Current Grantees

Past Grantees: 2007-2008 2006-2007, 2005-2006, 2004-2005

Congratulations to our 2008-2009 grantee partners!

• Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail
  $15,000
  Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail, with Governor Janet Napolitano as Honorary Chair, is building public awareness of women’s history on a statewide basis through women’s sites, historic landmarks, traveling exhibits, walking tours, grade school curricula, website, and audio tours. Funding will be used to expand the project in southern Arizona.


• Border Action Network
  Human Rights Organizing Institute
  $8,950
  The Human Rights Organizing Institute educates primarily immigrant women, young women and their families about their human and constitutional rights while providing them with the skills, support and network to organize within their communities for social justice. The Institute includes a 3-month intensive training program that provides the knowledge, skills, vision and strategy to human rights promoters who then work in their neighborhoods, schools, churches, or workplaces.


• Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services
  Social Marketing for Social Change
  $13,000
  Social Marketing for Social Change applies time-tested commercial marketing principles and practices to “sell” anti-violence messages to young men as a way to prevent violence against women and girls. Youth will be involved at every stage of the program to ensure that the messages delivered are age-appropriate and delivered in an engaging and persuasive way. This is a collaborative project among three of Tucson’s largest anti-violence programs and organizations: Brewster Center/TCWC, Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault and Wingspan Anti-Violence Programs.


• Microbusiness Advancement Center
  Latina Women Self-Employment Training and Mentor Program
  $12,000
  The Self-Employment Training and Mentorship Program provides Latina women with training and resources for the purpose of starting or expanding a micro-business. The basis of the program is a 12-week Business Planning Course where graduates complete a professional business plan that serves as the foundation for their enterprise, and a subsequent 3-month mentorship with a business owner to guide them through the terrain of new business ownership. MAC is the only Microenterprise Development Organization providing entrepreneurial technical assistance and training in Spanish, helping aspiring Latina business women into successful entrepreneurship.


• Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission
  Women Borrowing Smart
  $15,000
  Women Borrowing Smart (WBS) aims to educate women to make informed choices about financial borrowing and to help women access remedies to unmanageable debt. WBS will focus on women at heightened risk of falling into unmanageable debt: single women heads of household and young adult women. While the project will encompass education about smart borrowing in areas such as payday loans and credit card usage, in light of the current debacle of the subprime mortgage industry and related foreclosures, WBS will emphasize home mortgage education and access to financial remedies.


• Planned Parenthood Arizona*
  Residency Training
  $10,000
  Planned Parenthood of Arizona is the only provider of training in Arizona for medical students, residents, registered nurses and nurse practitioners in abortion services, abortion care and miscarriage management. Their training helps to ensure the development of compassionate, fully-trained health care professionals who are capable of providing the full spectrum of reproductive health care services.


• Primavera Foundation +
  HomeOwnership Program
  $15,000
  Primavera challenges inequities that women face by providing a comprehensive financial education and credit counseling as well as down-payment assistance. The program works to even out the economic playing field, and provides southern Arizona’s families with life-long tools that promote fiscal responsibility and stability. With the help of HOP, last year 54 women (34 of whom were single mothers) purchased their first home.


• Sahuaro Girl Scout Council
  Girl Scout Leadership Corps
  $9,968
  The SGSC Girl Scout Leadership Corps is a group of college-aged women who desire to help meet some of their communities’ most critical needs by working with low-income and underserved girls through community troops. Troop members will participate in monthly meetings, special events and community service projects. The SGSC Leadership Corps is designed to be a valuable work-force development program the young troop leaders can use to build their employment skills and resumes while gaining a deeper understanding of and serving the needs of their community and its youth.


• Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault
  Community Prevention Education and Outreach
  $11,665
  The Community Prevention Education and Outreach Program offers prevention education and training for youth, professionals and the general public about issues regarding sexual violence. In order to work towards ending violence against women and girls, this program will address the underlying conditions that foster a culture in which violence is tolerated by educating and training boys and men to speak out to deter violence. Program participants will also examine the media and cultural messages surrounding sexual violence, gender roles and sexuality.


• St. Elizabeth’s Health Center
  St. Elizabeth’s Seeds for Health Program
  $6,370
  The Seeds for Health program promotes social change by helping uninsured and underserved women and members of their families in our community gain knowledge and skills regarding low-income methods for improving and/or maintaining health, seeking resources and advocating for themselves and their families. Promotoras (community health workers) from high-stressed neighborhoods mobilize, educate and advocate for women to receive regular preventive check-ups and learn how to self-manage their health issues.


• University of Arizona BIO5 Institute
  BioLink
  $13,000
  BIO5 is an integral part of a statewide effort to grow the biosciences industry and has gained a reputation for creating future generations of scientists both within the University and through its K-12 outreach programs. The BioLink project will expand its program to increase girls’ access to enhanced scientific education by adding undergraduate women scientists to its team of graduate students teaching in K-12 classrooms and community outreach programs. By acting as both role models and teachers, these undergraduates will influence more young girls to go to college and to become scientists.

*Founders’ award, as designated by WFSA founders Melody Robidoux and Harriet Silverman, for exemplifying the mission of WFSA.

+Funded by the Joan B. Diamond Grant of the Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona.

2007-08 Grants Allocation Committee

Each year the Women’s Foundation receives far more requests for funding than we can support. Selecting which of the many meritorious proposals to fund is always difficult. Our profound thanks to the following individuals who served this year on our Grants Allocation Committee – we literally couldn’t have done it without you.

Tiffany Kassel and Nicci Hinderaker, Co-chairs

*Founders’ awards, as designated by WFSA founders Melody Robidoux and Harriet Silverman, for exemplifying the mission of WFSA.

+Funded by the Joan B. Diamond Grant of the Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona.