Frequently Asked Questions

Women and survivors living in fragile and conflict-affected settings often face some of the greatest barriers to safety, protection, and access to justice. Conflict, displacement, institutional collapse, insecurity, and economic instability can severely weaken support systems and increase vulnerability to violence, exploitation, exclusion, and harm.

At the same time, local women-led organisations and frontline actors are often the first—and sometimes only—source of trusted support available to survivors and communities.

The Fund exists to strengthen these local ecosystems of care, protection, justice, and resilience under difficult conditions.

Access to justice in fragile settings often depends not only on formal courts or legal systems, but also on trusted local relationships, community structures, women leaders, survivor networks, referral pathways, protection actors, and informal support mechanisms.

Justice in these contexts may include:

• legal support;

• protection and safety planning;

• mediation;

• psychosocial care;

• access to services and documentation;

• community trust-building;

• and strengthening institutional responsiveness over time.

The Fund supports practical, survivor-centred, and locally grounded approaches adapted to complex realities on the ground.

Women and survivors may require support relating to:

• domestic and family violence;

• sexual and gender-based violence;

• identity and civil documentation;

• detention or disappearance of family members;

• forced marriage;

• displacement and housing issues;

• access to social support systems and reparations;

• and navigating police, courts, shelters, or administrative systems.

In many settings, legal needs are deeply interconnected with safety, economic survival, psychosocial wellbeing, and community acceptance.

Women-led organisations are often trained to provide survivor-centred and integrated support services. This means that when a survivor seeks help, her needs are understood holistically rather than as a single isolated problem.

For example, a woman may have several overlapping problems:

• her husband may have been missing for several years;

• her child may be at risk of forced or early marriage;

• she is malnourished and psychologically distressed;

• and she is afraid for her and her child’s safety due to her refusal to give her child for marriage.

Rather than addressing only one issue, women organisations work to understand the full situation and coordinate different forms of support accordingly. This may include:

• legal aid and legal advice;

• psychosocial support;

• family or community mediation;

• referrals for food or humanitarian assistance;

• protection support;

• and relocation or referral to a safer environment where necessary.

Women‑led organizations are closest to the problem and the solutions.
Research and humanitarian mapping show that local women’s and women‑led organizations are often the first responders on GBV, access to justice, and community protection, with deep trust and reach into communities that international actors cannot replicate.

In many contexts, women and survivors may feel more comfortable approaching women-led organisations, particularly in situations involving sexual violence, domestic violence, family conflict, stigma, or shame. Women-led organisations are often better positioned to:

• build trust with survivors and families;

• conduct home visits and community-based outreach;

• access women’s shelters, private spaces, and women’s prisons;

• engage sensitively with women and girls in conservative environments;

• and provide survivor-centred support grounded in lived realities and community relationships.

At the same time, this does not mean women-led organisations work only with women. In many contexts, women-led organisations work closely with male colleagues, justice actors, community leaders, family members, and broader community networks. Many also employ men in important operational, legal, protection, coordination, and community engagement roles.

Funding women‑led groups is a leverage strategy.
Global evidence on investing in women‑led entities shows broader social benefits: they tend to reinvest in families and communities, advance gender equality, and create inclusive forms of leadership and accountability that improve outcomes for women and girls. Directing funds to women‑led justice organizations is therefore a way to correct a structural imbalance and unlock outsized impact, rather than to exclude others.

Women and girls often experience distinct and disproportionate forms of violence during conflict, displacement, fragility, and within the family, including sexual violence, domestic violence, forced marriage, economic exclusion, trafficking, and restrictions on movement, education, or participation.

At the same time, “Women‑led” does not mean “only women served.”
The Fund also recognises that violence affects entire families and communities. Many of the initiatives we support aim to restore stability, safety, dignity, and social cohesion within homes and communities more broadly. The Fund may also support responses to violence affecting men, boys, and broader community members where relevant to survivor protection, family wellbeing, and community resilience.

The Fund does not generally operate through open public calls for applications. Instead, we identify organisations through trusted women’s funds and intermediary partners  and our own trusted networks and field relationships. This approach allows us to conduct more context-sensitive, relationship-based, and strategic grant-making, particularly in fragile or high-risk environments.

The Fund typically issues micro-grants of less than USD 5,000 and core grants of approximately USD 20,000 per year.

We may also provide smaller grants in cases of emergency, organisational resilience and capacity-strengthening.

The Fund is designed as a lean model with a preference to enter into co-funding arrangements, and, ecosystem collaboration rather than building large operational structures.

Operational costs of the Fund are supported separately through contributions from Board members, institutional supporters, and strategic partners wherever possible. This allows a substantial proportion of funds raised — often approximately 70% -80% of donor contributions — to be directed toward grant-making towards women led organisations. This is determined by the Board of Trustees.

The Fund recognises that meaningful impact in access to justice and survivor-centred work cannot always be measured through numbers alone.

Impact indicators are developed collaboratively with grantee partners, who are best positioned to assess:

• the realities of their context;

• the needs of survivors and communities;

• the types of interventions required;

• and the forms of impact that are meaningful and achievable within their environment.

Different organisations may pursue different pathways of impact:

• reaching large numbers of people directly (“scale wide”);

• strengthening trust, leadership, institutions, and quality of response (“scale deep”);

• or contributing to policy, institutional, or systems change (“scale up”).

The Fund therefore values both direct survivor reach and longer-term ecosystem strengthening.

Every grant is governed by a written agreement that sets out the approved budget, activities, and any restrictions on how funds can be used. Partners submit periodic narrative and financial reports showing what they did and how funds were spent against the agreed budget, using a standard template. For larger grants, the Fund may review sample supporting documents (such as key invoices or bank statements).