Working with Differences in Global Contexts: Collaborative of International Feminist Organizations
Begun in the fall of 2000 and concluded in June 2004, this project supported collaborative learning and organizational strengthening amongst six global women’s-rights-in-development organizations funded by the Ford Foundation. This support program, convened by CGO, serves as one component of the larger Ford Foundation Initiative to ensure the sustained and effective contribution of these well-established organizations to advancing the field of women’s rights in development and gender equity globally. CGO worked with the Collaborative of International Feminist Organizations (CIFO) to strengthen each of the six member organizations by providing grant money to assist them in undertaking organizational innovations or experiments.
Through work with CIFO, CGO identified important principles at the intersection of organizational collaborations and working across differences in international contexts. We are currently translating these learnings into theory.
In June 2003, CGO’s Dr. Evangelina Holvino and Dr. Bridgette Sheridan presented a paper, “Social Identities and Identity Politics: The Dilemmas of Working with Differences in Global Contexts,” at the Gender, Work and Organization International Conference in England.
The findings from the CIFO project are included in CGO Commentaries No. 3, “Beyond Diversity: Working Across Differences for Organizational Change.”