The NoVo Foundation said Wednesday it would commit $90 million over seven years to fight inequities faced by girls and young women of color — and it’s inviting young minority women to meetings across the country to share their ideas on how to do it.
NoVo has provided a broad sketch of its goals: support grass-roots advocacy and efforts to change national policies that deal with fundamental barriers faced by young women and girls of color. The foundation aims to support efforts that are “girl-led and girl-driven.”
“Girls and women of color are the experts of their own lives,” Pamela Shifman, NoVo’s executive director said in an interview with The Chronicle on Wednesday. “They have the solutions to the problems they face. They must lead the way.”
The foundation, which had $527 million in assets in 2014, the latest year available, plans to announce a detailed grant strategy in early 2017.
Led by NoVo founders Jennifer and Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the work builds on a push from the White House.
In February 2014, President Obama created My Brother’s Keeper, which combined public, philanthropic, and business support to develop programs to help young black men succeed. A separate nonprofit, the My Brothers Keeper Alliance, was later formed to further the same goals.
Some criticized the approach, saying the focus solely on men and boys was too narrow.
White House support for young minority women followed in March 2015 when Mr. Obama convened a federal working group on the issue.
In November, the White House credited the focus on young minority women for attracting $118 million in private grant commitments to support job training, child support, and research. Most of that support, about $100 million, was pledged by members of Prosperity Together, a coalition of donors created by the Women’s Funding Network.
Local Activists and Leaders
Throughout the rest of 2016, NoVo will host discussions with young minority women and advocates on racial and gender issues in New York City, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., as well as in locations the foundation says have remained “largely isolated from philanthropic attention.”
Ms. Shifman said NoVo will invite local activists and nonprofit leaders to attend and will post information about the gatherings on its website.
NoVo is also a member of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, a consortium that gathers research and news. The group will host a national meeting on May 19 in New York City to discuss the inequities faced by young Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American women.
Nakisha Lewis, senior strategist for safety at the Ms. Foundation, a member of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, praised NoVo for seeking input on its grant-making strategy from grass-roots leaders rather than taking a “top-down” approach.
“This is really beautiful to me,” she said. “It’s a true mark of social-justice philanthropy.”
Since it was founded in 2006, Novo has concentrated mostly on issues faced by girls and young women in the Southern Hemisphere. That work, Ms. Shifman said, “is critical and will continue.”
NoVo’s domestic work on girls and young women gained traction in 2010, when the grant maker pledged $80 million to create the Move to End Violence. Four years later, in a test of the current commitment, the foundation broadened those efforts and began making grants to improve opportunities for young minority women, including transgender youths.
Ms. Shifman said funding for minority girls and young women has always been “underresourced and undersupported.”
But those efforts have benefited from strong leadership, she said, citing several NoVo grantees, including the Say Her Name movement and nonprofits like A Long Walk Home and Girls for Gender Equity.
