Meet the Chroma Collective.
The Chroma Collective was a community of gender practitioners from over fifteen leading donor and financing institutions based around the world. Members represented a cross-institutional group of experts, doers, listeners, and problem solvers. The Collective worked to more effectively integrate gender within and across international development systems.
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The Chroma Collective closed its doors in April 2026. All content related to the project on this website is static and represents work done between 2021 and 2026.
For more information on the Collective, contact Mary Kincaid at mary@irisgroupinternational.com.
What Chroma Does
The Chroma Collective creates opportunities for donor and financing institutions in global development to innovate and produce radically new ideas in their approach to gender mainstreaming.
Members work together to build a more robust perspective of the gender ecosystem by looking outside their own organizations, direct peers, and geographical contexts. The Chroma Collective convenes experts for timely and important conversations, often pushing the limits of what is possible.
As a Community of Practice, members roll up their sleeves to take a practical and generative approach to sticky challenges. They grapple with tough questions and translate answers into tangible ideas. Together, members collaborate across organizational silos, drive new ways of working, share promising practices and learnings, and co-create solutions to boost their joint impact toward gender equality.
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But wait, what exactly is gender mainstreaming?
Creating Practical Tools to Drive Change
Building Blocks of Gender Equality
A framework offering practical pathways for your institution to navigate and strengthen its commitment to gender equality. It explores Gender Mandate, Leadership, Structural Elements, Enforcement Mechanisms, Outcomes & Impact.
Gender*Green Agenda
Project designs and resources at the nexus of gender and the green agenda to inspire you in your environmental and climate change work.
Why Chroma is Important
There has been a lot of progress in how funders and other stakeholders approach gender in global development. Over time, this progress has slowed down, and in some cases has even become “stuck.” Furthermore, COVID-19 revealed the fragility of gender equality achievements to date. Using design innovation, Chroma members build on their gender expertise to jointly address entrenched challenges and co-create innovative solutions to “unstick” progress and meet their institutions’ gender equality commitments. Additionally, Chroma provides a safe and supportive space where members can harness their collective power to advance the gender ecosystem more broadly.
Convened By
Iris Group is a women-owned consulting firm that applies practical, evidence-based technical guidance and strategies to support its clients as they work towards achieving gender equality and social inclusion.
Formerly Convened With
Funded By
The Collective is fully funded by the Gates Foundation, a U.S. private foundation with a mission to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. The Gates Foundation participates in the core cohort of the Collective but is not responsible for agenda-setting or decision-making in the formation of the Collective.
IDEO.org is a non-profit design studio that specializes in human-centered design to build solutions and systems in service of building a more just and equitable world.
