Bulgarian Fund for Women

Bulgarian Fund for Women is the only indigenous donor for local NGOs, that work on women’s and girl’s rights, on real gender equality in all social spheres and on elimination of all forms of discrimination.

Objectives:

• To support the Bulgarian women's human rights organizations working to raise gender awareness of society and for recognition of women's rights as human rights.
• To strengthen Bulgarian NGO capacity to work on women’s and girls inclusion and empowerment, and improve their skills for mobilizing local resources for their sustainable development.
• To support alternative and innovative women's initiatives.
• To support independent monitoring of government's commitments and initiatives related to gender equality in Bulgaria.
• To support cooperation between NGOs working on gender equality on national and local level.
• To promote a new vision for philanthropy as an instrument for social change.
• To support the civil society development in Bulgaria as a precondition for irreversibility of the democratic process.

For achieving its objectives BFW focuses its activities in the following directions:

• Grant-making

In the focus are the small, grassroots NGOs and women’s groups from all over the country that are human rights organizations and work for social change, as they have limited resources for raising funds from other sources. These organizations form the grassroots women’s movement, which is very important for women’s rights exert and real gender equality attaining. BFW strategic approach includes:

1. Direct Grants distribution
2. Capacity Building for Grantees

1. Peer learning exchange – BFW provides and facilitates a space for Grantees to

share information, strategies, cultural context of their work and the results they achieve. Thus they receive an opportunity to learn from each other.

2. Support evaluation and reporting capacities - all Grantees receive one day training in MTC Tool for measuring the social change achieved; training in project planning for more disadvantaged groups of women, like Roma women. The aim is to empower them to become capable to report successfully to both BFW and their constituencies

3. Networking support- Grantees start exchanging their unique own resources,

which raises their  sustainability

• Fundraising from Bulgarian and foreign institutions, corporations, and individuals through various initiatives.

BFW Fundraising strategy stressed the need of expanding the local donors’ base.  For this purpose, in 2009 the web site was upgraded, BFW facebook profile and blog were created.

• Developing social philanthropy as a part of the corporate social responsibility.

A dedicated and inspired by the equal opportunities for all cause team works for accomplishment of BFW mission. We believe that every single person is engine of the social change.

Our vision

Development of social environment that allows every woman and girl to fully realize their potential and opportunities.

Cultivating new understating of philanthropy as an instrument of positive social change.