Supporting the Future of Frontline Organizations: $7 Million Toward Social Movement Infrastructure
Solidaire’s new Movement Infrastructure Fund awarded $7,340,000 to 55 groups as its inaugural cohort. The goal of this pooled fund is to support the long-term capacity of movement organizations and formations to build power and transform what is possible.
“Social movements need philanthropy to take their needs and visions seriously,” said Ada Smith, Solidaire Network’s movement partnership and grantmaking practitioner. “Our application process underscored that transforming oppressive systems is generational work, so we responded with multi-year grants. Donors and grantmakers must do more to protect and flank this work over time.”
The Movement Infrastructure Fund is informed by the experiences of movement partners who want relationships with funders who believe in their vision. Trusting BIPOC organizers who are directly impacted and on the frontlines looks like funding their capacity and sustainability. Through multi-year, general operating grants, the Movement Infrastructure Fund contributes to resistance by helping to scaffold systems and tools, as well as transformative futures through agency and scale.
“We are living in a time of powerful organizing and this list of grantees reflects the complexity of the movement infrastructure needed to keep winning and win bigger,” said Janis Rosheuvel, director of movement partnerships and grantmaking at Solidaire. “From efforts to recover and steward land in collective and Indigenous ways, to the creation of grassroots media that combat dangerous narratives, these partners represent a wide range of groups that are meeting the challenges of organizing in a moment of great opportunity and risk. We must keep funding a variety of strategies, especially groups and in regions that are often overlooked and underfunded.”
Solidaire received over 1,100 applications, showing the array of grassroots genius, innovation and agency. It was clear through the process that Indigenous communities, AAPI leaders, rural organizers, farmworkers and service workers are demanding systemic-level change, and need investment in the long-term infrastructure that can power victories. The Movement Infrastructure Fund’s Advisory Team offered insights and strategy on the role of infrastructure to build durable, resilient movements. From electoral strategies to affordable housing, from legal support to digital security the 55 grantees selected represent vital back-end services, networks and alliances, as well as political homes-all essential infrastructure for social movements to sustain and grow.
“We are honored to concretely express our solidarity through unrestricted funding partnerships with movement formations leading the necessary work of social transformation,” said Rajasvini Bhansali, executive director of the Solidaire Network. “This is just the beginning. Grassroots organizers and movement leaders have long sounded the alarm on the urgent need for long-term investment in movement infrastructure.”
Since 2013, Solidaire has provided an opportunity for its membership to pool financial resources and act together. Solidaire has distributed over $3 million to ensure security and protection of social justice leaders through the Janisha R. Gabriel Movement Protection Fund. In May, through the Black Liberation Pooled Fund (BLPF), Solidaire awarded $14 million over two years to 102 organizations in the movement for Black freedom. The Movement Infrastructure Fund, along with the Black Liberation Pooled Fund, further demonstrate Solidaire’s commitment to the value of long term resourcing of movements.
Stay connected to Solidaire via its website to learn more about what the network is learning about partnership, grantmaking and solidarity.