Accelerating action for gender equality with our charity partners

The theme for 2025 International Women’s Day is #AccelerateAction for gender equality. Throughout our 40 year history, we have championed the rights of women and invested in charities and projects that are focused on advocating for and supporting women.

In the last decade alone, we have helped charities make significant progress in influencing policy and practice around domestic abuse. And every day, our charity partners provide specialist support that is helping women across England and Wales advance and thrive. Alongside providing vital services, supportive communities, mentoring, and skills training, the charities we partner with are pushing for change at local and national levels to improve the lives of women and girls.

Challenging perpetrators of domestic abuse

Domestic abuse disproportionately affects women, with one in four women (27%) reporting to have experienced domestic abuse (ONS, 2023). If we are ever to end the cycle of abuse, we must do more to challenge those who perpetrate it. That’s why we invested £1m in Drive in 2016, the first project of its kind to focus on changing the behaviour of high-risk perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Drive was developed by Respect, SafeLives and Social Finance, with the Foundation as the lead charitable funder. The programme brought together police and other agencies to tackle abuse, change behaviours and address issues such as substance misuse, housing and mental health. It included close working with IDVAs (Independent Domestic Violence Advisors) to ensure the safety of survivors.

An evaluation of the three-year pilot phase showed that the Drive programme resulted in:

• an 82% reduction in physical abuse.
• an 88% reduction in sexual abuse.
• a reduction of risk to the survivor in 82% of cases.

The programme also generated useful insights about systems change, which was captured in a report to share learning more widely.

Advocating for changes to better support women affected by domestic abuse

In 2017, we invested £1.6 million in our Transform programme which supported charities to influence change and improve support for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse – building the evidence base, developing new partnerships and influencing policy.

The charities we supported achieved important changes that are still in place today, including:

• Statutory organisations in Leeds adopted a city-wide policy statement on supporting adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
• The National Police Chiefs Council adopted a new policy which restricts the sharing of a domestic abuse victim’s immigration status, meaning that migrant women can receive support without fearing deportation.
• The UK Government was influenced to invest funding in supporting domestic abuse services to better meet the needs of LGBTQ+ survivors.

The Domestic Abuse Bill presented a landmark opportunity to influence change in the response to domestic abuse. The Transform programme took place while the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was progressing through Parliament. We supported Women’s Aid Federation of England to coordinate charities to influence the Bill. We also provided evidence to shape the development of the Bill, drawing on the learning and insights from charities we support.

Collaborating with local organisations to address women’s homelessness

We have invested in Basis Yorkshire since 2015, a small charity in Leeds that works with women and non-binary people who work in the sex industry and those who are sexually exploited. They advocate for women’s right to work more safely when selling sex, while also supporting women and young people who are sexually exploited to be safer and live free from harm.

Basis are now part of our Local Collaborations programme, leading a project on addressing women's homelessness with other local organisations in Leeds. They aim to influence local decision makers to take a gender-informed approach to housing provision to better meet the needs of women, who are often not ‘visibly’ homeless but are vulnerable and a risk of, or experiencing, abuse and exploitation.

Women have to overcome greater barriers to evidence their need because they are often not street homeless, and are considered as having a “place to stay” even though that place may not be safe for them. Basis are also exploring the specific barriers that women with low literacy, English as a second language, disabilities and those from minoritised ethnic communities face, to ensure these women’s experiences are reflected and their specific needs highlighted and appropriately responded to.

Providing a supportive community for Black women with ADHD

Our charity partner ADHD Babes is run by and for Black Women and non-binary people with ADHD. They create safe spaces and a supportive community for Black neurodivergent women to flourish and achieve their potential. The intersectional impact of being a Black woman or non-binary person with ADHD has unique disadvantages that ADHD Babes aims to address through specialist support, tailored workshops and community-centred outreach. They also raise awareness and educate people on how ADHD affects women, and how best to support them.

Equipping migrant women with digital skills

Our charity partner WODIN is run by and for migrant women in Liverpool, supporting women with digital skills training as well as practical and emotional support. What started as an informal group of women meeting in their homes has organically developed to meet the needs of hundreds of women in the community. They offer training in digital skills which has helped women get better jobs or start their own businesses, make new friends, and become more engaged in their communities and society as a whole.

Alongside their digital skills training programme, WODIN offer advice and signposting, one-to-one support, befriending, welfare checks and practical subsistence support like cultural food parcels. They host a regular support group, Sisters Roundtable Conversations, where the women collectively choose a topic to discuss and share experiences and advice, as well as enjoying a meal together.

This is just a snapshot of how small and local charities are supporting thousands of women across England and Wales. Today, and every day, we champion our charity partners who are supporting women to overcome barriers and thrive.

See how we've been supporting communities for 40 years