Our Grants
Hulihia/The Prison Writing Project
Our Grants
Women’s Fund of Hawaii is the only foundation in Hawaii with a unique focus on women and girls. Since 2005, we have partnered with 175 community-based organizations to improve the lives of women and girls across the Hawaiian Islands.
The grant making process is our foremost aperture into the needs of the community. Twice annually, Women’s Fund of Hawaii issues requests for partnership, in the spring and in the fall. The Fund believes that responsiveness to what non-profits define as the needs of that community and understanding how those non-profits define success on their own terms is at the core of our own success as an organization.
In evaluating applications, we engage community partners and key connectors in a variety of fields—social services, arts, philanthropy, education—to determine what areas of need might be underfunded and which problem areas may be emerging under the radar to complement the work of larger non-profits in the community. Women’s Fund of Hawaii frequently works with smaller organizations that may be new to organized philanthropy—or these organizations find us—and thus can provide scarce resources where community need is greatest.
Women’s Fund of Hawaii’s research reports on the status of women help us identify where Hawaii’s women are doing well and where we are behind. This knowledge will allow us to craft our grant making to specifically address Hawaii’s areas of greatest need for women and girls.