Stories from 2023 by Twisha Mehta

Country outreaches help build connections and understanding. In 2023 it helped increase grant applications from the Pacific, Indonesia, Sri Lanka

2024-02-22 08:33:44 UTC

The Oasis of Reflection convening was a powerful space for rest, sharing, and connection, proving the importance of advocating for and supporting collective care spaces and practices

2024-02-22 08:34:36 UTC

Targeted grants like the sex workers' rights activists grants and Pacific grants helped build solidarity with specific groups

2024-02-22 08:35:10 UTC

2024-02-22 08:35:21 UTC

Resourcing spaces for care is very very important - regional or country/ community based. Oasis + WSC grants

2024-02-22 08:35:28 UTC

Organisational Review and the Strat planning

participatory process
highlights of the review and strat plan thinking

2024-02-22 08:36:16 UTC

Outreach

How we did it differently
Geographic spread and reach - esp across Pacific and how its shown up in our grantmaking and advisor increase
Knowledge products and how we have stayed true to the value of returning learnings back to the communities that shared their knowledge and time with us too, apart from being informative for donors

Transition: Board transition - founding Board members stepped down, new leaderhsip, new strat plan & new directions. Growing team 3 new members last year, 3 more this year. Growth.

2024-02-22 08:36:54 UTC

2024-02-22 08:37:25 UTC

Building our feminist governance muscle
- Board transition for the first time since we began (ie founding board members transitioning out)
- We built the wireframe for our wealth creation and investment work.
Filling color into our collective care dream - Resilience centres + our experiments on building networks of therapists in the region.
Building our collective muscle or adrenalin that stays longer (gosh what a bad analogy!) - long-crises and not just severe ruptures.
sex workers grants - this stands out in our many experiments on diversifying giving / giving for resilience / giving as way of solidarity

2024-02-22 08:38:17 UTC

Org Review and Strat planning process

how we built participatory processes
highlights from our org review
link to our strat plan for the next five year

Resilience Center

2024-02-22 08:38:39 UTC

Experimenting how we can resource women/ nb led spaces and how they can support care for activists and their movements

2024-02-22 08:39:19 UTC

Oasis of Reflection

our first in-person convening of this size and cross-section of activists
modelling care and safety for activists

jyotsnamaskay — 2024-02-22 08:39:24 UTC

The pacific outreach was insightful and a learning marker. Meeting defenders from allowed spaces to understand crisis and what specific needs should be there.

Sex workers' rights grant - meeting activists in person, and understanding the specific needs and priorities and co-desiging together.

avadanlog — 2024-02-22 08:39:38 UTC

The Sister Funds Herstory - how we have seeded our new collective trajectory in feminist crisis response, uplifting the building of collective power. For instance, the increasing visibility of the Sister Funds in donor spaces (Women Deliver after-party), the new donor partnerships we have secured. Would need more reflection to tease out how UAF A&P has contributed to, and impacted by, our collective power.
Risks in Service - The boldness and the risks that UAF A&P has taken - in our programs, in our hiring, in our policies, in our donor relationships etc

3 stories

2024-02-22 08:40:10 UTC

1) Sex workers grant ~ example of creating new offerings based on what we are hearing from movements

2) building wealth ~ our investment plus working with high net worth pple in Australia

3) resilience centre learnings

4) climate / environmental justice mapping

2024-02-22 08:40:25 UTC

Collaborations towards stronger resourcing architecture for Asia and the Pacific

AIR partnership
FLAC?
Any others?

SL outreach

2024-02-22 08:40:54 UTC

We reached deep into the island country to connect with our existing/past grantee partners as well as the broader defenders community to stay updated with the status on the ground after multiple crisis hit the country. It's an experience that testifies our ability to connect with grass root movements through our strong bond with our advisors. It's also an example of how our team demonstrates collective care and emergent learning amongst our staff as the presence of non-grants team members actively supported grants team in the outreach and generated richer learning and reflections.

Experiment with therapists/ counsellors

2024-02-22 08:41:20 UTC

making resources available, connecting with politices/ feminist counsellors - how this can support feminist movements

jyotsnamaskay — 2024-02-22 08:41:37 UTC

Oasis of reflection

set working models for us on how to embed care, joy and connection with activists
worked together as team embracing our differences

Strat plan conv on definitions: interrogation of langugage and concepts - intentionality and rigour in being clear about what we mean when we say words and concepts.

2024-02-22 08:42:09 UTC

CATC

2024-02-22 08:43:00 UTC

SF collaboration towards building global collective care infrastructure, to create our unique offering to feminist movements globalli

risk

2024-02-22 08:43:13 UTC

Strat planning

2024-02-22 08:43:28 UTC

participatory process, audacious visioning of next five years, clarity for the organization as we grow and expand

3 stories for 2023:

2024-02-22 08:44:16 UTC

1) Learning about how outreach is being done in the feminist space in our region and establishing new networks especially in the rural areas of Sri Lanka. Understanding what risk means in different communities and what it means to different groups of people.

2) Collective care and team work during the outreach.

3) Learning more about UAF A&P during the Strategic retreat and meeting the rest of the team including some of the board members for the first time.

jyotsnamaskay — 2024-02-22 08:44:27 UTC

co - designing outreach wiht advisors

co-ownership, solidarity and accountability - pushed for our feminist values of centering defenders at the center and collective care -

WSC

2024-02-22 08:45:13 UTC

expanding our role in collective care rather than just as rapid response provider. significantly more grantees than previous round. more accompaniment will be provided to new grantees

FCRA & india legal review

2024-02-22 08:45:43 UTC

meeting critical needs

2024-02-22 08:46:34 UTC

Experimenting/ expanding "madnate" on Crisis support: pakistan flood, sri lanka

Digital accessibility and security

2024-02-22 08:47:56 UTC

experiment with new platform Hypha to make application easier

security protocol. etc.

2024-02-22 09:50:12 UTC

What about ECJ - was 2023 when we first starting Grant making in this area?