Registration for this Online Panel at the Bottom of the Page 👇 

The challenge of finding unrestricted funding is ubiquitous in every discussion with beneficiary organisations large and small. Is unrestricted funding the way to go? Why are funders finding this so difficult to do?
 
Join us for a conversation with a panel made up of directors of two grant-giving foundations, the director of a Giving Women project and Dr Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah, the CEO of OXFAM to discuss the merits and impact of their Women’s Rights Fund (WRF) which  supports women’s rights organisations (WROs) with flexible, multi-year funding to invest in their own priorities.
 
Katharina Samara-Wickrama, director of Issues Affecting Women Programme (IAWP) at Oak Foundation will be moderating the conversation

Our panelists will be:

Muriel Guigue, Head of Philanthropy, Cartier Philanthropy
Olivia Leland, Founder & CEO of Co-Impact
Amisa Rashid, Founder and Executive Director Nivishe Foundation
Dr Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah,CEO, OXFAM
 

Bios to follow

Katharina Samara-Wickrama - Moderator
A lawyer by training, Katharina began her humanitarian career in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) where she worked primarily on promoting gender equality and the rights of refugee women. Thereafter she set up the first joint NGO programme to prevent and address sexual exploitation and abuse of refugee women and girls, training staff on the issue and conducting investigations into allegations of abuse and exploitation. More recently she led the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership. Katharina is currently the Director of the Issues Affecting Women programme of Oak Foundation supporting initiatives that address violence against women, intra-familial violence and trafficking and exploitation of women. Katharina’s passion is to open spaces for the voices that most often go unheard. Otherwise you can find her dipping in the chilly waters of Lake Geneva or making music with a community of Afro-Brazilian Samba Reggae drummers. Her favourite vegetable is chocolate.

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Muriel Guigue

Before joining the Cartier Philanthropy in 2016, Muriel worked for the last 15 years within UN agencies (UNCTAD, UNOG, ITC) and Foundations (International Cocoa Initiative, Trafigura Foundation and Puma Energy Foundation), and has extensive experience of programme management, with a specific focus on monitoring and evaluation of projects in developing countries. Muriel holds a master’s degree in Political Science and Economics from the University of Grenoble and a diploma in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.

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Olivia Leland

Olivia is the Founder and CEO of Co-Impact, a global philanthropic collaborative for equitable systems change at scale, focused on advancing gender equality and elevating women and girls’ power, agency and leadership at all levels. Olivia has more than two decades of international experience in philanthropy, government, and the non-profit sector. Prior to Co-Impact, Olivia was the founding director of the Giving Pledge – an effort launched by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett to help address society’s most pressing problems by encouraging increased philanthropy. Previously, Olivia worked in microfinance and financial inclusion, and in the areas of strategy development, multi-sector collaboration, and advancing gender equality.

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Amisa Rashid

Amisa Rashid is a counselling psychologist and a mediator specializing in peace building and Trauma Healingcentring her work on Trauma informed resilience for community building. Aiming at reducing conflict and violence in her community, Amisa is the Founder and Executive Director of Nivishe Foundation whose main objective is building community resilient using Trauma informed programs for peaceful social cohesion to her community by creating safe spaces and offering psychosocial support to victims of violence. Being an individual who values inclusivity she has pioneered Nivishe in offering Mental Health services through sign languages which since its commencement has managed to serve 200 individuals with hearing Aid challenges. To have a holistic approach in her field she is also a 2020 IPHRD  (International Peace and Human Rights Development) Africa Fellow as a young woman Mediator Ambassador. She is the also the only Kenyan chosen among 10 participants globally to participate in the 2021 Orygen Global fellowship for young Mental Health Advocates.

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Dr Danny Sriskandarajah
Danny has been Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam Great Britain since January 2019. Prior to that he spent six years as Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He has previously been Director General of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Interim Director of the Commonwealth Foundation and held various posts at the Institute for Public Policy Research. From 2018 to 2019 he was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, and from 2015 to 2016 a member of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Finance. He has been a Trustee of the Baring Foundation, Comic Relief, and International Alert, and a member of the Lead Group of Scaling Up Nutrition.

REGISTER BELOWJoin us in Zurich for a compelling panel discussion featuring the remarkable work of HelpMum and GreenLamp, two organizations at the forefront of improving maternal and infant health in Africa. Discover their innovative strategies and collaborative efforts that are making a difference in the lives of mothers and children across the continent. Engage with the experts, delve into their challenges and successes, and explore how these initiatives are transforming healthcare, empowering women, benefiting local communities, and facilitating cultural changes. 

The conversation will be moderated by Marie-Noëlle Jerschke, Associate Partner and board member at FairCapital and feature:

Corinne Namblard, Advisory Board Member of HelpMum
Christina Blecher, Board Member of GreenLamp
 

BIOS

Marie-Noëlle Jerschke

Marie-Noëlle is Associate Partner and board member at FairCapital, a mission-driven financial intermediary based in Switzerland, providing financing and consulting services to cooperative producers and other actors along the Fairtrade value chain. She is passionate about market-based sustainable solutions to global problems. With more than 20 years of international work experience in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and business development, she has worked several years as an independent consultant and impact investor. Her former employers include JP Morgan in London and Paris, Groupe Danone in France and LOT Airlines in Poland. Marie-Noëlle graduated from HEC Paris with a Master in Management and complemented her education with a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Management at the University of St. Gallen. 

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Christina Blecher

Christina Board Member and the inspiration behind GreenLamp. Christina draws on her wide network to build important relationships and lead vital fundraising. Christina has an overview on all GreenLamp activities and, driven by her passion for social justice, she leads with determination and an acute sense of responsibility for all that they do.

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Corinne Namblard

Corinne has been a Board member at HelpMum Nigeria since 2019.She first met with Dr Abiodun Adereni, the Founder of HelpMum in 2018 in Geneva as she was the member of an international jury for the first edition of the UNDP "Start-Ups for SDGs" award. Which HelpMum won. She brings to HelpMum her financial skills and expertise on strategy and governance as well as her international network of contacts. 
Corinne currently sits on the Brussels Airport board, the Conseil Scientifique of TPM in Toulon as well as on the TAC Technical Advisory Committee of Geneva based Nature Based Infrastructure, an ISSD Think Tank. She is the former CEO of a Private Equity fund dedicated to infrastructure and has developed over her 40 years international financial career a portfolio of board and senior corporate and banking executive roles, government advisory and UN Senior Expert roles.

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the need to challenge the colonial underpinnings of philanthropic practices and shift power dynamics towards those directly impacted by funding decisions. This imperative undertaking of decolonizing development, grant-making, and philanthropy is an ambitious task, and one that requires a great deal of sectoral reflection, awareness and willingness to effect change by listening to the needs and realities of the beneficiaries.
Decolonizing philanthropy entails reevaluating where decision-making power resides and ensuring that those who have benefited less from historical wealth creation are given agency/power to shape the programs and initiatives that affect them. It requires acknowledging and respecting the cultural realities and contexts within which these partnerships operate, moving away from top-down approaches that prioritize funder perspectives. As we seek to repair the damages of wealth creation and forge a more equitable path forward, it is crucial to learn from the experiences of both philanthropists and implementers in navigating and rebalancing power dynamics.

This panel hosted by Giving Women will bring together funders, local implementing partners and advisors, to unpack tangible examples and best practices around how we can all work together, to take actionable steps to make progress. This includes reflecting on what has worked well, as well as acknowledging failures and areas for improvement.

Takhani Bonnet, Giving Women member and independent consultant for private sector philanthropy and sustainable investing will moderate the conversation with:

Alishia Fernandez Miranda: Founder and Chair, I. G. Advisors 
Dr. Abiodun Adereni: Founder & CEO, HelpMum Africa
GAURI MAHENDRA, CO-founder, UMEED
Susan Snider: Vice President of Strategy, Innovation and Impact, Equality Fund
 

BIOS
Takhani Bonnet

Giving Women member and independent consultant for private sector philanthropy and sustainable investing; most recently, with the United Nations, Edmond de Rothchild Banque Privee and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. 

 
Alisha Fernandez Miranda
 
Alisha has dedicated her career to fixing the resource flow to make social impact a more inclusive, efficient space. She serves as Chair and former CEO of I.G. Advisors, an award-winning global strategy consultancy specialising in social and environmental change, advising the world’s biggest nonprofits, foundations, and corporations on their philanthropy and social initiatives. 
 
A graduate of Harvard University and the London School of Economics, her first book, My What If Year was released in 2023. She’s appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and many other outlets and her writing has been featured widely, including in Vogue, Insider, Marie Claire, and Huffington Post. 
 
Originally from Miami, she currently lives in Scotland with her husband and children. Follow Alisha on Instagram @alishafmiranda and her website at www.alishafmiranda.com.
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Dr. Abiodun Adereni
 
HelpMum is a social enterprise birthed with the mission to reduce maternal and infant mortality in Nigeria. This is done through the distribution of affordable Clean Birth kits to pregnant women in deprived and underserved communities, registration of mothers on a proprietary vaccination tracking system, training of community birth attendants using an E-learning platform, and complete renovation of the highly unhygienic and deteriorated state of community birth attendant homes.
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Gauri Mahendra
 
Gauri (Co - founder & President, UMEED) is a Master's in Human Resources and Knowledge Management from Lancaster University, UK and an alumnus of the International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP) by the U.S. Department of State. With over 14+ years of work experience her work spans across both the corporate and development space. Gauri is extremely passionate about creating sustainable livelihood opportunities for low- income communities. She brings in sharp people management skills and has a strong bent for operational excellence.
 
UMEED is a registered non- profit, founded in 2014, with a vision to holistically promote women's empowerment. At UMEED we believe ‘An empowered woman is one who not only has the right to choose but also the right skill, mindset and exposure to make that choice and sustain it.’ With 9 years of experience on the ground working with women directly, Umeed launched FirstLeap, a job readiness and empowerment training program. FirstLeap is designed for women from marginalised sections in urban pockets. The program aims to make a meaningful and sustainable impact through a three - pronged approach of training women in monetizable skills, a strong confident mindset and the exposure to the world beyond their home.