SOAR With Us | March 2023 Recap

For our team, March began with a period of rest—something that often feels untenable given the urgency of our anti-violence work. Yet simultaneously, it feels unsustainable for us to move forward without even a brief period of restoration.

By prioritizing rest, our team embraced one of the key findings from our Together We Rise report, which we released six months ago. The report highlighted that frontline workers in the field of gender-based violence (GBV) are undervalued and underpaid, leading to staff burnout and high turnover rates.

This key finding reflects several interconnected factors:

There is a systemic and societal devaluation of the work of healing and care, particularly in the GBV sector.
The current working conditions for GBV frontline workers have a trickle-down effect on survivors and communities.
Furthermore, 40-50% of the staff at GBV organizations are survivors themselves, which means that staff wellbeing must be at the center of our vision for joy, healing, and justice.

At SOAR, we recognize the importance of addressing these challenges by supporting our team and members through rest and Peer Support circles. However, the responsibility for creating a sustainable movement cannot solely fall on organizations.

To achieve transformative change towards ending GBV, we must radically shift how we resource the work—moving away from the overhead myth and towards sustainable funding models. We invite you to learn more below through a curated set of pieces that highlight the critical changes we need in order to move forward.

If this resonates with you as a staff, survivor, or funder, we’d love to connect with you. Find a time for us to meet here!

During Women’s History Month, we heard several clarion calls from movement and philanthropy leaders to expand the minuscule funding for gender justice work. We invite you to read these three pieces to learn more about what must shift in order to resource sustainable and intersectional movements.
The Collective Future Fund Is Expanding Its Long-Term Work to End Gender-Based Violence
By: Martha Ramirez
“Like many other organizations, CFF began awarding rapid-response grants in the early days of the pandemic, but has since begun pivoting toward long-term support for grantee partners, as well as increasing the overall grant dollars it awards.”
Philanthropy Is Dropping the Ball on Gender Justice. Here’s What Needs to Change
By: Jeehae Fischer, Kavita Mehra, Margarita Guzman, R. Nancy Albilal, Yasmeen Hamza and Zeinab Eyega
“In response to the #MeToo movement in 2017, philanthropic interventions to support women and girls increased relative to overall charitable giving, but they still account for a miniscule 1.6%. Philanthropic support for women and girls of color is even lower at a dismal 0.5%, whereas funding for trans communities was reported at a tiny 0.015% in the last decade.”
A Wider Path to Victory Centering Gender Justice
By: Jennie Agmi, Susan Pritzker from the Libra Foundation
“We invite other funders to join us in refocusing their women’s rights work on the broader fight for gender justice…No, it does not mean losing focus on women’s rights. Instead it widens the frame for our work, enabling us to effectively address overlapping crises that include the fall of Roe, the struggle for racial justice, and escalating attacks on trans people.”
Balancing Act: Asian American Organizations Respond to Community Crises and Build Collective Power
By: Building Movement Project
Based on a series of interviews with Asian American leaders on the frontlines of addressing targeted violence over the past three years, this new report provides recommendations, ideas, and resources for organizations responding to community crises while building long-term infrastructure.

Learn more in the together we rise report

One month ago, we held our inaugural summit—convening over 130 leaders across the South Asian GBV movement in the US. Although our summit was closed to our members, the learnings from the summit are crucial to share beyond the members. Check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our visual Summit Recap series below, and watch a replay of the summit here!