Before and After (or answer to the question: What's a Women's Fund?)

A lot of people are unfamiliar with women's funds -- what they are and what they do -- and I think this article explains their impact in at least one of the issue areas they work on: violence.

Read about the impact The Women's Fund of Birmingham has had on the community it serves.

This paragraph sums up quite nicely how women's funds give more than money -- sharing connections, expertise and best practices to break down a problem at its core and make changes in the way a community tackles a problem:

As part of the Voices Against Violence initiative, The Women's Fund made a grant to the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence to provide training to court and law enforcement, funded a YWCA court advocate and purchased digital cameras for the Birmingham Police Department. The ACADV used these funds as the local match to attract federal money for two purposes: a shared information system prototype so local courts could look up perpetrators' previous convictions on domestic violence charges and seed money for warrants and subpoenas to be served in Operation Hit Back.

The momentum has continued to build with new partners coming on board.