Power of the People: Sourcing Grassroots Wisdom to Reimagine Philanthropy’s Learning and Evaluation Processes

In the summer of 2020, we witnessed grassroots leaders anchor the largest racial justice protest movement in the history of the United States. Globally, millions of people—across generations and identities—demanded that we hold Black lives as sacred, and condemned the historic and continued state and police violence against and divestment of Black communities.

This movement also issued an urgent call to action for philanthropy: to more deeply invest in visions of Black freedom, safety, and joy, and to move into deepened alignment with grassroots movements for justice.

At the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF) and Communities Transforming Policing Fund (CTPF), we took seriously this ask to shift both resources and power to communities—and acted, with intention, to transition our multi-year, unrestricted grantmaking models into community-led, participatory processes.

And as we interrogated other aspects of our funding process, we came to recognize the need for a new and participatory impact, learning, and evaluation paradigm: one that centers our grantee partners’ definitions of progress, and generates learnings on how philanthropy can be more accountable to movement organizers.

And thus, the Movement-Defined Learning Project was born.