SWDC - Consultancy Posting
CALL FOR CONSULTANT OR CONSULTANT TEAM
Internal Evaluation & Baseline Learning Process
| Apply by May 31, 2024|
Our Mission & Goals
The Sex Work Donor Collaborative is a collective of 30 individuals and institutions working together to increase the amount and quality of funding and non-financial support for sex worker rights and sex worker organizing.
Our goals:
Mobilize more (amount) and better (quality) funding for sex worker rights and sex worker organizing through donor education and influencing. Better funding enables sex workers to strengthen their organizations and networks, is responsive to sex worker communities’ priorities, is flexible, sustained, long-term, rights-affirming, and is accessible to sex workers.
Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of funding for sex worker rights and sex worker organizing through peer sharing, research and strategic coordination of grant-making, where appropriate.
Provide a platform where sex workers and donors can share information and learning and where sex workers can engage donors as allies in their political advocacy efforts.
To better appreciate our values and views, please review our website at www.SexWorkDonorCollaborative.org.
The Context
The Sex Work Donor Collaborative emerged from a donor dialogue hosted in 2008 by Open Society Foundations, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects and CREA in response to the lack of funding for sex workers' rights groups. One of the key outcomes of the donor-activist collaboration was the creation of the Red Umbrella Fund, the first global fund led by and for sex workers, founded in 2012. Funders identified the continued need for donor-to-donor advocacy that could increase the amount of funds to support the movement. With this need in mind, the Sex Work Donor Collaborative was officially formed in 2017 and adopted an agreed statement of mission and values, and a structure to guide the work. In 2018, 17 funders signed onto this mission, joined the new Sex Work Donor Collaborative and elected a steering committee. Additional funders have since joined. In 2021, the Sex Work Donor Collaborative hired its first Coordinator. The Sex Work Donor Collaborative is fiscally sponsored by AWID (Assocation for Women’s Rights in Development).
Since its founding, the SWDC has engaged in donor-to-donor advocacy, funding research, and has organized many sessions on funding for sex worker rights for the philanthropic community. Getting a clear picture of the sex worker rights funding landscape is fraught with challenges, as we discovered through our research. The smaller grant sizes and nuance required to understand funding in this field means that Candid, the best-resourced and most comprehensive fund tracker, is an incomplete source. As a result of these challenges, funders’ networks began to collect data directly from aligned funders about their giving to particular populations or on specific topics, so our most trustworthy data looks at sex worker rights funding through other lenses, such as reporting of HIV-related funding or LGBTQ funding. However, the SWDC’s membership represents an important source of funding for these movements, and we can get more complete information from our members than we can from outside funders. We are also interested in change over time in how our members fund, in order to track our impact.
At the same time, the SWDC is coming to the end of a 5 year strategic plan, and is interested in conducting an evaluation of our work through our members’ eyes. This will help inform our future direction.
The Assignment
The Sex Work Donor Collaborative (SWDC) seeks a consultant or consultant team to conduct research with our members to meet two goals and answer the following questions key to our evolution at this stage:
To establish a baseline of what/how our members are giving so as to measure change in the future.
What is the financial contribution made by our members to the funding landscape for sex worker rights?
What practices are our members using to fund sex worker movements? (core support v. project support, decision-making processes, grant application forms and processes)
What obstacles do our members face to giving more funding, higher quality funding, or using more accessible practices?
Through learning or programming, how can we help our members to be able to give more and better quality funding?
To gather perspectives on the SWDC’s progress so far and to inform our strategic planning
Do our vision, values, and goals resonate with our members?
How effective, sustainable and participatory have our strategies been over the past 5 years?
Have our strategies helped us achieve our goals and intended outcomes?
Has our leadership (Steering Committee and Coordinator) operated effectively and in line with our values?
What policies and procedures should we consider to better align our work to our goals?
How should we evolve to meet our purpose more fully?
Evaluation design and methodology
We imagine a mixed-methods research process that could include some or all of the following:
Collection of grants data from each of our members
Online survey of our members
Semi-structured interviews with some or all of our members
Facilitated focus groups of our members
The SWDC has a committee of members who wish to be actively involved and can be assigned some tasks to assist with this research: recruiting interviewees, conducting interviews, facilitating focus groups, etc. The SWDC Coordinator will also be actively involved in any coordination and review needed. We would like a process design that ensures our members feel invested in and ownership of the results. The goal of hiring an outside researcher is to retain a neutral and unbiased perspective on the research design and analysis of the results.
At the end of the assignment, the researcher/s will prepare a concise report of no more than 25 pages answering our key questions and offering recommendations.
The Requirements
The SWDC is estimating a budget of US $15,000 for the assignment. We expect that the assignment will run for about 5 months between July and November 2024, or such other timeline as may be negotiated with the selected consultant(s). In early December, the SWDC will hold an in person meeting where we hope to use the results for planning. The consultancy costs charged should include any travel, supplies, equipment, and report writing costs.
We recognise that this is a global assignment with a limited budget and timeframe, and we welcome responses that are realistic within that framework.
Qualifications
We are seeking a consultant or consultant team who has all of the following qualifications:
Experience with sex worker programming
Experience working in or adjacent to philanthropy
Experience with writing and research
Good project management skills
Consultants who are current or former sex workers, or who are from the Global South and East are encouraged to apply.
Process
To submit an expression of interest for consideration as research provider for the assignment, share (i) a research outline/plan, (ii) budget, (iii) a resume/s for research team members, and (iv) at least one example of similar work that the consultant/s have conducted to coordinator@sexworkdonorcollaborative.org before May 31, 2024.
The SWDC will confirm receipt of applications before the deadline, and only consultants selected for an interview will be contacted.