A note from Gary Barker, Equimundo Founder and CEO
In May 2024, Melinda French Gates named me as one of 12 global leaders who will each distribute a $20 million fund to charitable organizations doing urgent, impactful, and innovative work to improve women’s health and well-being in the United States and around the world. This opportunity comes as a part of an effort by Pivotal Ventures to mobilize billions of dollars toward advancing women’s power globally.
Together with the Equimundo team, we named this fund “The Caring Masculinity Fund,” which will become active in December 2024. As the name suggests, the fund will support civil society organizations doing advocacy, programmatic work, and research to promote caring manhood, with about 50 percent of the funds invested in the Americas region (including the US).
This opportunity comes at a crucial moment. Young men in many countries are faring poorly in school, and often pushing back against gains in women’s rights. Many boys and young men gravitate toward harmful voices online spaces and influencers. Some young men are using technology-facilitated violence against women and girls and against other men. Large percentages of boys and young men in some countries tell us they are socially isolated and face poor mental health. On the positive side, more men than ever are invested in caregiving – for children, for elderly family members, and others – even as we’re far from equality when it comes to caregiving.
At Equimundo and for me personally, a key solution to all of these issues is investing in the care for and of boys and men so that they can be caring, connected boys and men who embrace and live equality and non-violence. Quite simply, we believe that care leads to care in all its forms.
The scope of these challenges means we must think big. Equimundo’s new strategic plan presents an ambitious agenda for changing the structures, policies, systems, and narratives around us all to promote caring manhood.
Through the Caring Masculinity Fund we will achieve impact at scale by engaging national governments, national and local legislators, media content creators, workplaces, corporations, and civil society organizations. In partnership, we will multiply the impact of the Fund and reach hundreds of millions of men and boys in the US and globally.
PARTNERSHIP AT THE CENTER OF ALL WE DO
As a $6 million-a-year organization, we know that these ambitious plans require working in partnership, both for implementation as well as for fundraising. This is why we are in conversation with donors, international organizations, and other partners to use these funds from Melinda French Gates to leverage additional funding opportunities.
Rather than issuing a call for proposals, together with the Equimundo team, I am engaging in consultations with partners to identify initiatives that align with these focus areas, while also mapping potential new partners in selected geographies.
I am excited, along with the Equimundo team, to take this new phase forward, learn from our partners, and achieve greater impact with them. Together, we’re seizing the moment to accelerate investments in caring masculinity for the good of everyone.
Some initial big bets for achieving caring masculinity
Investing in city-level care advocacy and programming leading up to the Global Summit on Fatherhood, Men’s Caregiving, and Equality
Funds will support public-private ventures at the city and national level in at least 10 countries with the results to be shared via regional summits and a global summit to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in May of 2026. This global space aims to call in powerful allies to advance and implement the policies, change the narratives, and build a human and social infrastructure that supports men to center care in their lives and in the world, and achieve care equality. Results from those 10 initiatives will be shared during the global summit, and disseminated on a new global hub of policy actions to promote men’s caregiving.
Current partners in this work include The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland, The MenCare Campaign regional coordinators, Instituto Papo de Homem, Movember, International Parliamentary Union, Global Alliance for Care, Vital Voices, WomenDeliver, and others. To find out more about how you can join this adventure, contact Equimundo’s Director of Communications and Advocacy, José Campi-Portaluppi.
Incubating and accelerating new ideas for healthier connections for young men by co-creating an online Innovation Lab
In partnership with Futures Without Violence, we recently carried out a massive mapping of the online lives of young men. From that study, we will work with digital communities and creators to strengthen young men’s healthy connections, redirect online misogyny and hate and contribute to a more equitable and safe society. We’re partnering with Diverting Hate and others to test these messages and iterate to take them to scale.
To learn more about the Innovation Lab, contact Equimundo’s Senior Officer of Strategic Initiatives, Caroline Hayes.
Embarking on a new global study and public dialogue about manhood – called Man-i-Fest
For 15 years, Equimundo has led the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), the largest multi-country survey focused on men and gender equality. Building on IMAGES, Equimundo will listen to young men and women globally to understand what drives political polarization and backlash toward women’s rights among some men, as well as understanding young men’s social isolation – and what can be done about it. Bringing together researchers, NGOs as well as global thought leaders, this cutting-edge research will inform a series of public-facing events to discuss the current state of masculinity, the online lives of young men, the anti-feminist backlash, and focus on paths forward and creative solutions.
To learn more about the Man-i-Fest project, contact Equimundo’s Director of Research, Dr. Taveeshi Gupta.
Shifting the narrative around boyhood by engaging parents, educators, coaches, media and influencers
Funds will be used to amplify the scale of Equimundo’s Global Boyhood Initiative, which supports boys – in partnership with girls, and the adults in boys’ lives – to be caring, connected, and nonviolent. This includes partnerships with educators to embed healthy masculinities in educational systems in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the US. We’ll also be supporting our partners at BBC and Papo de Homem in Brazil to create and disseminate impactful storytelling to bring all of us into the conversation about healthy, caring boyhood.
To learn more about this initiative, contact Equimundo’s Director of Communications and Advocacy, José Campi-Portaluppi.
