APRIL 26, 2023
LEARNINGS FROM OUR GRANTMAKING IN 2022
In the fiscal year 2022 (July 2021 – June 2022), we continued our commitment to accompany intersectional movements for justice by mobilizing resources through our pooled funds. Our work as grantmakers has sought to be fully alongside our partners on the frontlines every step of the way. We stay in persistent dialogue with our movement partners, funding allies, staff colleagues, and teammates to stay attuned to partners and the wider philanthropic sector.
The María Fund’s partner Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico; photography by Alejandro González
Trends in Grantmaking
- A continuing commitment to funding in the south
- Moving fewer grants but at larger sizes
- Undergirding national and local movement infrastructure
- Supporting Black and Indigenous leaders in a time of intersecting crises
- Supporting movement’s increasing centering on healing justice
- Funding at the intersections matters more than ever
- Continuing to deeply engage and organize Solidaire and the rest of the philanthropy sector
- Responsiveness to movement partners matters materially and politically
- Building a new world with new structures needs resourcing right now
Solidaire Network committed $9,136,333 to the frontlines of social change, impacting 152 grantee partners
Solidaire is one of the first ones to fund us and help us be seen as a movement innovator. So much gratitude to you for that support and for the ongoing support.” – BLPF Grantee Partner
Read the full Movement Partnerships and Grantmaking: FY2022 Learning and Evaluation Analysis here
What remains vital is Solidaire’s commitment to funding the long term growth and development of social movements in their context and on their stated terms.
We don’t have to worry about playing down the hard parts, we can be candid and in clear relationship.” – MIF Grantee Partner
EB PREC’s co-founders Gregory Jackson, Marissa Ashkar, Ojan Mobedshahi, Noni Session, and Shira Shaham at their public launch on December 5, 2018.
Here’s what we are focused on for FY2023
We are expanding our grantmaking by adding new movement partners and increasing some of our multi-year commitment funds. We have relaunched the Janisha R. Gabriel Movement Protection Fund in response to the immediate security needs of our movement partners. The following recommendations come out of our analysis of the grantmaking to the frontlines in FY2022.
- FUND RESPITE: Funders should increase their giving to support sabbaticals, respite and care.
- REFINE SOLIDAIRE’S FUNDING FOCUS: It may make sense to clarify the type of organizations we are most able and willing to support, majority under resourced groups/geographies as well as larger movement anchors to fund a robust movement ecosystem.
- SUPPORT TRAINING BETWEEN MOVEMENT PEERS: There is also an opportunity for philanthropy to make resources available for movement partners to train one another and further develop the movement’s base of strong organizers.
- POLITICAL EDUCATION ON URGENTLY FUNDING SAFETY: Extend collaborations with funding partners on security and to support targeted communities.
- LEARN STRATEGIES FROM GLOBAL PARTNERS: Deepen understanding of how frontline organizers globally use a variety of strategies to move an anti-imperialist agenda forward.
- EXPAND PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN MOVEMENT AND PHILANTHROPY: There is a need for more philanthropic institutions to partner with movement groups in experiments with various movement-led funding structures.
