Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 20:43:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: DesignbyMH@cs.com

Subject: Re: Semillas - another funding lead

To: artcamp@prodigy.net.mx

This next lead has their web site in Spanish and English.

They also look like a solid lead. Don't hesitate to ask questions.

Melis

http://www.semillas.com.mx/ingles/informe00/informe2000.html

Semillas' Seed Grant Program is the "heart" of the organization.
Its grantmaking is directed to strengthening women's human rights in three project
categories: education, communication, and economic autonomy. Recognizing the need for
a balance between human rights and a healthy environment,

Semillas also continues to explore sustainable development as a project category.
More than half of all grantmaking has emphasized the issue areas of reproductive rights/health and sexual rights
because her is the base on which a woman can take charge of her life and make decisions about her future.
Thus, a group of Mixe-speaking women during a workshop in Oaxaca
translated human rights to mean "that which belongs to me."

Semillas' target population is marginal (poor, indigenous, campesina) and marginalized (lesbians, sex workers) women,
often without access to society's most basic resources, but who have the capacity to solve their own problems.
To date, Semillas' grantmaking has supported 95 projects that have benefited more than 3,000 women in 18 states
in both urban and rural areas. From 1991- 1998 Semillas awarded US$175,000 to 60 projects.
Since 1999 grantmaking funds have nearly doubled to US$320,000 of which US$65,000 is from Mexican donors.

Semillas' model has always been women's empowerment through grantmaking and fundraising:
philanthropy with a gender perspective. Throughout its history Semillas has approved projects and supported them,
more often than not, with funds from sources outside Mexico.
In this sense, it has acted more like a Mexican ngo than a national fund.
And even though the intention was always to build a national donor base,
the fact is that Semillas never had the institutional capacity —the personnel or mechanisms—
that would generate strong donor support.

In Mexico, filantropÃa has a long history of association with church "charity" or asistencialismo,
institutionalized charity that complements the social welfare policy of the State.
Promoting filantropÃa that includes support for social change
and generates needed financial resources from Mexican donors has been difficult for Mexican non-profits.

Even more difficult is Semillas' mission of promoting "philanthropy with a gender perspective,"
a gender aware approach that prioritizes women's needs and interests. If Semillas is to attract Mexicans to its mission
and build a national donor base, it must clearly define what philanthropy with a gender perspective means
and what it can accomplish.

Reflecting on its grantmaking history, Semillas has learned that funds to support women's projects
represent an investment in a long-term process of social change that benefits women.
This concept is illustrated by the Spanish verb invertir which has the double meaning of investing and inverting
—tuurning upside down. From this perspective philanthropy includes not only assistance-type activities,
but also empowering or enabling processes that require long-term investments in women
to strengthen their roles and improve their life, and that challenge the status quo but benefit all Mexican society.
To invest in and with women is to invest in Mexico!

Committed to strengthening the culture of philanthropy in Mexico,
Semillas is organizing a new internal program that will connect women's empowerment and philanthropy investment
in social change that benefits women to the resources that Mexicans have to share.

The goal of the Resource Development Program is to articulate the linkages between Semillas' grantmaking
and fundraising through clear strategies directed to a Mexican constituency. The new program expands the Semillas' model
and reflects a more holistic vision a women's fund that joins givers and receivers in a common task
to make more resources available. A program of this nature addresses not only Semillas' own financial/development needs,
but is a complementary program to our grantmaking sgp.
It seeks to promote Mexican philanthropy as investment in social change
by empowering donors as well as grantees,
by building community partnerships rooted in trust, volunteerism, and accountability.

By funding and assisting women's ngos and grassroots organizations,
Semillas is working at the very base with women who are "democratizing" their local space
by making it more participatory and inclusive. Results from Semillas' recent evaluation show
that women can change patterns of subordination, marginalization, and discrimination through organized collective efforts.

Participation in educational processes and access to communication technology (often in indigenous languages)
can be fundamental forhelping women to understand their rights and basic health needs.
Shared analysis can lead to the search for solutions.
Activities to contribute to family income also develop a sense of self-esteem.

Whether at the community or municipal level, in rural or urban areas, women's organizing, whatever the context,
is making a difference. Women are making themselves the "active subjects of social change"
instead of the passive objects of decisions made by their husbands, movement leaders, or political representatives.
Local governments, under increasing pressures for democratization, can no longer exclude gender equity considerations
when women mobilize themselves to make these issues visible. Semillas' "financial spark" can ignite the fire
that creates the visibility. At this intersection between systemic change to benefit women and philanthropy
with a gender focus, Semillas makes a unique contribution.