Jumuiya Women Fund

  • +254 723 329530
  • info@jumuiyawomenfund.org
  • Elgon View, Eldoret - Kenya
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Programme Principles

At Jumuiya Women Fund, our funding strategy is guided by a set of core principles that ensure each project we support not only aligns with our feminist mandate but also drives substantial, long-lasting change. Our grantees are required to embrace these principles in their project execution:

  1. Women-Centered: Every project must prioritize women’s interests, ensuring that their needs and rights are at the forefront of all initiatives. This approach seeks to empower women directly and make them central figures in their communities.

  2. Responsive and Participatory: Projects should be designed and implemented with active participation from the women they aim to help. This ensures that the initiatives are responsive to the real and evolving needs of these women.

  3. Sustainable: Sustainability is crucial. We support projects that promise lasting impacts, capable of continuing and growing without constant external support. Sustainability also encompasses environmental, economic, and social dimensions to ensure projects do not harm the ecosystems or communities they serve.

  4. Strengths-Based: We believe in harnessing the existing strengths and capabilities of women and their communities. Projects should build on these assets to promote empowerment and self-reliance.

  5. Awareness of Micro-Macro Links: Understanding the connection between local actions and broader systemic change is vital. Projects should serve as learning sites where insights gained contribute to wider discourses on gender and development.

  6. Long-Term and Flexible: Flexibility is key to adapting to the complex realities of gender-focused development work. Projects should be designed to evolve over time, responding to new challenges and opportunities as they arise.

At the heart of the Fund’s program model is the belief that an evidence base is needed and that this evidence base must be well documented and widely disseminated if this change is to be systemic. The Fund is committed to long-term partnerships. Where JWF is not able to be a long-term partner it emphasizes the need for exit plans or sustainability plans beyond JWF’s support.

PROGRAMME APPROACH

The JWF is a responsive and flexible donor that provides funding for projects that aim to address the systemic and structural causes of inequality. It takes an organic approach to its grant-making, which acknowledges the complexity and the dynamism of Kenya’s current situation. JWF believes that the best approach to program development is to respond to what emerges from the sector. JWF relies on the guidance of its Board of Trustees, which considers and approves every grant in the context of JWF’s Theory of Change. In practice then, the Fund’s program is designed around its grant making rather than the reverse.