ABOUT ADVANCING HUMAN RIGHTS: KNOWLEDGE TOOLS FOR FUNDERS
In 2012, the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG) and Foundation Center, in collaboration with Ariadne and the International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF), released the first-ever data-driven analysis of global human rights grantmaking. This benchmark report, based on 2010 data, was released as part of our Advancing Human Rights: Knowledge Tools for Funders initiative, a multi-year effort to track the evolving state of global human rights funding and to create a set of dynamic, interactive data and research tools to help human rights funders and advocates increase their effectiveness. The definition of human rights grantmaking adopted by the Advancing Human Rights initiative emphasizes funding that seeks structural change in pursuit of the protection and enjoyment of the rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, from the right to peaceful assembly and association to the right to education. It also draws on ideas expressed in more recent international human rights covenants and conventions. Because these rights apply to all populations, regardless of ethnic, gender, or sexual identity or other individual characteristics, particular identity groups are not explicitly referenced within the definition. This definition of human rights grantmaking was mapped by Foundation Center to actual foundation grants data collected by Foundation Center and by IHRFG, Ariadne, and INWF directly from their members. Because this process is objective, grants that met the human rights definition used for this initiative were included regardless of whether foundations may have considered them to be related to human rights. Since launching the benchmark analysis of 2010 data, we have—through 40 presentations and trainings in 10 countries— discussed how to apply and strengthen the research in person with approximately 1,000 human rights funders and advocates. These discussions provided us with several key pieces of feedback: (1) include grants data from more non U.S.-based funders; (2) further refine the frameworks for representing human rights funding to provide a more nuanced representation of the field; and (3) assist funders and advocates in applying the data in support of their work. Over the past year, we have prioritized establishing relationships with additional non U.S.-based funders and strengthening our partnerships with non U.S.-based funder networks. As a result, the number of non U.S.-based funders submitting data has risen from 49 to 69 between 2010 and 2011. This number will continue to grow in the 2012 data set. We also made several changes to the human rights framework used for this analysis to better capture the reality of human rights grantmaking.
These include:
• Dividing the overall category of “Individual Integrity, Liberty, and Security” into two main categories: “Equality Rights and Freedom from Discrimination” and “Expression and Information Rights”;
• Adding an issue category for “Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding”;
• Adding “Voting Rights” as an issue sub-category of “Civic and Political Participation”; and
• Incorporating a population category for “Human Rights Defenders.”
Finally, alongside the publication of this annual update, we are launching a first-ever online, interactive website through which human rights activists, NGO staff, funders, researchers, and academia can access detailed information annually about the state of global human rights funding. The site currently includes data on 2011 foundation human rights grantmaking, and we will add information on bilateral and multilateral human rights giving and 2012 foundation human rights funding in early 2015. Access the site and spread the word: humanrights.foundationcenter.org.
Direct Link to Full 12-Page 2014 Report:
Source: WUNRN, 03. 08. 2015
