Though International Women’s Day on March 8 is meant to honor women’s lives and accomplishments globally, the state of affairs in Ukraine has muted such celebrations in the country, especially in the Jewish community. According to the United Nations, three long years of war have left 1.8 million women and girls displaced and 6.7 million needing humanitarian assistance. Women have come to account for 72.5% of those unemployed, with women displaced because of the war having higher rates of joblessness than men. The pay gap between women and men has doubled since 2021 with women earning 41.4% less than men in 2023. War-related distress has contributed to a 36% spike in gender-based violence along with higher rates of depression among women and girls; and at least 3,799 women and 289 girls have been killed in mass attacks, with estimates that the actual number is much higher.

Amidst all this devastation and an uncertain future for the nation, the UN’s statistics illuminate one bright spot: Today, one in every two businesses in Ukraine is founded by a woman. 

With the help of Project Kesher’s grantmaking arm, Ukrainian small business owner Anastasia creates handmade, high-end glassware embedded with real bullets to symbolize resilience and strength. Courtesy/Project Kesher

This statistic is the clearest indication of where private and institutional philanthropists and global funds should direct their resources, especially given the acute and heartbreaking limitations that have resulted from the destruction of USAID. With every dollar donated vastly more important, every dollar must unlock exponential impact — and funding for women entrepreneurs has this precise effect. 

Grants make it possible for these founders to stabilize their families, contribute to the local economy, offer their communities needed goods and services, bring on more workers who would otherwise be unemployed and even become philanthropists themselves. Moreover, economic stability does more for mental health than virtually any other investment. The ripple effects are simply enormous on an individual, communal and societal level.

Achieving these results requires an understanding of best practices in women-directed giving and the ability to view grantmaking with a highly gendered lens. 

1. Smaller-sized grants are often the most beneficial.

The vast majority of women-led businesses globally are small and medium enterprises with relatively modest revenues. This size makes it difficult for founders to fully utilize large-scale grants and fulfil their accompanying requirements. Women entrepreneurs are thus better empowered with grants of between $1,500 and $3,000 that provide pathways to discrete but tangible and meaningful improvements over time. 

Additionally, outright grants (as compared to loans) ensure that recipients are well positioned to return two to three times the amount of the funding into the economy within one year through taxes, wages and philanthropy.

2. Educational and networking opportunities matter.

Because women have traditionally lacked access to the kinds of opportunities available to men, they often have gaps in their background that make it more challenging to grow their businesses. Grants specifically designed to equip these leaders with greater education, training and networking possibilities empower them to think bigger and act accordingly.

3. Centering women’s needs and voices is essential.

For too long, funders have made well-intentioned decisions about the needs of women grantees with limited understanding of their day-to-day realities, only to discover that their efforts are either ineffective or duplicative. Only by centering the needs and voices of women entrepreneurs in grantmaking programs and priorities can funders offer truly meaningful help.

At Project Kesher, which has been embedded in Ukraine for more than 30 years, we’ve seen the power of women-centered, locally informed grantmaking by measuring the impact of Project Kesher Ukraine Women’s Opportunity Fund (WOF-UA). This humanitarian grantmaking arm has made targeted, intentionally structured investments to support small and emerging women-led businesses since 2022. Our results continue to benchmark what is possible when funders follow established best practices.

Take Anastasia, whose business specializing in high-end glass production has been included in Forbes Ukraine’s list of 250 small and medium-sized companies poised to shape the future of the economy. Though forced to relocate twice due to the Russian invasion, Anastasia has grown her business with the help of WOF-UA, which funded the purchase of essential new equipment after Russian shelling caused significant damage.

There’s also Yevhenia, who runs a sanctuary for animals in the Ukrainian countryside. Here she has hosted more than 1,500 animals in need of evacuation, treatment and rehabilitation, and conducted hundreds of free animal therapy sessions for internally displaced persons, people with disabilities and families of fallen heroes. A WOF-UA grant helped Yevhenia upgrade her dairy equipment, empowering her to sell more provisions to those who visit the sanctuary and improving her ability to fulfill her organization’s mission.

And Natalia, who holds degrees in fashion design and has been voluntarily producing shoes and boots for military personnel since the onset of the war, recently began shifting her focus to making and selling adaptive footwear for injured members of the military. WOF-UA granted Natalia a laptop and computer literacy training to help her scale her emerging and meaningful business.

Our team sees countless stories just like these and collects data that illustrates their big-picture impact: For example, 82% of grantees achieve self-sufficiency within one year; more than 90% hire at least one more woman who was previously unemployed or underemployed; and 100% engage in philanthropy, even those struggling to gain a foothold.

Amidst the dismantling of USAID, this work is continuing uninterrupted because Project Kesher, Project Kesher Ukraine and WOF-UA have relied on the generosity of private funders like Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) rather than USAID. 

While three long years of war have done great harm to a generation of Ukrainian women, there is space for optimism and a path forward in Ukraine and other countries where acute gender disparities persist. Tapping into the potential of women entrepreneurs is one of the strongest possible ways to lift up families, communities and societies, bringing us closer to the more equitable world that International Women’s Day helps us envision.

Karyn Grossman Gershon is CEO of Project Kesher.