The IWMF’s Reporting Grants for Women’s Stories, sponsored by The Secular Society, is a funding initiative supporting journalism produced by and about women. In an era of increased globalization, the need for varied coverage of gendered topics is critical to a free and representative press. These grants support reporting on untold stories surrounding issues that impact women and girls’ daily lives worldwide and the last round of funding ended in 2018.

Through programs, fellowships, and grants the IWMF empowers women journalists with the training, support, and network to become leaders in the news industry. The IWMF recognizes that promoting the work and advancing the role of women in the news media is critical to transparency and that women journalists remain underrepresented in both media organizations and bylines across the world. Consequently, stories about women and the issues that affect their lives remain severely underreported. The IWMF’s Reporting Grants on Women’s Stories initiative empowers journalists to access untold stories through new means of funding that emphasizes gender balanced reporting.

The Secular Society’s support for gender equity through independent reporting grants highlights the need to provide women journalists with more robust funding opportunities to pursue journalism in the public interest. The Secular Society believes that all governmental activities and those of religious organizations should be separate; they also hold that all religious beliefs are equally valid and their expression must be treated with tolerance and respect. Journalism funded by the IWMF’s Reporting Grants for Women’s Stories will contribute to the larger conversation about secularism’s role globally and focus on the challenges faced by women in a non-secular world.

The last round of the Reporting Grants for Women’s Stories concluded in April 2018.  There will be no new grant openings for this program.