Women’s Rights & Reproductive Health Program Grantmaking Guidelines

Throughout the world, women are in the forefront of efforts to create more just, equitable and humane societies. As activists and advocates, they challenge structures of oppression and seek to create new opportunities for themselves, their families, their communities, and other vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. Moriah devotes a portion of its resources to expanding opportunities and supporting the leadership of these women. Specifically, we seek to support their efforts to transform the legal, political, economic and cultural structures that sustain gender discrimination and violence and that limit women’s full participation in society. Within this broad agenda, we have selected two priorities: (1) women’s reproductive health and rights, with an emphasis on improving population policies and adolescent sexuality and health; and (2) women’s human rights, with an emphasis on strengthening women’s organizations, advocacy and leadership.

Funding Priorities

Promoting Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights

The Moriah Fund seeks to enable women and adolescents to manage their own fertility and protect and promote their sexual and reproductive health. On the international front, we place an emphasis on Latin America and Guatemala in particular, supporting efforts to:

reform population and reproductive health policies so that they respond to the full range of women’s needs, and reflect fundamental principles of individual dignity, autonomy and choice; and
strengthen policies and programs for adolescents, ensuring access to age-appropriate sexuality education and comprehensive reproductive health services that enhance adolescent health, prevent teen pregnancy, and foster healthy and responsible sexual behavior.

In the United States, we support national efforts to:

improve U.S. health and welfare policies so that they better address the reproductive health needs of the country’s most disadvantaged women, especially poor women, women of color and adolescents; and
expand adolescents’ access to comprehensive sexuality education and reproductive health services, and provide girls, ages 8–15, with the education and other opportunities they need to develop the goals, skills and strengths to navigate safely the difficult years of adolescence.

Promoting Women’s Human Rights

Moriah seeks to ensure that women are accorded their full, equal and inalienable rights to dignity, autonomy, safety and freedom, not only within the political and economic spheres, but within their communities and families as well. Specifically, Moriah supports efforts to:

expand international human rights advocacy so that it addresses gender-specific discrimination, violence and abuse, and holds governments accountable to new standards of equity, safety and freedom for women;
strengthen the ability of women’s organizations to utilize international human rights institutions, systems and protocols to advance women’s leadership and rights; and
build the leadership and financial capacity of women’s organizations by strengthening international women’s funds, and by advocating for changes in development policies to ensure an equitable and adequate flow of resources.

Funding Strategies

Moriah provides funds for institutional (general) support; policy analysis, advocacy and organizing; technical assistance, training and leadership development; research and information dissemination to share lessons learned; and innovative local programs that link local reproductive health service delivery with national and international policy and advocacy. In all its funding, Moriah looks for programs that have an impact beyond their own constituencies or geographic location, through information dissemination and sharing of lessons learned, leveraging of additional public or private support, or advocacy to promote systemic change. We also give priority to programs that directly involve project beneficiaries—women and adolescents—in all levels of project design, implementation, management and evaluation.

Program Limitations

The Women's Rights and Reproductive Health Program supports programs that are international in scope, or that focus on the Latin American region or the United States. In Latin America, grantmaking is focused on Guatemala; the program does not accept proposals for country programs elsewhere. In the United States, the program funds only national policy and advocacy; it does not accept proposals for local projects.

The WRRH program does not provide funds for basic research, unless it is part of an explicit strategy for policy reform or improved reproductive health service delivery. The program does not fund direct services, unless they are designed to influence public policy, test new ways of delivering services to previously underserved communities, and/or strengthen women's leadership and rights. Finally, the program does not provide support for microcredit, education, arts or general health programs, nor does it fund video productions, medical research, scholarships or grants to individuals.

Contact Information

Letters of inquiry and proposals should be sent to:

The Moriah Fund
One Farragut Square South
1634 I Street, NW
Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20006-4003

If you would like to submit a letter of inquiry by email, please mail it as an attachment to inquiry@moriahfund.org

After reviewing your letter of inquiry, we may invite a full proposal. If you would like to submit a proposal by email, please mail it as an attachment to proposal@moriahfund.org