Spark Is Joining Forces with Global Fund for Women

Spark, a community of young professionals advancing gender equality, is joining forces with Global Fund for Women.

Spark was started in 2005 to advance gender equality by engaging the next generation in accessible forms of philanthropy. Since 2005, Spark has grown from seven women co-founders to a network of young philanthropists dedicated to investing in women’s causes, with chapters in San Francisco and New York City that have raised more than $1.7 million to improve the lives of women and girls globally. In the last 14 years, Spark grant-making has benefited more than 40,000 women and girls around the world.

The Spark Board stated, “After over a decade of impact, Spark found itself a little too big to keep boot-strapping, and a little too small to support our grantees and members in all the ways they deserve. We are formalizing this relationship with Global Fund for Women now because we are excited about the impact Spark and its supporters can make with Global Fund for Women’s wealth of resources and experience.”

Spark and Global Fund for Women have a long history of collaboration. When Spark was founded in 2005, it modeled its grantmaking after Global Fund for Women. Since then, Spark members have been pooling their resources to give small grants to grassroots women-led organizations, while Global Fund for Women does the same but also provides larger, often multi-year seed investments to similar women-led and focused organizations. Since 1987, Global Fund for Women has invested in nearly 5,000 grass-roots organizations in 175 countries, helping to win rights for millions of women and girls.