When asked about the Collaborative Fund for Women’s Economic Development (CFWED), Ms. Foundation President and CEO Sara K. Gould reminds audiences when the foundation created CFWED in 1990, “women” and “economic development” were rarely used in the same sentence. Since then, CFWED has advanced the fields of women’s self-employment and cooperative business development and, in partnership with 40 foundations, corporations and individuals, leveraged over $12 million in support of grassroots women’s organizations and women’s economic security throughout the United States. 

With CFWED, the Ms. Foundation pioneered the first collaborative fund, a participatory grantmaking model that has been replicated by funders nationwide. In 1999, the Ms. Foundation won a Presidential Award for Excellence in Microenterprise in recognition of CFWED’s accomplishments, and Gould has received numerous accolades for her leadership of CFWED and her role in advancing women’s economic security.

Through four funding rounds (ending in 2008), CFWED identified and awarded grants to organizations working with low-income women to start and grow viable businesses that would significantly improve their families’ lives. CFWED also supported best-practice research and data collection on program effectiveness and impact and delivered capacity-building and peer-to-peer learning opportunities to grantees. The stories of eleven CFWED grantees are featured in the book, Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses.

In the first half of 2008 alone, CFWED grantees reported substantial growth in the programs offered and number of clients served; nine grantees collectively served over 3,600 women entrepreneurs, while one grantee, the Women’s Initiative for Self Employment, served 1,544 clients with a series of bilingual, tiered training programs at several sites in California.  

The Ms. Foundation also leveraged CFWED’s success to deliver additional microenterprise support to groups on the Gulf Coast last year, a precursor to a new Ms. Foundation initiative that aims to strengthen social justice movements and women’s economic security throughout the Southern region.

A diverse group of funders and donors participated in CFWED, including: Citi Foundation, Ford Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Levi Strauss Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Woodcock Foundation.