Mama Cash
OVERVIEW: Mama Cash focuses its funding on women’s groups that mobilize for the rights of all women, including society’s most vulnerable women.
IP TAKE: This funder often supports small organizations and those that are not formally registered, so it is particularly good for grassroots grantseekers. Those seeking grants should not be deterred from applying to Mama Cash because of its location in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This is an approachable funder that also invests in organizations that find it difficult to raise grants from larger organizations. Highly accessible and progressive, Mama Cash is also approachable. However, grants are competitive, making this a challenging space to enter.
PROFILE: Based in Amsterdam, Mama Cash has been around since 1983. The idea for Mama Cash grew from a kitchen table conversation between its five women founders. They decided to establish “an international grantmaking organization that supports women and girls around the globe in their fight for equal rights.” The organization’s wide grant criteria embrace a multitude of women’s groups, including sexual and ethnic minorities, adolescent girls, trans people, indigenous women, low-income women, single mothers, women with disabilities, migrant women, sex workers, rural women and women who work in both the formal and informal sectors. The fund focuses its grantmaking on four topics, which address issues of the body, money, voice, and Women’s Funds. The later grantmaking program focuses on groups that are reshaping the “philanthropic landscape for feminist activists.”
Grants for Human Rights, Women and Girls
The fund focuses its grantmaking on the following topics: Body grants are awarded to groups that advocating and fighting for “bodily integrity and autonomy”; Money grants support economic justice for women and girls; Voice grants support groups advocating “direct participation” of women’s groups in the “structures and systems responsible for their human rights; and the Women’s Funds program focuses on groups that are reshaping the “philanthropic landscape for feminist activists.”
Mama Cash typically awards general operating support grants rather than project-specific grants. Amounts typically range from $20,000 to $100,000. Past grantees include the Association for Women’s Rights in Development, Malawi Human Rights for Women and Girls with Disabilities, and the Palaung Women’s Organization. To learn more about the fund’s grantees, explore the foundation’s Who We Support page.
Important Grant Details:
Organizations with annual budgets below €200,000 are eligible to apply for a Mama Cash grant. The foundation accepts unsolicited letters of inquiry once per year and announces its submission deadlines toward the beginning of the year.
PEOPLE:
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