In times of extraordinary grief and violence, we find strength in regrounding in our values, fortifying our strategies, and taking action toward the future we know is possible. In this work, participatory practice is a value essential to our collective liberation.
To act in participatory ways is to heed the guidance of—and to meet the true needs of—our communities. It is to shift grantmaking power to the people and also to ensure that their voices inform our processes, our support offerings, and, above all, our strategies.
As intermediary funders deeply rooted in the communities we serve, what we feel, know, and hear directly from the frontlines of justice movements is this:
- True social change is nonlinear, often immeasurable, and generational—and thus, requires flexible, multi-year funding from philanthropy.
- During sociopolitical flashpoints, grassroots leaders and organizations rely on additional infusions of resources to sustain their work, their communities, and themselves.
Over the past several years, we’ve witnessed the deprioritization of rapid response funding, with good intention—to prevent harmful boom-bust funding and instead focus on long-term power building. What this approach misses, however, is that the swift distribution of resources during times of crisis is necessary for the health, wellness, success, and sheer survival of grassroots movements and leaders.
When paired with unrestricted, long-term strategic funding, rapid response resources buoy organizers to fend off extreme antagonism, ramp up offerings for marginalized community members, and pivot to seize key opportunities. These funds also support dedicated and exhausted activists to tend to and process their trauma, grief, and pain—and thus sustain their work for fights ahead.
Rapid response funds are particularly critical for BIPOC, queer, trans, and disabled folks since these communities are disproportionately impacted by all forms of crisis (from legislative to climate and beyond), and because the organizations that serve them are overwhelmingly and systematically under-resourced to begin with.
For example:
- Funding for Black communities still represents only 2.1% of philanthropic giving overall—and funds dedicated to racial justice comprise just 1% of overall grants distributed. Black-led organizations now also bear the brunt of our sector’s latest boom and bust cycle, following an uptick in resource mobilization in response to 2020’s racial justice uprisings.
- A majority of Black-led and Black-benefiting nonprofits operate on less than $500,000 a year, and nearly one-third operate on just $30,000 a year.
- Only 6% of the $1.2 billion in grants invested in journalism, news, and information goes towards efforts serving specific racial and ethnic groups.
- For every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations, only 4.6 cents specifically supports queer and trans communities and issues.
- Only 2% of total philanthropic giving is allocated for disability-focused initiatives, the majority of which goes towards disability services and support.
- Native American communities and causes receive just 0.4% of philanthropic dollars, even though Native Americans comprise 2.9% of the population.
- In 2022, for every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations, only 25 cents specifically supported LGBTQ communities, and only 4% went toward trans communities.
- Issue-specific funds that primarily benefit BIPOC folks face similar under-resourcing. Local abortion funds, for example, received less than 2% of all reproductive rights funding between 2015-2019, and have increasingly lost funds in the aftermath of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, devastating abortion access further.
In this present moment, it is these very groups that are pushing their work forward amidst rapidly escalating assaults, from the criminalization of reproductive care to increased surveillance, attacks on protest and mutual aid networks, record-breaking anti-trans legislation, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, among other sociopolitical, community, and environmental disasters. And they are meeting these challenges while also fearing for their personal and organizational safety and well-being—all while funders pull back support in response to extremist fear tactics.
This cataclysmic moment is philanthropy’s to meet. This is a moment in which our sector—in all its abundance—has not only an opportunity but a moral obligation to lean deeply into participatory practice across all of our areas of operation and give all that our community partners require.
Austen Risolvato/Rewire News Group illustration
As funders consider the manifold pathways toward mobilizing urgent resources to the frontlines, it feels important to uplift the power of intermediary organizations like ours, uniquely suited to act swiftly and strategically, particularly during times of crisis. Our flat, community–rooted structures allow us to distribute pooled dollars quickly and in ways that are deeply aligned with the movements’ pressing needs. Here’s some of what this strategic, rapid response resource mobilization has looked like over the past several years:
- Mere weeks after the arrival of COVID-19 in the United States was declared a pandemic, the Fund for Trans Generations launched a COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund to support trans-organizations and organizers survive. Funds supported efforts ranging from mutual aid networks to virtual wellness spaces, the shift to virtual programming, living stipends for staff, survival needs (food, rent, shelter), and organizing and advocacy efforts.
- As political analyses made it clear that Roe v. Wade would be dismantled, the Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund launched a Reproductive Justice Rapid Response Fund to adapt and respond to the impact on queer and trans communities, including and beyond abortion access. Funds supported groups to build community alternatives to healthcare and abortion access, lead educational and electoral work, and develop mutual aid networks. Additionally, Women Donors Network launched their Abortion Bridge Collaborative Fund in Fall of 2022 to ensure enduring abortion care across the U.S., and to protect and advance reproductive justice nationwide.
- Recognizing escalating physical and digital threats to organizers, the Spark Justice Fund launched a Safety and Security Rapid Response Fund for power-building organizations working to decarcerate, close jails, abolish cash bail, and advance transformative visions of pretrial justice and safety in the communities most impacted by incarceration. These funds supported organizers to ramp up their emergency preparedness and response, beef up their organizational cybersecurity, and combat adversity that could potentially harm their reputation, operations, or stakeholders.
- This year, Proteus Fund’s RISE Together Fund—which has long supported Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian communities to fend off post 9/11 attacks—launched a rolling Rapid Response Fund to resource communities experiencing a nationwide wave of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim hate, intimidation, censorship and government suppression in response to community advocacy and protests.
- In response to rising authoritarianism and increased backlash on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and LGBTQ communities—particularly attacks on trans communities of color—Emergent Fund, a movement aligned, participatory rapid response fund, partnered with Transgender Law Center to launch the Action for Transformation Fund, moving $1 million in rapid response dollars into the field to support trans-led organizing, healing, and power-building efforts.
Groundswell Fund’s Rapid Response Fund has focused on funding organizations prioritizing civic engagement work, particularly those in the South leading voting rights, anti-fascist organizing, and democracy protection efforts throughout 2024. Funding organizations fighting for abortion access, reproductive justice, and trans rights will remain a priority as harmful legislation and policy continue to strip away the constitutional right to bodily autonomy in states across the nation.
Earlier this year, recognizing the urgency of the moment, funders demonstrated the power of alignment by organizing themselves under a shared action: to move money early to secure free, fair, and representative elections.
As we approach November, we cannot succumb to the fear-mongering tactics being levied by the right. Philanthropy’s support remains just as essential today, tomorrow, and in the many months and years ahead of us—because our opposition shows no sign of slowing down, and our freedom does not rest on elections. The pursuit of justice is deep and evolving. It requires extensive reimagining, visioning, experimentation, and, ultimately, a complete rebuilding of our systems, norms, and culture. This is big work. And while its success does not hinge on this year’s elections, its chances will be greatly impacted by election outcomes and the manifold and intersecting crises that continue to unfold in our country.
It is for this reason that we are calling on funders to harness our collective power and urgently move abundant resources to communities, via both long-term funding commitments and rapid response distributions. These continued unprecedented times call for continued, unprecedented, and wraparound levels of commitment—they call for the flowing of equal parts rapid and long-term resources.
In committing to this approach, philanthropy can shift into the practice of being true accomplices with our movement partners. By flanking organizers through this moment, and for the long haul, our sector can act as a bolstering force for the joy, healing, and flourishing of the movement ecosystem—until, one beautiful day, our existence is no longer necessary.
Further Reading
For more on the value of intermediaries, check out Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s new report on how to work with collaboratives strategically, Bridgespan and the Gates Foundations’ paper on partnering with intermediaries to safeguard democracy, and this piece, co-authored by several intermediary leaders, about how our institutions offer promise, wisdom, and influence across the philanthropic landscape.