Since we began in 1979, the Women’s Foundation of California has been deeply committed to the health, safety, economic security, and leadership of women and girls. That’s why we were an early supporter of organizations that worked in the domestic violence movement. As these organizations grew in strength and influence, we were pleased to see them acquire significant and stable funding from the state of California. So we turned our attention to investing in areas critical to women’s well-being that were not receiving support from the state or institutional funders: economic security, reproductive health and environmental justice.
But as we all know too well, the last few years have been difficult ones as California’s state budget has faced severe, bone-crushing deficits. Long-standing organizations that have been critical to addressing the needs of victims of domestic violence (DV) and the DV field have lost critical funding. The result? Domestic violence shelters have closed, services for survivors of violence have been eliminated, and there are vast regions of the state that have one or no domestic violence agency at all.
Given this backdrop, four years ago, the Blue Shield of California Foundation began researching, planning and reflecting on how to transform the challenge facing domestic violence organizations — and the movement as a whole — into an opportunity for re-visioning the work of the domestic violence movement. They asked the bold question: What kind of investment and resources would it take to eliminate domestic violence?
The result of their work is a multi-year collaboration called the Strong Field Project. We are proud to be a partner of this multi-year initiative that seeks to develop the strength of individual organizations and strengthen the field of domestic violence so that ultimately, there will be an end to intimate partner violence. The Women’s Foundation of California will be providing the organizational strength grants component of Blue Shield of California Foundation’s Strong Field Project. Over the next few months, as the project unfolds, we will share stories of the journey.