Leonardo DiCaprio was there. So was Naomi Watts, Julianne Moore, Donatella Versace, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Matthew McConaughey, to name just a few of the luminaries who showed up — in couture designs — for a gala at a posh New York event space last week. The occasion, the Kering Foundation’s third annual Caring For Women Dinner, was glitzy, but the cause is serious: combating violence against women.
The Kering Foundation was founded by François-Henri Pinault, the CEO of Kering, a Paris-based multinational company whose subsidiaries include an array of renowned luxury brands, including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga.
As the head of a company with a customer base that is 80% women, and where women make up 60% of the staff, Pinault wanted the foundation, which got up and running in 2008, to support a cause that impacts that population. Since his marriage to actor Salma Hayek in 2009, the foundation has zeroed in specifically on gender-based violence, which affects 1 in 3 women around the globe, according to the World Health Organization. Hayek has championed women’s rights for decades; she is honorary president of the foundation and acts as its spokesperson. Pinault is its chairman; they both co-chaired the recent dinner, along with other stars they’ve recruited to the cause.
Philanthropic funding specifically to address gender-based violence is scarce, as my colleague Martha Ramirez pointed out recently, despite the large number of women who experience it in the course of their lifetimes. A few of the funders that do provide support, along with the Kering Foundation, include the Ford Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Isabel Allende Foundation and MacKenzie Scott. Still, as Ramirez underscored, giving to women and girls’ organizations represents a mere 1.8% of all charitable giving in the U.S. And the fraction intended to address gender-based violence is even smaller, estimated at between $100 million and $150 million per year — and that’s on a global basis.
The Kering Foundation, meanwhile, a global grantmaker that stands out as one of the few corporate funders focused squarely on this problem, appears to be expanding its footprint. The foundation recently gained nonprofit status in the U.S., and now has an office in New York City. It works with on-the-ground partners here and in five other countries where the company operates: France, the U.K., Italy, Mexico and South Korea. Kering supports nonprofits that help survivors of violence, work to change behaviors and attitudes, and promote collective action. In recent years, it has also begun addressing violence against children.
The Kering company also cofounded One in Three Women, a European network of companies that works to prevent violence against women. Since 2008, the Kering company and the Kering Foundation have invested €38 million (over $42 million) to combat gender-based violence.
“Since we started, the Kering Foundation has helped over 1 million women survivors and supported over 100 organizations,” said Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer and head of international institutional affairs for the Kering company, and treasurer and vice president of the Kering Foundation. “We have a 360-degree approach. We speak with boys and men to raise awareness, to prevent violence from being passed on to the next generation. Of course, we have to create shelters. We have to support victims, but also to cut the cycle of violence,” she said.
“Why doesn’t she just leave?”
The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) is the Kering Foundation’s longest-running partner in the U.S. The foundation has backed it since 2016, and the nonprofit has been the beneficiary of funds raised at the Caring for Women Dinner since the event started three years ago.
NNEDV, established over 30 years ago, is an alliance of shelter programs, advocacy groups and coalitions. It provides support for domestic violence survivors, and promotes advocacy and public education to raise awareness of the issue and increase protections for women.
Stephanie Love-Patterson, NNEDV’s president and CEO, pointed to some of the ways the organization uses funding from the Kering Foundation. Many of those who experience domestic violence face economic abuse, as well. “People often ask, when they hear about domestic violence, ‘Why doesn’t she just leave?’” she said. “But economic abuse is so prevalent; perpetrators often control the family bank accounts, and many do what they can to ruin their partner’s credit scores.”
NNEDV provides microloans so survivors can leave an abusive situation, or if they’ve already left, pay off bills, secure housing or get a car. “The loans are small but they make a big difference,” Love-Patterson said. “They help women get on their feet, repair their credit and rebuild their lives.”
Love-Patterson said technology abuse — that is, the use of devices to track, surveil and harass victims — has become increasingly common. Perpetrators often monitor their partner’s online accounts to find out if their partner is seeking help or planning to leave; some find ways to track their partner’s whereabouts if and when they do flee. NNEDV’s Safety Net Project has developed a Toolkit for Survivors that provides in-depth information on technology abuse and ways survivors can protect themselves.
NNEDV also uses the funds from the Kering Foundation to uplift and amplify the voices of survivors. “Organizations like ours can talk all day long about this issue, but survivors’ voices make all the difference. They really do influence policy and legislation.”
One survivor, who told her story during an NNEDV virtual Congressional Briefing last year, said the shelter that took her in when she fled her abusive husband saved her life. She left home with two small children, a garbage bag of clothes, $11 dollars and a car with a broken water pump. In her testimony, the survivor said the first night in the shelter, where she shared a room with a woman she didn’t know and slept in a twin bed with her two little girls, provided the best sleep she’d had in years. “It was sleep without fear,” she said. The shelter provided not just a refuge, but counseling and other resources, so she could figure out her next steps. Today, her two girls are grown and thriving, and she works as an advocate for survivors.
In addition to NNEDV, the Malala Fund is another Kering Foundation grantee. The fund, which was started by activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai, promotes women’s education and leadership around the world. The Malala Fund was a recipient of support funds from Kering’s Caring for Women dinner gala last year, and is an ongoing grantee. The Kering funds support learning alternatives for girls in Afghanistan and advocacy to pressure the Taliban government to reopen girls’ secondary schools there.
“It’s a question of impact and order of magnitude”
This year’s Caring for Women Dinner raised $3 million from table sales, donations and an auction. NNEDV will receive a portion of the funds, along with It’s On Us, which works to prevent sexual assault on college campuses, and Girl Effect, which provides resources for adolescent girls and young women in Africa and Asia, “enabling them to take control of their body, health, education and future.”
For the Kering Foundation, the dinner gala — a fundraising vehicle that admittedly has become something of a sector cliche — does offer an opportunity to introduce and spotlight the work of organizations it supports. And that can mean a lot, especially for a company like Kering, with the ability to draw in A-list celebs who can lend their public platforms to the cause.
“When we work with an NGO, we make a commitment of at least three years — between three and five years, but three years minimum,” Daveu said. “The goal is not to give the money in one shot. It’s a question of impact and order of magnitude.”
In her keynote address at the Caring for Women Dinner last week, actor Viola Davis summed up the critical role women play in a world that continues to tolerate widespread violence against them. “Fifty-three percent of women are the head of households worldwide, and do over 90% of the work,” she said. “They are the dream giver-uppers, the nurturers, the givers of life. So the woman dies, the family dies.”
Then she proposed an alternative: “So what if we all collectively took that grain of light and imagined what this world would look like if it were free from violence against women?”
