Donate Crypto to Women’s Empowerment Causes

No economy in the world gives women fully equal legal rights, and only 4% of women live in economies close to full legal equality (World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2026). The barriers come at different points in a woman’s life, and so do the causes we list.

Girlhood: marriage or school

About 12 million girls marry before 18 each year, and about 640 million women alive today were married as children (UNICEF and UNFPA). About one in five young women worldwide was married as a child, and at the recent pace of progress UNICEF has estimated it would take at least 300 years to end the practice. Rates are among the world’s highest in Niger, and Bangladesh has the highest rate in South Asia.

School is the strongest protection. UNICEF estimates that in 15 countries with high rates of child marriage, universal secondary education for girls could cut child marriage by about two-thirds. Causes we list fund community outreach and scholarships that keep girls in school in Bangladesh through the Child Marriage Prevention Coalition, outreach in Niger, and stipends that keep girls enrolled past primary school in Chad. In Afghanistan, where girls are barred from secondary school, women are also shut out of most public jobs; the Afghan Women’s Rights Network funds vocational and income-generating training through local women’s organizations.

Earning a living: what the evidence says helps

Small loans were once seen as the key to women’s economic progress. Six randomized evaluations of microcredit in different countries, reviewed together in 2015, found “modestly positive, but not transformative” effects on average (Banerjee, Karlan and Zinman, 2015). Programmes that combine a substantial asset with training and support have done better: in Bangladesh, a large randomized study of BRAC’s programme for the poorest women, which provided livestock and training, found women worked more and earned more, with gains still there seven years later (Bandiera and colleagues, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2017).

Time is the other constraint. Women do about three-quarters of the world’s unpaid care work, more than three times as much as men (ILO, 2018), and UN Women estimates that 708 million women are kept out of the labour market by care responsibilities. Causes we list include:

• Selling more than raw crops: shared processing equipment for women’s agricultural cooperatives in Bolivia and Niger, so members can sell processed goods at better prices.
• Skills and capital: business, digital and life-skills training for women supporting families in Venezuela, and small business loans for women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, where women-owned businesses get a small share of formal bank lending.
• Childcare and returning to work: subsidized childcare places in Japan, advice for single parents in the UK on help with childcare costs, and job counselling and retraining for women in South Korea returning to work after a career break.
• Rights at work: counselling, legal support and workplace rights advocacy for working women in South Korea, including around pregnancy and maternity leave.

Land and inheritance

In many rural communities, land is the main source of food, income and security, and women often farm it without owning it. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that in 40 of the 46 countries with data, men are more likely than women to own or have secure rights to agricultural land. Causes we list fund research, training and community workshops on rural women’s land rights in Bolivia through the Women’s Land Rights Fund, and legal aid for widows in Nepal whose inheritance rights are often contested under customary practices.

Working abroad safely

There are about 75.6 million domestic workers worldwide, and 76% of them are women (ILO, 2021). Many work in other countries, often in private homes where labour protections are weak. Nepal has restricted women from going to Gulf countries for domestic work at various times, most recently since 2017, but women still travel through informal channels, which leaves them without the insurance, legal help and rescue that formal migration would provide. The Safe Migration Support Network funds pre-departure legal briefings for women migrating for domestic work, so they know their rights and where to get help.

Safety from violence

Nearly one in three women, about 840 million, have experienced violence from a partner or sexual violence in their lifetime (WHO, 2025). About 83,000 women and girls were intentionally killed in 2024, and about 50,000 of them, 137 a day, were killed by a partner or family member (UNODC and UN Women, 2025). Services are stretched even in wealthy countries: in the United States, programmes could not meet more than 13,000 requests for help on a single day in 2025 (National Network to End Domestic Violence). Causes we list fund national work that strengthens local domestic violence shelters through the Domestic Violence Shelter Fund, and legal advocacy for survivors, from appeals of court rulings that left them unprotected to training for lawyers and judges.

Why it matters who runs the programme

Women’s rights organizations, often small and local, know which problems matter most and what is safe in their community. Yet OECD figures show that aid going to women’s rights organizations and movements averaged about US$453 million a year in 2021–22, less than 1% of all development aid. When you judge a women’s organization, look for these signs:

Every Women’s Empowerment cause we list

Each cause names the women’s or community organization behind it and when our team last verified it. Open a cause for full details, or donate directly.

Common questions

Do these causes help women in wealthy countries too?

Yes. Several fund childcare in Japan, advice for single parents in the UK and return-to-work support for women in South Korea, and support for domestic violence shelters and legal advocacy for survivors in the United States.

How does preventing child marriage work?

Mostly by keeping girls in school and working with families and community leaders. Scholarships, stipends, outreach and changing local norms all play a part.

Is my donation to a domestic violence cause kept confidential?

Your donation itself isn’t shared with the partner. Shelters and legal services protect the identities and locations of the survivors they support.