2024
RESEARCH INITIATIVE
Understanding and Supporting the Well-Being of Greater Boston’s Grassroots Organizations Led By and For Women, Girls, and Gender-Expansive Leaders of Color
The Boston Women’s Fund is a leading a first-of-its-kind research effort to surface the strengths, challenges, unmet needs, and collective impact of Greater Boston’s grassroots ecosystem led by and for women, girls, and gender-expansive people.
With our research partners at the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and the Sillerman Center for Advanced Philanthropy at Brandeis University, we are collecting quantitative data and first-person experiences of grassroots, civic, and philanthropic practitioners to produce a comprehensive baseline report on:
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The most pressing persistent and emerging challenges and equity gaps affecting Greater Boston’s women, girls, and gender-expansive residents, particularly low-income, BIPOC, and those from historically marginalized communities.
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The universe of grassroots and civic organizations led by and for women, girls, and gender-expansive leaders, the critical services they provide and financial, operational, and structural barriers they face to growing and sustaining their work.
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The professional and personal well-being of women and gender-expansive grassroots and civic leaders of color, the factors affecting their individual and collective success, and the unique challenges they face and strengths they bring to their work.
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The strength of the civic infrastructure supporting these organizations and leaders, including philanthropic support and funding, capacity building, leadership development, and policy and government support.
Our goals in conducting this research are to: highlight the unique and valuable role grassroots organizations fulfill in Greater Boston’s landscape of nonprofit social services; identify individual and structural barriers they and their organizations face; assess their alignment with and capacity to impact; and, identify existing gaps and opportunities in the policy and philanthropic landscape to better support and invest in grassroots leaders and organizations and address critical intersectional disparities to affect positive change in their communities.
Research began in early 2024 and we will be holding focus groups and interviews from late July through August 2024. We anticipate releasing a report of our findings in Fall 2024.
“The First Responders & The Last Mile: Strengthening the Well-Being of Greater Boston’s Civic & Grassroots Ecosystem Led By and For Women, Girls, and Gender-Expansive Communities.”
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS RESEARCH.
The events of 2020 highlighted what Boston Women’s Fund has known for the last forty years: grassroots leaders and organizations fulfill a pivotal role as first responders to emerging, critical community needs and act as the “last mile” of the social infrastructure, connecting the most vulnerable to lifesaving and sustaining services and opportunities with the trust of shared lived experience.
When the world shut down, these hyper-local networks stepped up to do what large institutions could not do alone: building new systems on-the-fly to provide basic needs, deliver culturally competent health care, and surface new solutions to address generational systemic racial injustice.
While substantial funding pledges were made post-2020, grassroots organizations particularly led by and for women, girls, and gender- expansive individuals of color remain under-resourced and undervalued compared to larger organizations that are disproportionately white- and male-led. More recently, the pull-back in public, private and philanthropic investments in DEI, racial, and gender equity has further eroded critical resources for funding, capacity building, and leadership development, particularly for women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders of color.
We believe this research will provide valuable insights and evidence and offer actionable strategies for BWF and the larger civic and philanthropic community to deepen investment and our collective support for these essential community organizations and leaders.
RESEARCH APPROACH & TOPICS.
Drawing from existing research, new data analysis, and the first person experiences of grassroots leaders and philanthropic practitioners, this research will explore the following themes, topics and questions, among others:
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Changes in community needs and emerging challenges and issues since 2020, particularly for women, girls, and gender-expansive people*.
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Grassroots organizations’ financial wellbeing, operational needs, experiences with funders and donors, and changes in funding, services, staffing levels, and organizational capacity building needs since 2020.
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The various personal, professional, and systemic factors affecting the well-being of women and gender-expansive leaders of color and how well-being has changed since 2020.
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The level and type of infrastructure, financial, capacity-building, and leadership development and support available to grassroots organizations and leaders and how the level of support has changed over time.
*Gender-expansive is inclusive of gender-nonconforming, genderfluid, nonbinary, genderqueer, transfeminine, agender and all trans-identified individuals.
RESEARCH PARTNERS.
To accomplish the goals of this research project, BWF has engaged an external research team with expertise in the issues and topics we seek to explore.
Research & Project Lead:
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Jessica K. Martin is an independent consultant with over fifteen years of experience producing data-driven research and analysis to inform grantmaking, policy, and civic decision making in Greater Boston.
Research Partners:
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Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, under the leadership of Dr. Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, is leading our qualitative research process and will be conducting focus groups and interviews with women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders of color. CWPPP staff are also serving in an advisory capacity on research methodology and analysis.
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Sillerman Center for Advanced Philanthropy at Brandeis University is partnering to support our research into the state of philanthropic, capacity building, and infrastructure support for grassroots organization and leaders as well as serving in a research advisory role.
CONTACT US.
For additional information or questions about the project in general, please contact our Project Lead, Jessica Martin at jessica@bostonwomensfund.org
For questions specific to our focus group series with women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders of color, please contact:
Christa Kelleher
Research & Policy Director
Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, UMass Boston