Workshop co-ordinator: Christine Wise,
(Fawcett Library, UK).

Presenters:
Will Jansen and Hanneke Hazeveld (Mama Cash, Women's Fund in the Netherlands) and Ansje Roepman and Petra Branderhorst (IIAV, Fundraisers Know How Conference). This workshop dealt with the crucial subject of funding women's information services, building on the global discussion that was started at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. Starting points were the actual experiences, successes as well as failures, of women's information centres with finding funding for their centres. Case studies of the Fawcett Library, the Know How Conference were presented, while Mama Cash shared valuable practical information about good fundraising. In the lively discussion many of the 70 odd participants shared their needs and expectations on the issue of fundraising.

General
Christine Wise welcomed everybody in the packed Kleine Aula and inventoried the regional spread: Australia and the Middle East were underrepresented, all the other regions were well represented. She then sketched the hampered development of this workshop: the co-ordinator withdrew, presenter Trish Mbanga from Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe International Bookfair) was prevented at the last moment and no proposals had been sent in. This situation accounted for the all-white panel with the IIAV fundraisers stepping in at the last moment.
The format chosen was the following: the first part of the two hours was devoted to three short presentations with a few questions afterwards. In the second hour many participants offered their views on the financial situation of their documentation centre and the problems they encountered in trying to raise funds.
Included is the hand-out by Christine Wise with the text of her presentation.

Presentations
In the first presentation, Christine Wise, librarian of the Fawcett Library and member of the Project Team, gave an outline of her activities in raising funds. Remarkable was the recent success of the Fawcett Library in securing more than four million pounds from a lottery fund, for a new building. Main reasons of this success were the desperate state of their present building and recent flooding and the fact that the Fawcett is considered a national heritage.

Petra Branderhorst gave a short history of the success of raising funds for the Know How Conference. She stressed the need for a well-defined mission statement as a guidance for the whole fundraising process. Key concepts in this fundraising process were:

- Enhancement of the visibility and accessibility of women's information centres in the world among women's information centres itself as well as upwards to government and policy.

- The profession of women's information is broadened into a global level - it is about the position of women - and the Know How Conference is thus linked to the Beijing world conference. Standing in this tradition and using Beijing as its legitimisation, the Know How Conference is in fact helping governments to fulfil their pledge in Beijing. Thus, the political aspect and power of the profession is introduced.

- The importance of a fair representation of all the world regions in the programming (hence the important role of the International Programme Committee in designing the Know How programming) and in the actual participation (more than 80 grants for participants from the global South).

- The prominent role of information technology in the profession: women's information specialists are fine examples of advanced technically skilled women professionals.

The presentation of Mama Cash consisted of a short outline of the history of this Dutch women's fund devoted to support independent women in the world, especially in the South and in the post-communist countries. A lot of practical information was given about good practices of fundraising.

Discussion: some points
Main point of the discussion was the generally felt need for good information about financial sources for women's documentation centres. The need for this was felt in African countries as well as in the South American region. Esther Camac, Costa Rica, stated the special situation of Indigenous women, who are trying to preserve their own cultural heritage and identity, while their specific needs as 'women' within the indigenous community are not yet recognised. Anne Walker shared with us the 25 year efforts of the International Women's Tribune Centre to support the Spanish speaking women's centres with practical information about fundraising for their centres. This resulted in flooding the funding agencies with grant proposals, which was not appreciated by these agencies. At this moment, the IWTC has been cut off from funding itself and the support for Spanish speaking women's centres has ceased to exist. Marta Terry, Cuba-IFLA, suggested that Mapping the World should make space for practical funding information to be shared with each other. While the inventory of practical experiences consisted mostly of lack of funding and lack of information about potential donor agencies, the remark was made that we can learn from our successes as well. The Know How Conference fundraisers succeeded in finding a way to 'sell' women's information as a necessary precondition for all kinds of steps to further the position of women. Also, they suggested to stress the educational aspect of women's information, for example in disseminating information among illiterate women and the role of information in oral traditions. Mama Cash offered valuable information and confirmed their willingness to receive proposals from Indigenous women groups. Forty percent of their yearly grant money (1,5 million guilders) is devoted to support women's information and documentation. Gertrude Mongella, Advocacy for Women in Africa, asked if there was a possibility of raising money among individual women with money. Mama Cash as well as Christine Wise confirmed that most of their funds were raised among a circle of steady women supporters. Mongella further asked if Mama Cash would consider funding grant proposals from African countries, processed by a central person who could write the letters and master the specific jargon. Mama Cash said they would welcome all grant proposals, whether in joint form or separately sent in.
Christine Wise closed the session with reading aloud the proposed text for the resolution as proposed by Marta Terry.