Catia Gregoratti

Philanthropy for gender causes is recognised as a rising yet understudied phenomenon, especially in the field of social policy. This chapter provides an overview of key interdisciplinary feminist debates on the philanthropic turn to gender equality and women's empowerment. It also presents significant trends, including funding flows towards SDG5, key actors, and geographical areas of investment, as well as major areas of gender-related social policy in which major philanthropic foundations intervene. Big philanthropy is, however, recasting the meaning and practices of empowerment. The concept of empowerment lite captures how the meaning of empowerment has been diluted through instrumentalisation and projectification. Whereas instrumentalisation makes empowerment serve narrow economic ends, projectification turns empowerment into as a series of measurable activities, a discrete number of interventions, and a vast sum of images and stories of philanthropic altruism and success. Yet the chapter also suggests that, in some cases, big philanthropy may (un)intentionally contribute to gender-just, transformative social policy.