Much of the conversation about women and philanthropy has focused on participation: the wealth women hold, the causes they support and the growing visibility of women as donors.
These developments matter. But participation is not quite the same as authority.
A woman may be closely involved in her family’s giving and still feel that the direction was established by somebody else. She may have the means to give independently, yet hesitate to claim the legitimacy to make a significant decision. Or she may know what matters to her but be less certain how to translate that conviction into a credible approach.
The more interesting question, then, is not simply whether women give. It is whether they feel able to shape their philanthropy on their own terms.
Wealth does not automatically confer ownership
There is no single experience of wealth among women. It may have been created, inherited, shared with a partner, received after a business sale or taken on following bereavement or divorce. Each route can carry different expectations, loyalties and degrees of freedom.
Where giving takes place within a couple or family, authority can be particularly difficult to read. A decision described as joint may be genuinely equal. It may also reflect an established family direction that one person feels reluctant to question.
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute’s study of household giving decisions found that joint decision-making was the most common arrangement among the US couples surveyed. Yet patterns varied, and the dynamics in high-net-worth
households were not identical to those in the wider population.
The figures cannot tell us how authority felt to those involved. They do caution against assuming that involvement, influence and ownership are interchangeable.
For some women, the real tension emerges when their interests diverge from a long-standing family approach. Supporting a different issue, changing an inherited structure or committing a larger sum can feel like more than a financial decision. It may involve questioning a family narrative, or exercising an authority that has never been made explicit.
This is not necessarily a lack of confidence. Sometimes it is a sensible awareness of the relationships and responsibilities surrounding the wealth.
Authority develops through use
The idea that a philanthropist should first become completely confident and then begin to act is appealing. It is also unrealistic.
Philanthropic judgement develops through exposure: meeting organisations, hearing different perspectives, making grants and revising one’s view. Authority is not granted by wealth or acquired through technical knowledge. It grows as a donor makes decisions and accepts responsibility for them.
A study by Elizabeth Dale and Heather O’Connor, *The million-dollar donor journey*, examined women who had made gifts of at least $1 million to causes benefiting women and girls. The sample was specific and not representative of all women of wealth. Its central insight is nevertheless useful: these commitments emerged through an iterative process shaped by experience, learning and identifiable stages of development.
Peer networks were important in that process. They gave participants opportunities to learn how others approached significant giving and to become more comfortable with their own wealth and decisions.
Giving circles, donor networks and carefully convened peer groups can serve a similar purpose. At their best, they make philanthropy discussable. A donor can encounter different models and test her assumptions without being pushed prematurely towards a particular vehicle or cause.
The same principle applies to informed advisory support. Its purpose is not to substitute one person’s judgement for another’s. It is to help the donor examine what is influencing the decision, identify where more knowledge is needed and distinguish genuine uncertainty from the fear of departing from expectation.
From hidden influence to recognised judgement
Women’s authority may also be underestimated because it is not always
exercised publicly.
A 2026 qualitative study of women and philanthropy in Ireland, based on interviews with 30 women donors and eight philanthropy professionals, described women’s giving as personal, purposeful and frequently conducted outside public
view. Participants valued trusted relationships, learning and mentorship, while occupying overlapping roles within families, advocacy and governance.
The study is exploratory and not universally generalisable. It nevertheless captures a familiar tension between influence and visibility. A woman may make substantial decisions, open networks and strengthen organisations without adopting the public identity of “philanthropist”.
Visibility should not become the test of authority. Discretion can be a deliberate and entirely legitimate choice. Yet there is a difference between choosing privacy and remaining hidden because one does not feel entitled to claim a place in the conversation.
When women’s thinking remains unrecognised, families and institutions may miss perspectives that could alter what is funded and how decisions are made.
Advisers may direct technical questions to one family member while overlooking the person doing much of the relational and strategic work. Recognising authority means listening for judgement, not simply looking for the
most visible title or the loudest voice.
Exercising authority without centring the donor
There is a further tension here. Encouraging a woman to own her philanthropic decisions does not mean placing the donor at the centre of every answer.
Philanthropic authority carries limits. A donor can decide what she will support with her own resources and what responsibilities she is willing to assume. She does not, by virtue of wealth, possess the deepest knowledge of a community, an issue or the practical work of addressing it.
Mature authority includes knowing when to lead, when to question and when to defer. It allows a donor to hold a clear direction while remaining open to challenge from charities, community leaders and people with lived experience. Indeed, the more firmly a philanthropist understands her own values and role, the less she may need to control every aspect of the work.
This is where ownership and humility meet. The donor owns the decision to commit her resources. She need not claim ownership of the change that follows.
A more useful question
Moving from participation to authority is not a single transition. It may involve claiming an independent interest within a family, making an initial commitment, becoming more comfortable with scale or deciding that an inherited approach no longer fits.
The process will not look the same for every woman of wealth. Nor should it.
What matters is that hesitation is examined rather than casually labelled as a lack of confidence. Is more evidence needed? Is the decision entangled with family expectations? Has the donor had access to people who can challenge and
expand her thinking? Or is she waiting for a certainty that philanthropy cannot provide?
Authority does not require having all the answers. It requires enough understanding to make a decision, enough ownership to stand behind it and enough humility to keep learning from those who know what the money alone cannot reveal.
