Why Women's Giving Circles

Giving Together. Making a Difference.

• Giving circles bring people together around a simple but powerful idea: we can accomplish more when we give together.
• Members pool their financial resources, knowledge, experiences, relationships, and time to learn about their communities and make collective decisions about where and how to give. Giving circles range from small groups of friends to large organizations with hundreds or thousands of members, but they share the belief that collective giving can amplify both individual generosity and community impact.

A Growing Force in Philanthropy

• Collective giving has grown dramatically over the past two decades and is helping reshape who participates in philanthropy and how giving happens.
• According to In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S., nearly 4,000 collective giving groups mobilized approximately 370,000 philanthropists to give more than $3.1 billion between 2017 and 2023.
• And women are leading the way. The research found that 84% of collective giving groups had majority-women membership, including 60% that were entirely composed of women.

Why It Matters

• Women's giving circles do more than pool dollars. They create opportunities for women to become more informed donors, learn about needs and opportunities in their communities, participate directly in grantmaking, develop philanthropic leadership, and build relationships with others who share a commitment to giving.
• Collective giving also broadens participation in philanthropy. It creates an accessible way for people to see themselves as philanthropists and demonstrates that meaningful giving is not defined by the size of an individual gift.
• When women bring their giving, knowledge, experiences, and voices together, individual generosity becomes collective power.

Where Philanos Fits

• Philanos strengthens and advances this movement by connecting women's giving circles and their members across a national network.
• We help collective givers LEARN, CONNECT & ENGAGE by providing access to expertise, peer relationships, information, resources, and connections across the broader philanthropy community.

Your circle is the Affiliate. Your members are the network.

• Together, Philanos Affiliates and their members are helping strengthen collective giving and the communities where they live and give.

We are stronger when we give together.