UK women's groups to benefit from dedicated fund

A fund for women’s groups in the UK has been set up to tackle the ‘national crisis’ in the sector.

The fund will be run by Maggie Baxter, former grants director and deputy chief executive of Comic Relief and executive director of Womankind Worldwide. It aims to attract income from major philanthropic donors – particularly wealthy women – and will finance projects working for women’s safety, economic justice, health and wellbeing. It will allocate grants in the first year to proposals for new projects.

“Funding for women’s groups is chronically low,” said Maggie Baxter. "Women in the UK are the cement of communities and pick up the pieces when things go wrong. That’s why funding for these groups is important.”

A survey in 2006 by charity Women’s Resource Centre found that 18,000 women’s groups were on course to close before 2009 due to lack of funds.