The FREE Fund Women Win Women Win is a global multi-dimensional women’s fund guided by the vision of a future where every girl and woman exercises their rights. Our intra and cross sector collaborations with a wide variety of girl’s and women’s rights organisations, feminist groups <(>&<)> activists, community-based organisations, corporations, and government agencies are essential in achieving our vision. The core of Women Win’s work is built on the guiding principle of listening to and leveraging the rich expertise of a global portfolio of local implementing partners, who are deeply rooted in the communities. As a Women’s Fund, Women Win prioritises resourcing women’s rights organisations and feminist groups that are led by local women. Women Win manages and operates five “Funds” internally - from supporting shared governance mechanisms to participatory grantmaking, learning and fundraising.

Even though these Funds are managed internally at Women Win, we do not hold power over decision making or resource allocation. Each Fund has its own governance structure (Advisory Committees, Regional Peer Panels), composed of experts and leaders from the Global South, who design the Fund, and collectively decide on the grantmaking portfolio. The five Funds are as follows: - The ONSIDE Fund (https://www.onsidefund.org) - ONSIDE Gaming (https://www.onsidefund.org/onside-gaming ) - ONSIDE MENA (https://www.onsidefund.org/mena ) - The FREE Fund (https://www.thefreefund.org/ ) - The FREE STEM Fund (https://www.thefreefund.org/what-is-free-stem )We see the FREE Fund as being the most appropriatefor this partnership with Oxfam Novib, because of the topical alignment on women’s economic empowerment.

Women Win’s democratisation of philanthropy work is anchored in the core value that funding to advance girls and women’s rights, which addresses intersectionality, can only achieve its full impact if it is ethical and decolonised. We believe this can only be achieved by reallocating and redistributing power over decisions to people – and their groups and organisations – who are experts in their own work and contexts. Our aim is to continue to democratise and disrupt philanthropic models through participatory grantmaking and shared governance mechanisms. The foundation for this is formed by: (I) Shared Governance; (ii) Participatory Grantmaking; and (iii) Rights-based approach.

The grant parameters for FREE were conceived using the following eight elements: To be economically empowered, girls and young women need to both (1) develop skills that will allow them to earn a living and (2) put these to use in the job market or through entrepreneurship. To do this effectively, they need a healthy enabling environment in their households, communities and broader societies, which includes (3) access to healthcare and contraception, (4) freedom from violence, (5) time, (6) freedom of movement, (7) role models and support networks and (8) financial inclusion. The Advisory Committee adopted and adapted these eight elements for FREE, as the Fund aimed to select groups that prioritised holistic programming.

Women Win is on a continuous journey to becoming a learning organisation. As such, we are committed to creating, capturing and transferring knowledge – individually, within teams and the organisation aswell as with partners and in the movements where we are active. In the past years, we have learned a lot about feminist and participatory grantmaking through experimentation, innovation and courageous risk taking. We are committed to open sourcing those learnings in an effort to move the sector forward, and are keen to share with Oxfam Novib as well. Some of the things we learned include: - Operationally and financially facilitating grantmaking to unregistered groups, collectives, individuals and activists, with a focus on movement building; - Limiting due diligence and reporting requirements for unrestricted grants, while ensuring that regulatory and auditory guidelines are met; - Grantmaking in countries where civil society is closed, repressed, or obstructed by governments. We are always looking to learn more from other organisations within the space. We are fast-growing international organisation, based in the Netherlands. We have been seeking deeper connections with likeminded organisations in the Netherlands, and strengthen our relationships here. We see opportunities in the Netherlands to influence other organisations as well as the government to invest in more democratic and decolonised approaches, and believe that this would be more successful in consortium.