The Bridgespan Group: Illuminating Impact: Why Gender Matters for Funders in Any Issue Area (2024)

GCfGE partnered with Echidna Giving, a funder that has supported girls' education for more than 15 years, to help answer a question many funders wrestle with: how do you know if your portfolio is actually addressing gender inequality, not just funding around it?

Together, we built a "gender marker" - a simple qualitative tool that places each grantee on a spectrum from gender-unintentional to gender-transformative - which Echidna now uses every year to see where its work stands and where it can go further. The partnership is featured in Bridgespan's Illuminating Impact: Why Gender Matters for Funders in Any Issue Area, where Echidna's Managing Director Erin Ganju makes the case that real progress means going beyond getting girls into school to shifting the attitudes and norms that keep them out.

Read the case study for a candid look at how one funder turned gender analysis into a practical, repeatable habit and not just a checkbox.