This essay is part of a Women & Democracy package focused on who’s funding the women and LGBTQ people on the frontlines of democracy. We’re manifesting a new era for philanthropy—one that centers feminism. The need is real: Funding for women and girls amounts to less than 2 percent of all philanthropic giving; for women of color, it’s less than 1 percent. Explore the “Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential to Democracy” collection.
Nearly five years ago, Melanie Allen and I, alongside many activists and funder partners, dove headfirst into a co-directorship at the newly-created Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice. We had both come from mainstream philanthropies and relished the opportunity to develop more equitable grantmaking practices, which, we had a hunch, could be incredibly impactful in supporting the broader and deeper civic engagement that’s essential for a democracy to solve its biggest problems. After raising funds and making grants to 150 organizations led mostly by women of color across the Southern U.S., our hunch has been confirmed: Taking a feminist approach to philanthropy is synonymous with just being effective. This approach is rooted in two intersecting tenets:
Make long-term, flexible grants that allow women, and especially women of color, to lead authentically, unlocking exponential power.
Grantee partners have requested long-term, flexible support for a very long time. The unrestricted assets of nonprofits led by Black women are 76 percent smaller than their white-led counterparts, and even smaller for groups led by Black women. In the environmental sector, women of color-led groups get just 6 percent of grant funding.
The Hive Fund disrupts this dynamic by making multi-year general support grants that affirm leaders’ expertise and provide organizations with financial security and space for longer-term strategizing. This kind of grantmaking explicitly creates room for organizational directors to lead in ways that are authentic to them and their communities, which in turn helps unlock innovation, skills and networks that have been stymied because of systemic bias. In times when building a more just and sustainable future is more urgent than ever, we need all forms of brilliance actively engaged.
“There is a need for inspirational, affirming and visionary leadership right now,” said Colette Pichon Battle, lawyer and co-director of Taproot Earth, a renowned climate justice movement organization. Pichon Battle spent many years educating funders and resisting demands that would have pulled Taproot away from its mission of deep investment in relational infrastructure across the South. The organization has intensified public support for climate solutions across the Gulf Coast and Appalachia by framing them around community priorities, resulting in policies that help working people and the climate—such as a new Louisiana energy efficiency policy that helps lower electricity bills and energy use.
Recognize the skill and labor that goes into collaborating across differences and support leaders to do this essential, but often unfunded, work.
Leadership styles and skills that foster collaboration and collective action—which many women have developed as they learn to maximize the soft power available to them—is key to solving the complex problems we face. Many of the leaders the Hive Fund supports build broad coalitions and movements that engage with government to make it more democratic and responsive to people’s needs.
The emotional labor and sophisticated strategies that leaders employ to hold coalitions together—from power-mapping and persuasion, to coaching and mobilizing, to conflict resolution and counseling—is the super glue that takes us from individual to collective power. In a society that elevates competition, privatization and extraction, and reinforces those norms using patriarchy and racism, directing philanthropic funding toward leaders who foster collective action for public goods is a feminist act.
“Multi-class, multi-racial building is the way… but also the challenge,” said Dreama Caldwell, co-director of a powerful base-building organization in North Carolina. Caldwell started as a volunteer organizer with Down Home North Carolina after experiencing first-hand the racial and economic injustices of the cash bail system. Under her leadership alongside co-director Todd Zimmer, Down Home has been able to build broad grassroots power in rural areas, contributing to both more local representation and huge state wins like passing Medicaid expansion to bring health coverage to over 600,000 people. They are now working to ensure federal climate dollars for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and resilience reach working families.
During a recent Hive Fund retreat, we toured a vineyard where the docent explained that vines that are stressed—working really hard to get water and nutrients—produce the most flavorful grapes. I thought about the parallels to those of us who’ve had to flex different muscles and build alliances to not only survive and thrive in soils poisoned by misogyny and racism, but also to break down those contaminants to create more fertile ground. We bring lived experience, collaborative approaches and strategic vision to the work of democracy that is exactly what’s needed in this moment, yet still woefully undervalued and underfunded. Feminist philanthropy is helping to channel funding in new ways that give me hope for transformative change.
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