Grants Awarded: 2004  

In September 2004, the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island awarded its third round of grants to help level the playing field for women and girls in the state. With $82,500 to give away against $716,235 in total requests, it was a challenge to select from many worthy projects.

The Women’s Fund received 49 Letters of Intent this February. From these requests, 18 were invited to submit formal proposals; fifteen proposals were submitted. After a thorough review by the Grants Review Team of the Women’s Fund, seven proposals totaling $82,100 were selected as projects that best reflect its grantmaking criteria.

Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE): A $15,000 grant to continue support for the Women at Work project, originally funded by Women’s Fund. Women at Work participants engage in a leadership training program to become active leaders in the broader labor and economic justice movement.
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Ocean State Action Fund: A $10,000 grant to support the Women in Action initiative. Women in Action will engage women in social change, creating a pathway for civic engagement at policy and electoral levels.

Rhode Island Parents for Progress (RIPfP): A $10,000 grant to launch the Peer Advocate Program. The project will create a speakers bureau designed to inform welfare recipients of their rights and benefits.

SOAR Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships: A $10,000 grant to continue support for the Project STRIVE leadership program, originally funded by the Women’s Fund. Project STRIVE provides a leadership and empowerment program for survivors of abuse to become advocates for social change via traditional and less conventional policy-making forums.

Sojourner House: A $9,600 grant to continue support for the Women CARES Policy Advocacy Project, originally funded by the Women’s Fund. Women CARES participants engage in public policy forums, inform clients about policy change opportunities, and enlist victims in grassroots policy change efforts.

Southside Community Land Trust: A $15,000 grant to establish the Garden Supply Buying Club. The project will engage young women in developing a micro-business concentrating on environmentally-safe gardening supplies.

The Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College: A $12,700 grant to research and publish a report documenting the current systems for child support enforcement in Rhode Island in order to ascertain the efficacy of the system in meeting the needs of low-and moderate-income women.