area: National
• Strategies:
• Advance sustainable industry practices throughout the lifecycle of products.
• Influence market shifts toward environmentally-responsible materials and decreased use of harmful chemicals.

Jewish Community

• Goal: Combat anti-Semitism and discrimination against Israel (Geographic Area: National, with a preference for projects that impact the San Francisco Bay Area).
• Strategies:
• Advance education, advocacy, and communication efforts about the Jewish community and Israel.
• Facilitate cultural exchanges to educate the general community about Israel.

Reproductive Health and Rights

• Goal: Support abortion service delivery training, safety, and clinics.
• Geographic Area: National (and Northern California)
• Strategies:
• Promote activities that increase and improve abortion provider training.
• Protect the safety of abortion healthcare professionals and their clients.

Reproductive Health

Every woman and girl—no matter where she lives in the world—has the right to live with dignity and have a voice in decisions that affect her life.

The Reproductive Health program is committed to promoting reproductive health and rights, with a focus on high quality information and services. We place a special emphasis on engaging and serving youth, and believe that young people have the best potential for building and sustaining a movement of change.

We aim to:

• Improve the quality of comprehensive sexuality education, voluntary contraception, and abortion care.
• Strengthen service delivery, build leadership and advocacy capacity, and shift social and cultural norms to allow women and youth to make their own reproductive health care decisions.
• Forge partnerships with global research and advocacy organizations, especially networks led by youth, and to create positive and effective messages about reproductive health and rights at the regional and global levels.
• We work with reproductive health advocates, researchers, and providers to advance quality sexual and reproductive health information, services, and rights.

Funding Areas

Family Planning/Contraception

Innovations to improve quality of family planning/contraception. 

Abortion Care

Innovations to improve quality of abortion care. 

Youth

Innovations to improve quality in comprehensive sexuality education and adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

The Population and Reproductive health program is not accepting unsolicited proposals, but welcomes your ideas for funding requests.

The mission of the Wallace Global Fund is to promote an informed and engaged citizenry, to fight injustice, and to protect the diversity of nature and the natural systems upon which all life depends.

Our Strategy

Our strategy is shaped by these key trends:

RISE OF GLOBAL CORPORATIST STATE

Henry A. Wallace was deeply concerned by what he saw as the rise of a corporatist state that concentrates power in the hands of the few and wields unchecked authority at the expense of the common good. Corporatocracy, now a global phenomenon, poses a fundamental threat to our political and natural systems.

THREATS TO DEMOCRACY AND RIGHTS

Our systems of government must put people before profits. From unfettered campaign contributions and insidious surveillance in the US to coercion and the suppression of dissent in Zimbabwe, democracy is under assault by those who wish to maintain the privileges enjoyed by the few.

ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE

Climate change caused by unprecedented consumption of fossil fuels and the poisoning of the planet by harmful chemicals have pushed the Earth’s natural systems to the point of collapse, with profound consequences for human health and existence. Rather than reverse the disastrous practices at the root of these problems, corrupt governments seek ineffective technological fixes in order to maintain and maximize corporate profits.

POWER DIFFERENTIAL AND WEAKENED NGOS

Many nongovernmental organizations struggle to achieve impact because of limited resources and dysfunctional governments weakened by powerful economic interests. Real change comes from the power generated by authentic movements of people dedicated to fundamental transformation and represented in decisions that affect their lives. The best NGOs are those that tap into and galvanize such movements, working collaboratively to achieve bold goals.

Priority Areas

Grants are awarded to high quality organizations with strong leadership that are catalyzing significant change in line with the Fund’s priority areas.

Crosscutting themes: 

• Support progressive social movements and their leaders
• Explore and pursue popular culture and music, documentary film and other creative outlets to achieve impact and reach.

Challenge Corporate Power

• Priority 1: Occupy K Street to counter corporate machinery
• Counter corporate lobbyists
• Empower new voices to demand equitable and sustainable policies
• Priority 2: Change the rules of the game to benefit the public good
• Change the global rules, practices and institutions that enable corporate dominance of democracy
• Pressure companies to pay their fair share, protect natural resources, and respect human rights
• Priority 3: Advance a movement for "Accountable Ownership"
• Leverage institutional investors influence to change corporate practices
• Strengthen the field of mission related and impact investing

Defend and Renew Democracy

• Priority 1: Challenge corporate money in politics
• Stanch the flow of corporate spending in politics
• Return democracy to the people
• Priority 2: Protect and expand the pillars of democracy
• Safeguard and expand voting rights
• Push back the right wing's War on Voting
• Priority 3: Strengthen democracy in transitional societies
• Encourage the development of democracy in places where strategic investment by WGF will meet other interests of the Fund

Protect the Environment

• Priority 1: Address climate change
• Break the Fossil Fuel Cartel, divest from Fossil Fuel, Invest in climate solutions, and end dirty energy subsidies
• Priority 2: Empower democratic movement for action on climate
• build local community power to confront corporate dominance (fracking, tar sands, etc.)
• Priority 3: Recognize rights of nature and new environmental human rights
• Confront deep anti-environment bias in our legal and political system
• Frame new rights of individuals, such as access to water and protection for public health

Promote Truth and Creative Freedom in Media

• Priority 1: Protect and expand the channels of public discourse
• Advance media policy activism
• Shift the balance of power away from corporate interest and toward teh common good
• Priority 2: Support progressive independent voices
• Sustain and amplify progressive content
• Support courageous truth-tellers in traditional and new media
• Priority 3: Foster creative use of new media tools to promote progressive change
• Advance innovative uses of new tools to increase effectiveness of organizing efforts
• Leverage creative power to engage people in activist campaigns and shift agendas of topic of concern to WGF

Advance Women's Human Rights and Empowerment

• Priority 1: Advance and protect global reproductive health and rights
• Advance and defend global reproductive health and rights against mounting threats
• Priority 2: Promote the global abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
• Support organizations that promote the global 'abandonment' of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C)
• Priority 3: Illuminate issues affecting women, human rights, and the global economy
• Seek deeper understanding and action on the intersecting issues affecting women in the global economy

NOTE: The Trust Board of Trustees meets four times a year in January, April, July and October to consider grant requests. An eligible request that arrives too late for one meeting will be placed on the agenda of the following meeting. Proposals must be received on the following dates to be included in the agendas noted:

December 1 - January agenda

March 1 - April agenda

June 1 - July agenda

September 1 - October agenda

If any of the above dates fall on a weekend or holiday, the proposal must be received the first working day following the published deadline.

Our Mission

Our mission is to continue and further the philanthropic legacy of Gardner Cowles, Jr. and the Cowles family, which includes promotion of education, social justice, health, and the arts.

The Founder

The Cowles Charitable Trust was first established in 1948 by Gardner “Mike” Cowles, Jr. (1903-1985). Born into the Cowles publishing family of Des Moines, Iowa, Mike was the youngest of Gardner Cowles and Florence Call Cowles’ six children. A newspaper editor and publisher by trade, he was committed to his family’s traditions of responsible, public-spirited, and innovative journalism as well as philanthropy. 

Mike always said that his mother, through her liberal social views, humor, and soft-spoken nature, was his greatest influence. One of the first women in Iowa to earn her college degree, Florence Call made philanthropy her life’s work, beginning by establishing a seed savings bank in her living room to help neighboring farmers through the winter. A strong advocate of women’s reproductive rights and family planning, she supported Margaret Sanger’s mission, including bailing her out of jail on more than one occasion. 

Mike continued his mother’s legacy of activism and was politically engaged both nationally and internationally. The Cowles family was passionate about civil rights and race relations in 20th century America, as demonstrated not only through their philanthropy but also via their trade. In a 1955 speech detailing what makes a great editor, Mike said:

“The greatest editors I know are just like the greatest educators and are successful for the same reason. They are thoughtful men with scrupulous regard for the truth. They are men who strive to stir the best in the human race, not pander to the worst. They are men who dare to lead, even when the direction is temporarily dangerous and unpopular.”

With his brother John, Mike was co-owner of Cowles Media Company. In 1937, he published the first issue of LOOK, a national picture magazine with roots in Mike’s passion for photojournalism and the journalistic innovations that the brothers had implemented at their newspapers. For Mike, LOOK was a visual tool meant to inspire and open the world to its readers; an instrument meant to facilitate one of his greatest passions: education. Of education, Mike stated in a 1949 speech: 

“The only answer to ignorance is education and more education. And I mean more than just the formal education in more and better schools, colleges and universities. I mean more adult education, more public forums, more discussion groups. But above everything else, I mean better newspaper and magazine editing, better news and discussion and debate programs on the radio. And I mean the use of the powerful new medium of television to make people understand and think. Too much thinking nowadays goes on in a bath of noise, because life is so busy, so complex…leaving the common man appallingly confused and misinformed.”

Mike Cowles left to his family a philanthropic legacy that continues to this day. The majority of the Cowles Charitable Trust’s current trustees are Mike’s direct descendants. 

For more information on Mike Cowles and the Cowles family, click here.

Note: The Foundation asks organizations with which it does not have a standing relationship to submit an LOI as the first step in the grant application process. In 2021, this process is for organizations that are new to the Foundation or whose last grant was awarded before 2019.

The Leland Fikes Foundation is a private, grantmaking foundation in Dallas, Texas. Founded in 1954, the Foundation is named for Leland Fikes, a prominent oil and gas executive, real estate investor, and philanthropist.

Funding Priorities

During its early decades, the Leland Fikes Foundation funded a broad array of causes. More recently, the Foundation has intentionally narrowed its focus and now primarily supports organizations concentrated in four major fields.

The Leland Fikes Foundation funds general operations, programs and direct services, advocacy, capital, and capacity building in alignment with our four strategic priorities:

Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice - We support a range of strategies to improve access to reproductive healthcare.

Dallas-Area Human Services

We support our local community though a variety of social service organizations addressing community needs such as housing, food, employment, and physical and mental health.

Progressive Values

We seek to strengthen a free, inclusive, and transparent democracy. This work includes support for public policy, advocacy, litigation, civic engagement, and expanding voting access.

Just as systemic racism and other structural inequities permeate all areas of society, we seek to further equity through all areas of our grantmaking. Applicants should be prepared to share how racial equity informs their program development and implementation. We are committed to listening, learning, collaborating, and deepening our work to combat racism and injustice in each of our stated priority areas.