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COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS

FRONTERA WOMEN'S FOUNDATION 501 North Kansas, Suite # 203 El Paso TX 79901 Tel: 915-532-1098 Fax: 915-533-8882 Email: info@FronteraWomensFoundation.org www.FronteraWomensFoundation.org

THE FUND'S MISSION

The Frontera Women's Foundation (FWF) is a new philanthropic endeavor initiated over two years ago by a group of women from El Paso, Texas. The FWF's mission is to improve the conditions and status for women and girls living along the U.S.-Mexico border and thereby foster significant social and economic change in their communities as a whole. The FWF will focus on raising money to fund non-profit organizations that serve and work with low-income women in the areas of economic development, work skills development and education, healthcare and violence prevention.

The fund’s gender focus springs from the recognition that the border is similar to the rest of the nation in that for every issue on the national agenda, from violence to healthcare, there is a major dimension specific to women and girls. Moreover, any effort to effectuate long-term social change cannot ignore the fact that women and children comprise the majority of those living in poverty. As a result, the Fund shares the view,with other women's funds across the country, that few problems can be solved without programs and strategies that specifically address the needs of women and girls.

THE FUND'S CURRENT STATUS

The FWF’s initial Board of Directors is composed of a group of dedicated and accomplished women who share the same core values and contextual understanding of border issues. This diverse group of women brings to the organization a broad spectrum of experience and expertise in an array of disciplines including, law, accounting, business, education, grantmaking and community and economic development. As a start-up, the FWF has no staff as yet but anticipates conducting a comprehensive search for an Executive Director in calendar year 2004. In the meantime, the members of the Board have assumed a hands-on philosophy, meeting regularly to nurture the organization’s development by creating the institutional structures necessary for a foundation, as well as soliciting funds and recruiting staff and other board members.

The newly appointed Executive Committee is actively involved in planning and management. In addition, the foundation has retained Maria Mangual, a nationally recognized consultant with over 20 years of women’s fund development experience, who has greatly assisted with the foundation´s feasibility study and start-up and will continue to play a major role in facilitating organizational development and launching fundraising efforts.

The FWF also continues to benefit from the generous mentoring relationship and general support offered by its partners, the Women’s Funding Network, the Women’s Fund of California and Semillas, the primary womens fund in Mexico. As successful foundations working in similar regions where local traditions of philanthropy are scant or non-existent and community needs are great, these partners have gained experience that will serve the foundation well. In partnership with our philanthropic peers and with individual donors, the Fund is positioned to play a key role in bringing together resources to improve the lives of women and girls along the U.S.- Mexico border. The FWF welcomes ideas, suggestions, and support.

FOCUS ON TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER

The Fund will initially concentrate its efforts on organizations and projects located along the Texas portion of the U.S.-Mexico border in order to take advantage of the Fund´s extensive ties to existing community groups on both sides of the river in this area. In this way, the Fund envisions making grants that will serve as models of cross border collaborations with positive impacts for Mexican and U.S. women alike. For example, the fund could enter into a cooperative agreement with its sister fund, Semillas (a Mexican based womens fund and a FWF partner) to support an effort for trained counselors from the El Paso women shelter to share their knowledge on crisis intervention and advocacy strategies with similarly situated workers in Ciudad Juarez.At the same time, the U.S. shelters workers many of whose clients come from Mexico, would benefit from learning more from their Mexican counterparts about the legal, social and societal contexts in which the women they serve live.

BUILDING WOMEN'S PHILANTHROPY ON THE BORDER

A primary goal of the Fund is to build sustainable philanthropy among women for women in a region where there has been minimal history of community giving in general.The fund’s grantmaking will be directly linked to low-income communities on both sides of the river and focused on building grassroots capacity tied to sustainable development. Since experts agree that development must be community-based to be sustainable, the Board is committed to high profile and high level local fundraising coupled with high quality local grantmaking that is linked to positive community outcomes. In this way, the fund will foster a growing base of supporters, many of whom may have never been previously tapped, and will engender capacity among its beneficiaries.

EMPOWERMENT FOR BORDER WOMEN

Equally important, the BWDF will provide a means of raising awareness of girls and women’s issues and promoting women as important partners in providing solutions to a variety of the complex issues and challenges facing communities situated along the U.S. Mexico border. As such, the FWF is poised to take an active role in addressing previous neglected needs that will greatly contribute to social change and positively impact the future of the border and the border states.