Many women’s rights organizations in Mexico largely depend on foreign donors to fund their work. However, as shifting donor priorities and other factors lead organizations to diversify their funding sources to include more local donors, the development of individual donors’ programs has emerged as an appealing strategy for mobilizing local support. Women’s funds—and other members of the women’s funding movement—view individual donors’ programs not only as a strategy for achieving greater financial autonomy and sustainability, but also as a way to promote local cultures of philanthropy. This shift also helps to build peer relationships of solidarity between donors and activists.
Mexico is a country with tremendous potential for local resource mobilization. Philanthropy, however, has yet to become mainstream. One serious challenge is cutting through the hopelessness engendered by the current climate of corruption and violence throughout the country. Those who do donate in Mexico tend to channel their giving towards charities that attend to the immediate needs of the “less fortunate”, as opposed to investing in transformative social change processes that won’t be achieved in the short term. The incipient nature of philanthropy in Mexico makes it unrealistic for organizations such as Semillas to attempt to replicate advanced fundraising strategies trending in Northern countries. Instead, we must begin to establish and share best practices capable of achieving results in our own context.
Next year will mark the 15th anniversary of the Network of Women and Men Investing in Women, Semillas’ individual donors’ network. Although this network was groundbreaking when founded in 2001, and has grown to include over 300 members, our recent analysis shows that fundraising revenues have remained stagnant over the past several years (generating approximately one million pesos annually) and have been insufficient when taking into account the costs related to maintaining the network. Upon reviewing this information, we reached an important conclusion—in order to truly be successful, we must move beyond activist circles and other allied donors who contribute modest donations. In other words, it’s time to engage potential high-capacity donors in new sectors of Mexican society.
