Women's Initiative Grantees

New grants to support inclusive nuclear and national security policy

Over $50,000 awarded to six grantees addressing nuclear challenges and working to diversify the nuclear and national security fields

We are proud to announce the award of six grants following our recent Women’s Initiative request for proposals, held this spring. These grants were made possible by gifts dedicated to the Ploughshares Fund Women’s Initiative. Through the Women’s Initiative, we aim to invest in, amplify and expand the range of perspectives addressing our world’s greatest nuclear challenges.

These six grants contribute to building more just and inclusive national security and foreign policies related to current nuclear weapons issues. Each project is actively working to bring in a diversity of voices to the nuclear policy and national security fields – including women legislators, students as well as communities affected by nuclear weapons production and testing. The project leads are all emerging leaders receiving their first grants from Ploughshares Fund.

Together with The Prospect Hill Foundation, Ploughshares Fund received and reviewed over 40 applications for the Women’s Initiative request for proposals. The final grant award list is as follows:

  • Beyond the Bomb (project lead, Tristan Guyette) – $10,000 for support of six women students’ participation in the BombSquad Fellowship to learn organizing and activism, and to advocate for a no first use policy in the United States.
  • Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (project lead, Marissa Conway) – $10,000 to produce a report highlighting feminist approaches and analyses of nuclear policy in P5 states.
  • Federation of American Scientists (project leads, Abigail Stowe-Thurston and Matt Korda) – $6,500 to support the Foreign Policy Generation working group of young professionals to develop a foreign policy platform that connects foreign and domestic policy.
  • Lilly Adams – $7,000 for building relationships with affected communities, development of a directory of activists, local leaders and experts from those communities, participating in trainings, and creating bridges with the larger nuclear field.
  • Peace Action Fund of New York State (project lead, Emily Rubino) – $10,000 to support the Campus Incubator Project to bring 20 student leaders from Peace Action campus chapters in New York state to inform and engage their peers and communities on the risks of nuclear weapons.
  • Women’s Action for New Directions Education Fund (project lead, Jennifer Blemur) – $8,000 to train ten women legislators in West Virginia on nuclear policy issues.

As our senior program officer, Cara Wagner says, “We are excited by the slate of grantees and projects awarded under this request for proposals. All the project leads are emerging leaders – mostly women – receiving their first ever grant from Ploughshares Fund. Through these grants we are helping create opportunities for new leadership in a field that has long been influenced by a select group. The projects are all focused on diversifying the types of voices and perspectives working in and influencing the nuclear and national security policy fields. From building relationships with affected communities to feminist analyses of nuclear policy, the range of perspectives brought to the table is wide and will contribute to building more just and inclusive national security and foreign policies.”

Ploughshares Fund is extremely grateful to The Prospect Hill Foundation for its partnership and support of these grants and the Ploughshares Fund Women’s Initiative.

We'd also like to thank all the generous donors who made gifts dedicated to the initiative. If you would like to support the Women's Initiative, give today – and select Women's Initiative in the "Please designate my gift to" dialog box.

Ploughshares Fund is a global security foundation based in San Francisco, with an office in Washington, DC.  Founded in 1981, Ploughshares Fund supports initiatives to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. We are the largest US philanthropic organization focused exclusively on nuclear security. 

 

Photo: Women's Initiative grantees.

 

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