Grantmaking on Women's Environmental Health
An overview and rationale of grantmaking on women's environmental health
Note: If you’re interested in collaborating or sharing information with other funders engaged in this work, consider participating in the Women’s Environmental Health Work Group
Many grantmakers are focused on supporting work at the nexus of women’s issues, environment and health, believing that women’s health and leadership is a powerful frame to engage diverse constituencies around protecting public health and the environment. Some key reasons include:
- A women’s body is the first environment for all of us. A growing body of science now indicates the toxic chemicals that each woman is exposed to over an entire lifetime accumulate in her body and pass to the next generation in-utero and then again through breast milk.
- Women voters, across all parties, are much more concerned about the environment and health than men.
- Toxins are stored in our fat, and women on average have a 2 to 10 percent higher proportion of body fat than men.
- As family caretakers and health decision makers, women make nearly two-thirds of all health care decisions for their family and 83 percent have shared or sole responsibility for financial decisions regarding their family’s health.
List of grantmakers that fund this issue
NGOs who work on these issues
- The California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative
- Women's Voices for the Earth
- The Collaborative on Health and the Environment
- Moms Making Our Milk Safe
- Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco
- National Partnership for Women and Families
A more complete listing of NGOs working on Women's Environmental Health