ABSTRACT
Over the past 15 years, the figure of the girl activist has gone from invisible to hyper-visible. Alongside the public praise and admiration for individual celebrity girl activists, the newfound enthusiasm for girls’ activism has also generated a wave of philanthropic engagement. Drawing on in-depth interviews and an analysis of institutional materials and gray literature, this chapter traces how girls’ activism came to be an area of philanthropic and development interest. It considers the multiple political and institutional convergences that made grassroots girl-led organizing into a legible funding category, including the surprising and contradictory role of the Nike Foundation and the Girl Effect. A small group of feminist allies of girl activists, located within an interlocking set of institutions, were able to strategically leverage the opportunities provided by these convergences to collectively imagine and build a funding ecosystem that could support girls’ activism and political power. These individuals’ experiences navigating the deeply troubling political terrain around the Girl Effect apparatus shapes their approach to the current moment, making them well prepared to confront the looming dangers of cooptation and elite capture.
