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Feminist Humanitarian Response Works
Women and girl-led organizations play critical roles in crisis prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. They respond to crises in their communities, with or without funding. They are active in their communities before a crisis reaches international attention. They remain active in their communities for the long-haul, months and years after international donors and media attention have moved on.
Women and girl-led organizations operate with credibility, trust, and accountability in their communities, allowing them to move effectively and quickly in crises. Their work often prioritises groups that have been historically overlooked by traditional humanitarian systems, including disabled people, girls and young women, refugees and migrants, and others.
Quality humanitarian response must include women and girl-led organizations.
Recent research and reflection on feminist crisis response:
To make the business case for gender equality, time for a fresh framing
Beth Woroniuk for Devex
(February 2026)
Key Messages for Feminist Crisis Philanthropy: Lessons from the Black Feminist Action in Sudan Initiative
Equality Fund (November 2025)
It’s Time for the Humanitarian Sector to Join Forces with Feminist Philanthropy
UAF Latin America and Caribbean, Honduras (November 2024)
We Need to Know the Humanitarian Sector Stands with Us: The active but underfunded role young women and girls play in crisis
Global Fund for Women (March 2024)
Support Feminist crisis response
Government and Philanthropic Partners
First Response Fund is fueled by government and philanthropic partners committed to resourcing locally-led humanitarian response. Please reach out to hello@firstresponse.fund to learn more about First Response Fund and how you can support feminist humanitarian response.
Individual Donors
We encourage individual donors to directly support women’s and feminist funds that resource feminist crisis response. Below you can find a list of women’s and feminist funds actively resourcing women and girl-led organizations leading crisis response in their communities. These funds are current partners of First Response Fund and/or participated in the design of the First Response Fund. Please visit the Prospera website to learn more about women’s and feminist funds working in different geographies around the world.
image credit: Edwin Tan/iStock
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