Written in collaboration with Communities Rise (cross-posted here). A special thank you to Roshni Sampath for her contributions to this piece.
Since January 2025, many of us have participated in and been witnesses to protests, actions, and revolutions across the globe as the rising swell of authoritarianism and fascism continues to roll across our societies. Here in the US, we have been witness to increased racial profiling and deportation of individuals, rising healthcare costs, and slashes to vital programs like SNAP/EBT.
At the start of these crises, it felt like every funder was raising their hand and asking: “What can we do?” And some responded to the call for increasing the flow of funds into the community. However, many others have remained silent or frozen, especially as actual and anticipated attacks on their 501(c)(3) status increased.
The lessons from COVID-19 and the 2020 Racial Uprisings in the wake of George Floyd’s murder did not result in the “new normal” and radical change in the philanthropic sector that we had all hoped to see. And certainly not enough to resist the push by forces bent on consolidating wealth and power regardless of the consequences to millions of people.
As capacity-building organizations, we hold a distinct position: the ability to convene and see what communities are facing across our ecosystem. And here is what we need you to see and accept as reality.
Fund for Long-Term Change [Don’t control it, fund it]
In the current system, nonprofits lack financial sustainability if our funders don’t support us. We do our work best when funded in ways that create stability and a power-building base.
Resist trying to control the steps or outcomes. Instead, make a sustained, meaningful commitment to fund change. Fund the people and organizations with a vision for their communities. Fund with deep pockets in a steady, long-term way. Fund multi-year, general operating dollars!! (Read that one twice.) Give people room for failure, planning, and freedom from justifying every cent. Fund so that people have multiple years to plan if you intend to change your giving levels or sunset operations.
Fund Strategically [fund from a place of strategy, not virtue]
To make change, we need to fund all levels of our movements – which includes advocacy, narrative change, frontline organizations, capacity builders, mutual aid networks, and more. We need to fund under-resourced communities, especially BIPOC communities, which are often creating solutions that address the intersections of many societal inequities. Our work does not need a single heroic leader or perfect organization that never makes mistakes. We need well-funded networks and allies who can share power and provide feedback when we need to change our approaches.
Without funding all aspects of our movements or working in lockstep with other funders to ensure a broad diversity of funding projects, meaningful change will elude us. We won’t shift things unless we engage politically, quickly, and collaboratively. Which area are you moving? Are you focusing on moving multiple issues in a given area, or one aspect of one issue? Choose it. Fund it. Learn from it.
Fund proportionally
We will only see change to the level that it is funded. Some funders increased their giving lately, and it is appreciated. But these funding increases by a few funders fall short of meeting the moment we find ourselves in. Inflation continues to outpace giving by foundations, so even marginal increases in funding by some funders will not bolster nonprofits as they face unprecedented funding cuts. This has especially hit communities of color, as charitable funding to our organizations is less than 3% of all giving, and our budgets disproportionately rely on government grants.
Without a radical increase in support from funders, organizations will continue to attempt to maintain the level of service they have provided. But it will be hard. In the first 6 months of this administration, nonprofits laid off over 22,000 staff. We cannot magically fix societal problems, but we are even less prepared to prop up social supports when funding never matches the growing needs, increasing crises, and continued loss of public funds. We are unable to get to where we are going without sustained gifts of all sizes alongside grant funding increases that are proportional or exceed the rate of inflation, and we must keep expectations in proportion with funding changes.
Allow yourself to learn and grow from the very folks you are supporting.
Grassroots International recently proposed a new yet deeply ancestral concept: Solidarity philanthropy. As funders isolate themselves for fear of future federal attacks similar to the one on Open Society Foundation, we instead encourage you to lean into connection and relationship with us. See that your liberation is tied up in our own. Listen to those you support – bring them into the strategy tables. Let organizations and leaders tell you what would be impactful.
There may be tensions and questions you need to answer internally before moving into a relationship with folks: How ready is the funding entity to redistribute wealth and spend down? How can you create pathways of learning and change with your board of directors? How do people want to engage as individual donors, separate from any funding institutions?
Build a relationship with the folks you fund and the impact they can have on you. Allow yourself to be changed by the people you fund. Allow for mistakes or failure, done honestly and with integrity, to be a space for learning. Grow together.
