Our Origin Story

Since our launch in 2019, the Equality Fund has become one of the world’s largest feminist funds.

By 2025, we moved $100 million to 1,800 organizations in 100 countries. We also reached a key milestone by achieving financial independence.

We do not do this work alone, nor did it begin with our launch. We stand on the shoulders of MATCH International, a trailblazing, Canadian feminist organization. In 1976, Norma E. Walmsley and Suzanne Johnson-Harvor had the revolutionary idea to place women’s rights at the centre of international development in the Global South. Originally created to match the resources of Canadian women with the needs of women around the world, MATCH faced government funding cuts in 2010, creating financial strain and bringing the organization to a crossroads.

MATCH was on the brink of closure when an unexpected cheque arrived in the mail. A man who had previously donated modestly once, twenty years prior, had passed away. He left his estate to be divided, according to his wife’s wishes, between MATCH International and a donkey sanctuary. It was enough money to keep the core team at MATCH working for another year.

It was at this time, in 2018, when the Canadian government announced its intention to invest in feminist foreign aid, as part of its strategic objectives to increase global security, stability and democracy.

In 2019, the MATCH team was the recipient of this major investment of $300 million, the single largest, one-time investment into feminist foreign aid of all time. This is when we married an investment strategy with feminist grantmaking, to become known as the Equality Fund.

The Equality Fund was entrusted with the responsibility of stewarding this investment to serve several objectives – to increase human rights around the world but also, to become a financially independent and sustainable fund of its own.

In its first five years, the Equality Fund grew, forming partnerships with European governments who followed in the footsteps of the Canadian government’s leadership on feminist foreign aid as a strategy for increased peace and prosperity.

The bold vision at the heart of our work at the Equality Fund is rooted in the radical dreams of feminist leaders who came before us. In 2019, we added a clear-eyed investment strategy for increased financial resilience and to insulate our ecosystem from changing political winds.

Today, we fund the leadership we need for a better and more just future.