Our takeaways from Women Deliver (hint: it’s about collaboration, not competition)

The funding cliff is real – what are we going to do?

Here are some takeaways from Women Deliver 2026 in Melbourne.

We’re Maria Wong from Equality Fund and Julia Liborio from Co-Impact, sharing key insights on what we are doing here at WD (and all the time!) as we work together to resource gender equality around the world.

Achieving gender equality at scale requires collaboration, not competition,to achieve our goals. How do we do that?

✅ Understand how organizations complement each other: For example, Equality Fund flows money to feminist movements by directly funding women-run organizations and feminist funds. Co-Impact brings together local changemakers and funders around the world to make systems work for everyone, especially those most marginalized. Achieving gender equality is central to to our goals.

✅ Better resourcing and philanthropy means moving beyond short-term, funding toward long-term, flexible support. It means trusting movements and people to lead, shifting decision-making power away from donors and toward the communities driving change.

✅ Real change requires collective action: partnerships built on shared power, trust, and solidarity, where risks are taken together. In other words, we need to “build the village,” connecting people, movements, and resources to create change.

Moments like Women Deliver matter. When we convene as leaders, advocates, and partners from around the world, it helps us align, learn, and move forward together.