New $20 Million Fund Aims to End Sexual Harassment Against Low-Income Women

A collection of foundations and the CBS Corporation have banded together to pledge a total of more than $20 million to create the Collaborative Fund for Women’s Safety and Dignity, a five-year program that will award at least $5 million a year to individuals and nonprofits working to promote structural change to end sexual harassment and violence against women and girls in the workplace, schools, health-care facilities, and prisons.

The money will come from the Ford, NoVo, Nathan Cummings, Conrad Hilton, and Open Society foundations as well as the Kapor Center, Unbound Philanthropy, CBS, and three anonymous grant makers.

The CBS Corporation’s contribution was announced in December, along with grants the company is giving to 17 other organizations working to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. CBS’s grants are part of the company’s separation agreement with Les Moonves, its former chief executive, who resigned in September after numerous women accused him of sexual harassment and abuse. CBS’s donation was deducted from Moonves’s severance benefits, according to company statements.

Big Goals

The new fund will be administered by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and will prioritize efforts led by women of color, indigenous women, and migrant women.

Initially, it will focus on efforts to make systematic changes in the United States, but the fund will also back some international programs working to address root causes of workplace harassment and abuse of women, especially those who are poor or indigenous or who are migrants or women of color.

The fund aims to:

• Advocate for public-policy efforts to prevent violence against women in the workplace and create protections for them and accountability for their employers.
• Develop a communications strategy that will include survivor stories, the use of art and other media, and digital campaign efforts.
• Promote community organizing and civic engagement on the topic.
• Create leadership-development programs for such women.
• Support events and other types of meetings that bring together women leaders and activists to share their work and findings.