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The Vision of the Fund
Strong, equal, recognized and happy woman – in the free, safe, just world
The Mission of the Fund
Strengthening women in Georgia for the implementation of their rights, their full participation in social life and self-realization, through financial and technical support, developing skills and forming feminist philanthropy.
Women’s Fund in Georgia directs its resources towards the empowerment of women’s organizations, initiative groups and activists in order to better sustain their initiatives and activities for developing effective strategies that can counter patriarchal system of power relations.
We value and respect women’s creative and productive skills and competence, and recognize the imbalance in power relations in our country that hardly allows women to enjoy their fundamental rights and to realize their full potential. Thus, WFG is determined to support women to raise their agency by increasing their capacity and autonomy, and in the long run, to challenge the unequal distribution of power between genders.
We trust the choice of women to develop internal strength to question existing gender order and to effect constructive changes in their societies.
We adhere in development of local philanthropy by increasing social responsibility of the business and government in order to make the Georgian third sector stronger and more independent.
We are devoted to our ethical code of charity in cooperation with “givers” and “receivers”, to create strong philanthropy visions for productive interactions.
We believe that our reputation will be cultivated through the ethical, transparent, accountable, inclusive and fair way we approach and implement our work.
We can do it!
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Women's Fund in Georgia was registered at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Georgia on May 24, 2005. The Fund was set up by the Educational Cooperation and Development Center (ECDC), which has been working on local philanthropy development specific to women's issues since 1998.
ECDC's vision was to establish a locally based funding organization dedicated to sustaining the women's rights' movement in Georgia by mobilizing resources from both local and international donors. ECDC has been instrumental in promoting this vision of philanthropy in Georgia through several research projects about the development of local philanthropy, numerous publications concerning the theory and practice of philanthropy in Georgia and the ethical standards for businesses and charity. ECDC transformed from serving as an information resource for women's NGOs and local donors into taking active leadership in creating the mechanisms necessary to financially sustain the Georgian women's movement. To this end, in 2005 ECDC took its work to the next level by registering a new entity - the Women's Fund in Georgia.
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Structure
The Fund has a board of directors, staff, advidory board and valunteers. The administrative structure of the Fund is simple and includes these mechanisms: publishing action programs, determining annual grant budget, local monitoring of the programs, publishing annual reports. Decision making mechanism is based on participatory model and representatives of target groups are engaged in the process.
Staff:
- Salome Chagelishvili - Executive Director
- Gulnara Vediashvili - Operations Manager
- Nana Pantsulaia - Manager of Feminist Residency Project
- Mariam Chanchaleishvili - Programs Manager
- Nino Tskipurishvili - Programs Manager
- Ana Chiladze - Grants Manager
- Ia Kajaia - Monitoring and Evaluation Manager
- Magda Berdzenishvili - Financial Manager
- Tamar Tarkhan-Mouravi - Organizational Development Manager
- Londa Beria - Communications Manager
- Ana Chkhatarashvili - Logistics Manager
Board Members:
Asmat Beshidze (Chair)
Asmat has more than twenty years of work experience for local and international organizations. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Fund in Georgia since establishment. Asmat started working as an Editor at the Committee of Translation and Relations. She was a Medical Coordinator at the United Methodists Committee of Relief - UMCOR-Georgia until 2007 and Program Officer until 2015. She is a Program Director at the local organization GEOCOR. Asmat studied Western European Languages and Literature and has translated/published literary works of British and American authors.
Ekaterine Imerlishvili
Ekaterine (Eka) Imerlishvili comes from Telavi, Georgia. Eka completed her B.A in her hometown in 2001 and later pursued her M.A. in Budapest, Hungary in 2006 specializing in Political Science at the Central European University. Eka has worked at various international organizations, including Peace Corps, World Vision Georgia, as well as with number of USAID-contractors focusing on community development, civil society and public policy reforms. She is actively involved in Georgia’s feminist movement and belongs to an informal feminist group to this day. She has authored articles on feminist activism, women’s empowerment and women’s political participation. As part of the Women’s Fund project, Eka co-hosted a feminist radio program on Radio Free Europe/Liberty in Tbilisi, Georgia. Eka moved to Washington, DC in 2018 and currently works at FHI 360 as a Civil Society Organizations’ Sustainability Index project manager.
Ekaterine Skhiladze
Ekaterine Skhiladze is a Deputy Public Defender of Georgia from June, 2016. She has been actively involved in the processes aiming to protect women's rights and gender equality more than a decade. In 2007-2012 she has been working in the non-governmental organization Women's Information Center. In 2013-2016 she was head of Gender Equality Department at the Public Defender's Office of Georgia. Since 2014 she has been involved in the activities of the coordination councils working on the promotion and protection of human rights and gender equality. In 2016 Ekaterine became the winner of Kato Mikeladze Award for women human rights defenders.
Tamta Melashvili
Tamta Melashvili is a writer, activist and researcher from Tbilisi, Georgia. In 2008, she completed her MA in Gender Studies at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary and since 2012, has served as an invited professor at Tbilisi State University’s Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. She has also worked as a researcher with various funds and organizations on gender and feminism issues; among them are Heinrich Boell Foundation South Caucasus Regional Office, Women’s Fund in Georgia, Taso - Women’s Fund and Memory Research Center. Melashvili’s teaching experience includes instruction in Gender and Politics, Masculinity Studies and Introduction to Feminist Thought, among others.
Lela Ksovreli
Lela has more than twenty years of work experience in the field of international development. She has worked in programs, administration, and finance sections of development projects at various International organizations such as: Europe Foundation, Institute for Sustainable Communities and International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Her major fields of expertise are finance, grants, and contracts. She also has extensive teaching experience at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Lela holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a specialization in Finance. In her current position at East West Management Institute she manages financial transactions, monitoring of grant funded project, administers development and enforcement of service contracts.
Lika Tarkhan-Mouravi
Lika Tarkhan-Mouravi (b. Tbilisi) is an independent curator and researcher based in London. Her PhD research examines how the practice of curating can give new life to overlooked and marginalised texts, particularly that of women authors. She has co-curated several exhibitions, including Re: Over everything which exists under the sky (Gasworks, 2019) and Reminiscence (Close-up cinema, 2019). Previously, she’s worked for several contemporary art galleries, including Lisson Gallery. She graduated from the Curating Contemporary Art programme at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2019.
Nana Shughladze
Nana works as an Information Specialist for the iSpace (former Information Resource Center) at the U.S. Embassy. She joined the Public Affairs Section in April of 2009. Before this, she worked for the Embassy’s Border Security and Law Enforcement Program since 2003. Prior to her time at the U.S. Embassy, Nana worked for different International Organizations. She was also a researcher and lecturer at Tbilisi State University, where she received her PhD in Semitic Studies. She studied the Arabic language, literature, history, and culture. She studied in Syria as a Post Graduate student at the University of Damascus.
Advisory board:
Elene Rusetskaia - Member of Eurocomission Against Racism and Inequality
Sandra Ljubinkovic - Independent expert of gender and development
Ida Bakhturidze - Office and gender coordinator of Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF) Georgia
Nukri Tabidze - Feminist, activist
Ala Parunova - Member of Georgian Young Greens; Project manager at Equality Movement
Mariam Topchishvili - Student, group leader at Young Feminists (Gori)
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The main principle of the Fund's strategy is to mobilize local resources and financial initiatives to support women's groups and to be open to participation by donors and users. However, the fund will retain the right to choose among donors in order to remain independent. Fundraising strategy is of crucial importance to the Women's Fund in Georgia. It includes the establishment of relationships with foreign donors who support women's issues. The Fund will also broaden its fundraising efforts in order to attract international institutions that do not currently work in the region. The Fund works with local foundations, corporations, businesses, and individuals and will seek opportunities to develop self-financing capabilities.
Actors and stakeholders of the Women's Fund in Georgia:
Local and international NGOs including women's organizations, women's networks, donors and sponsors, government institutions, self-governing bodies, businesses, banks (local, joint or foreign), individuals, celebrities, experts, media, local communities.WFG is a member of Prospera (International Network of Women’s Funds), Women’s Funding Network (WFN), Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Ariadne Network and Human Rights Funders Group (HRFG)
Our donors:
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Donations can be transferred either to the Fund's bank account or through the Online Donation Form.
Online Donation:
Bank Transfer Details:
USD/EUR/GBP Account
CITIBANK N.A.
NEW-YORK, USA
SWIFT:CITIUS33
ABA:021000089
HEAD OFFICE SWIFT: TBCBGE22
JSC"TBC Bank", Marjanishvili Branch
SWIFT:TBCBGE22850
ACCOUNT:GE58TB7505136180100001
NAME OF BENEFICIARY: "WOMEN'S FUND IN GEORGIA"
GEL Account:
TBC Bank Marjanishvili Branch 7, K. Marjanishvili Str., 0102 Tbilisi, Georgia
Bank Code: TBCBGE22
Name of Beneficiary: "Women's Fund in Georgia"
Account Number: GE73TB7505136080100006
