GRANTMAKING
GRANTMAKING
FOR GRASSROOTS POWER
Solidaire’s membership moves money to the front lines of social change in order to fund urgent needs, support bold and innovative ideas that others may not fund and help build long term infrastructure for the movement. Solidaire members move money to C3 and C4 organizations across all of our current funding vehicles. We also move money to entities that do not have C3 or C4 designations.
Solidaire priotizies moving money to work that honors the following principles:
- Work that is led by people most directly impacted by injustice
- Work that is building power to challenge oppressive systems
- Work that confronts the root causes of oppression(s)
- Work that is led by and/or is in accomplice with marginalized people
- Work that is intersectional
- Work focused on communities that are historically under-resourced by philanthropic dollars and donors
We move money in ways that seek to challenge the traditional norms of the philanthropic sector. To that end we work to:
- Make applying for funds as easy as possible, employing short applications processes
- Offer general operating support to groups
- Not require reporting but instead seek to build just and right relationships that help us walk alongside movements
- Influence the ways the philanthropic sector funds and builds relationships with movements
Our pooled giving process is another way we take collective action as a community. Through this process, we support “Movement R&D”: the bold, upstart, innovative experiments in movement-building. Breakthroughs emerge when space exists to be creative and try new things. By pooling our resources, we provide risk capital for leaders on the ground, striving to create social change. Between 2013-2018 there have been over 150 Movement R&D grants made.
Rapid Response funding is our most nimble way to fund time sensitive opportunities that might otherwise not have access to resources because they are too new, too small, or too urgent. Sometimes these are crises or uprisings; at other times, they are creative ideas. At other times people on the front lines of social change require funds to move quickly to critical convenings, actions or approaches that will push the work forward. Our rapid response processes meets this need.
Our current Aligned Giving Strategy is focused on moving long-term financial resources to support the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). We pledged to work in partnership with the movement to ensure that Black-led and Black-serving organizations building power in their communities have the financial resources they need to address the deep structural inequalities caused by the persistence of racism and anti-Blackness in the United States.
Our Black Liberation Pooled Fund is a new opportunity for donors and foundations to step up in defense of Black lives. Right now, as people rise up around the globe for racial justice, we are in a unique moment to propel forward the work that Black-led organizers have been leading for years. Through the fund, our goal is to move at least $5 million to this ecosystem of movement builders by August 31, 2020.