Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights

Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights is a global women's fund that protects, strengthens and sustains women and transgender human rights defenders at critical moments. We intervene quickly when activists are poised to make great gains or face serious threats to their lives and work. We use online, text and mobile funding applications to respond to requests from women's human rights defenders within 24 hours and have funds on the ground within 1-7 days.

Through our work, Urgent Action Fund seeks to increase the resilience of feminist movements and contribute to changes in laws, policies and social norms that realize equality and justice for women, girls and trans people.

Urgent Action Fund supports women human rights defenders and strengthens the resilience of women's rights movements in the US, Canada, Turkey, Russia, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, the South Caucuses, and Central Asia by:

(1) Providing rapid response grants. We provide urgent security, evacuation, and relocation grants within 24-72 hours and rapid advocacy grants which support actions that are time-bound/influence public policy.

(2) Building feminist movement capacity through trainings and knowledge exchanges. I.e. Holistic security trainings that cover physical, psychosocial and digital security needs. And convenings that synthesize and share experiences of WHRDS to generate new insights and inform advocacy efforts.

(3) Building alliances between grassroots movements and international mechanisms like the United Nations. Amplifying the voices of WHRDs within the UN and other regional and international platforms holds states accountable for human rights violations.

Since 1997, Urgent Action Fund has provided more than $5 million dollars in rapid grants to more than 800 women's and LGBTI organizations in more than 110 countries worldwide.

As part of this process, Urgent Action Fund relies on a volunteer network of regional Advisors to provide guidance on its grantmaking, security trainings, and regional networking. Regional Advisors consist of leading human rights lawyers, activists, academics, and former grantees from the countries where Urgent Action Fund works.

Urgent Action Fund is led by an activist Board of Directors, who represent communities around the world. Urgent Action Fund's decision-making is grounded in an international, feminist framework. Urgent Action Fund's staff bring with them decades of experience working in international grantmaking to advance the rights of women, girls, and LBTQI people globally.

Since its inception in 1997, Urgent Action Fund has: (1) Awarded over $7.5 million in grants to more than 1800 women's and LBTQI rights organizations in 110 countries. (2) Launched 3 sister Urgent Action Sister Funds: Urgent Action Fund – Africa, Urgent Action Fund – Latin America, Urgent Action Fund Asia & Pacific. Each fund is autonomous and adheres to the same model of rapid response grantmaking to support WHRDs in unanticipated threats or opportunities. (3) Produced 12 major publications, translated into 7 languages, and downloaded more than 10,000 times. (4) Been recognized as a philanthropic industry leader in rapid response grantmaking and thought leader in sustainable women's rights activism. (5) Many of the activists seeking funding from Urgent Action Fund work within authoritarian contexts in which activism is restricted and gender norms deter women's political leadership. Changes to laws and social norms require generations of activists working to bring about lasting change.