ember grants

ember grants is sponsored by Women's Foundation for the State of Arizona. Designed to meet organizations where they are, ember supports emerging leaders and smaller organizations building more just and resilient systems across Arizona. These grants provide flexible funding to grassroots and historically excluded communities.

Women's Foundation for the State of Arizona | Arizona Gives Somewhere in Arizona, she's already doing the work. Leading, creating, advocating, surviving, and building something better for everyone around her. She deserves an Arizona that loves her back.

Arizona Gives Day is Tuesday, April 7, and we are asking you to Give for HER. Every dollar goes directly toward the work that moves the needle for women and girls of all identities across this state: What your gift made NOW will support: Lobbying at the Capitol for maternal health and affordable childcare, because those aren't "women's issues," they're Arizona issues.

Standing firm against anti-trans legislation, because the safety and dignity of transgender youth and adults is non-negotiable. Launching a Women's Legal and Self-Empowerment Certification Pilot Program with Innovation4Justice and IAmYou360, training rural Arizona women as Certified Community Legal Advocates, because legal power shouldn't depend on your zip code.

Continuing Unidas, our Youth Leadership Program with RE:Frame Youth Arts Center, because the next generation of changemakers is already here. Deepening our FORGE and ember grant programs, so grassroots and BIPOC-led organizations get the trust-based, flexible funding they actually need. This is systems change.

It's also deeply personal. It's about who gets care, who gets heard, and who gets to lead. She's counting on us.

Let's show up for her. Since the Foundation's inception, we have invested over $30 million to support over 600 programs to date, serving thousands of women and girls in Arizona. WFSA research helps inform people across the state, and the growing focus on advocacy led to WFSA advising the Executive Office and passing legislation that can help hundreds of thousands of Arizonans.

A comprehensive process of research and evaluation ensures that donations from the community are thoughtfully directed to programs that can demonstrate long-lasting impact. The concept for WFSA began in 1991 when two Tucson women, tired of philanthropy's failure to address the economic challenges facing women, decided to take matters into their own hands.

With $20,000, the two launched their idea for a women's scholarship fund in Tucson. This fund evolved into the Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona and was officially incorporated as a nonprofit corporation in 1999.

In 2021, as WFSA celebrated 30 years of impact, we could not ignore what was becoming increasingly apparent: after watching the pandemic destroy decades of momentum for women, it is essential that we scale our work to impact women and girls across Arizona. WFSA announced in October 2021 that we were expanding our scope to include the whole state, and changing our name to The Women's Foundation for the State of Arizona.

WFSA's first statewide grant, the Women & Girls of Color Fund, was launched that same year and was Arizona's first grant specifically designed to support organizations led by and serving women of color. We create social, political, and economic change that achieves equity for women and girls of all identities in Arizona. Nonpartisan research is at the heart of everything we do.

We identify economic barriers and opportunities for women and girls in Arizona to inform our work. WFSA strives to remove systemic barriers facing women and girls through policy change. We write, run, support, and enact legislation that levels the playing field.

Big problems need bold solutions, so we seek to achieve long-lasting systemic change with innovative approaches. We create, pilot, and scale programs like Pathways for Single Moms and Unidas Youth Leadership Program, that empower and uplift women and girls. Organizations that support women and girls are chronically underfunded.

WFSA aims to change that by investing in a wide range of organizations that position women and girls to thrive. Women's Foundation for the State of Arizona 7090 N Oracle Rd Ste 178, PMB 2024 https://www. womengiving.

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