The Women & Girls Index 2021: Measuring Giving to Women’s and Girls’ Causes

Abstract

Women’s and girls’ organizations appear in every nonproft subsector, spanning causes including education, health, the environment, and the arts. During the past fve years, events like the Women’s March and #MeToo movement have shined a spotlight on gender-related issues such as reproductive rights and sexual harassment and abuse. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice movement, and climate crisis have highlighted inequities—including gender disparities—in the United States and around the world. Despite increased public attention to these issues, the Women & Girls Index (WGI), created by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) in 2019 and updated in 2020, revealed that philanthropic support for organizations dedicated to women and girls makes up a small fraction of overall charitable giving.