As one of the country’s premiere women’s foundations, our grantmaking primarily takes four forms:

• Leadership Awards
• Stepping Stones Initiatives
• Giving Circles
• Open Door Capacity Fund

Leadership Awards
This innovative, grassroots grantmaking program is the signature program of Washington Area Women’s Foundation. The Leadership Awards recognize local non-profits that demonstrate innovation and/or measurable success in their services to women and girls.

Led by a team of The Women’s Foundation’s volunteer donors, the 2007 Leadership Awards program focused on health and safety programs. The Women’s Foundation awarded Leadership Awards to eight nonprofits, each of whom received a grant award of $10,000. 

For information on the 2008 Leadership Awards process, sign up for E-news.  For more information, and a list of past recipients, please click here.

Stepping Stones Initiative
In response to the findings in A Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area, The Women’s Foundation created Stepping Stones to help build the economic security and financial independence of low-income, women-headed families. Stepping Stones is the first multi-year initiative of its kind for our region and will be the major focus of our grants and programs for several years. Grantmaking funds are already up and running:

• Financial Education and Wealth Creation Fund
• Jobs Fund
• Strategic Opportunity and Partnership Fund

To complement our grantmaking efforts, Stepping Stones also has community education, advocacy, and leadership development components. Learning and evaluation and technical assistance are also core components. To learn more about how Stepping Stones is changing lives and empowering local women, check out the 2007 Stepping Stones Report! Please click here to read more about Stepping Stones. And don’t forget to download the audio and presentations from the 2008 Stepping Stones Research Briefing!

Current Stepping Stones RFP
The Women’s Foundation is currently accepting grant proposals for Phase 2 of the Stepping Stones initiative (2009-2012).  For more information:

View the RFP as a PDF or as a Word document.

Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Thursday, August 21, 2008. 

For further information, please contact Program Officer Gwen Rubinstein at grubinstein@wawf.org or 202.347.7737 ext. 215.

Giving Circles
Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Giving Circles provide creative and exciting opportunities to engage women in meaningful philanthropy in the region, while cultivating new leaders for The Women’s Foundation and our community. Giving Circles provide a vehicle for like-minded women to pool their money, uncover specific community needs, and decide as a group where to make grants. Each Giving Circle determines both how and where they will make their grants. We currently have two Giving Circles: Rainmakers and the African American Women’s Giving Circle.

Open Door Capacity Fund
The Open Door Capacity Fund helps our Grantee Partners build their organizational capacity and strengthen their work and infrastructure.

The fund is currently open and is requesting proposals.
The following existing Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation are eligible to apply: any previous recipient of a Leadership Award, Rapid Response Grant, V-Day Grant, Portrait Project Grant, Windom Grant, African American Women’s Giving Circle Grant, Rainmakers Giving Circle Grant, and/or a previous Stepping Stones Grant.  Current Stepping Stones Grantee Partners are ineligible to apply.