Across the globe, human rights are being stripped away at an alarming rate – accompanied by the rise of fascist regimes, intensified surveillance, and coordinated attacks on women, girls, LGBTQI+ and migrant and refugee communities. These crises are not new; they are rooted in colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy, intensified by climate collapse and exploitation.
Yet amid this repression, some of the most courageous and visionary resistance is emerging from youth-led movements – especially those grounded in the Global Majority (sometimes referred to as Global South).
As outlined in our report, this resistance is led by girls, queer youth, feminists, Indigenous peoples, and caste-oppressed communities. They are not only surviving and resisting but actively building democratic, liberated futures grounded in care, creativity, and collective power. From developing anti-surveillance tools to countering misinformation, to documenting crimes to building communications networks under siege, they are laying blueprints for systemic change and transformation. Though their brilliance is often erased or appropriated, their impact is undeniable.
Philanthropy has long been called on to offer flexible, long-term support to address root issues – guided by the communities most directly impacted by injustices, who therefore hold the expertise in what is truly needed. But the deeper demand – and an urgent call to action – is for a world beyond philanthropy – one where power and resources flow to the infrastructures and strategies communities themselves are already building.
Fund Resilient, Autonomous, and Agile Infrastructure, Not Just Inclusion
Too often, young activists are treated as beneficiaries to be “included or consulted,” rather than as architects of the future. But across the Global Majority, youth are not waiting for seats at broken tables – they are building their own.
From underground schools for girls in Afghanistan, to movements dismantling abortion bans in Latin America, to trans collectives creating healing networks, to migrant organizers sustaining mutual aid – young leaders are acting faster and more strategically than institutions can follow. Their work may not fit within dominant narratives or neat frameworks, but it is where systemic transformation takes root.
Philanthropy can step alongside the generations of people who have always built power together to drive systemic change. History shows that no transformation has ever been won without this collective effort – and that youth, carrying the lessons of those who came before, are often leading the way. This means committing to long-term, flexible, and autonomous support that allows young people to convene with one another and their intergenerational allies, strategize across borders, and sustain the infrastructures they are creating. It means backing innovation before it is institutionally legible or bureaucratically tidy, recognizing that the future of democracy depends on resourcing these practices today.
This requires investment in the kinds of infrastructure that work to protect and sustain movements led by young people:
Movement-led intermediaries: Establishing support structures that are designed and run by movements themselves- so young activists can get resources without added risk of surveillance, criminalization, or co-optation. These should include visible and behind-the-scenes strategies to keep activists safe.
Protective and autonomous spaces: Supporting safe spaces that are owned and controlled by young people, where they can gather, organize, heal, create and build community away from the reach out hostile systems.
Cross-border coordination: Funding networks and platforms that connect movements across geographies, allowing them to act quickly, share strategies and stand in solidarity during global crises.
Economic self-determination: Backing collective funds, cooperative enterprises, community-owned businesses, and solidarity-based investment mechanisms that allow activists independence from short-term donor cycles and create long-term, regenerative and creative ways of sustaining their work. Permanent infrastructure: Investing in land, buildings, and digital tools that provide safety, permanence, and resilience for organizing— assets that can serve communities for generations rather than short-term fixes.
Movement-accountable technologies: Funding open-sources, community built physical and digital tools that are created by and accountable to movements. Many of these tools already exist but need ongoing support to grow, remain secure, and scale their impact.
Security and care infrastructures: Resourcing holistic protection—including digital security, trauma-informed care, and collective safety practices—that allows movements to withstand repression without burning out.
Support Intergenerational Organizing and Political Strategies
Youth-led movements rarely act or work alone but rather are part of a lineage of strategies and struggles.
Many feminist and grassroots groups in the Global Majority practice intergenerational organizing, where leadership is shared across age groups to ensure continuity, sustainability, and shared wisdom. Young people are not merely stepping into existing movements—they are reshaping them while carrying forward the work of past generations. The work of systems change is one that looks forward and back 100 years recognizing this is work that is through a long-term of time.
This approach builds resilience. It allows movements to adapt across crises, to preserve memory while innovating new strategies, and to avoid the pitfalls of hierarchical leadership that burns out young leaders or sidelines elder organizers. In contexts of repression, where governments and regimes actively try to break continuity, intergenerational strategy is a radical act of preservation and survival.
For funders, supporting this means moving beyond token youth panels or “youth tracks.” It means resourcing spaces for long-term relationship-building, power-sharing, and mutual accountability across generations. It means supporting leadership transitions through feminist and decolonial approaches. Without intergenerational infrastructure, movements remain fragile; with it, they become durable forces capable of sustaining democracy across generations.
In practice, this means:
Centering and prioritizing the leadership and movements of the Global Majority as both a political and strategic approach—recognizing that the deepest expertise, the most resilient strategies, and the greatest opportunities for transformative change emerge from communities that have endured the most oppression. To address the greatest harms, power and resources must flow first to those who have been historically and structurally marginalized, supporting their visions, leadership, and long-term strategies with a critical recognition across generations.
Funding intergenerational convenings and fellowships where young leaders and older organizers can share strategies, history, and lessons while building long-term trust, and engage through approaches rooted in decolonial principles—free from agendas imposed by funders.
Supporting mentorship and leadership transition programs that intentionally prepare younger and older activists to transition from and into leadership roles—approaches that recognize leadership as collective rather than individual, and that ensure its sustainability across generations rather than from one person to another.
Resourcing elders to transition with dignity, including funds for retirement, healthcare, and life security, so leadership turnover is possible without leaving long-serving organizers in precarity.
Investing in shared governance models that give young people real decision-making power alongside their elder leaders, rather than symbolic seats at the table.
Backing community archives and storytelling projects that preserve the histories of and lessons from past struggles while equipping new generations to carry them forward.
Providing long-term, flexible funding so organizations can plan beyond election cycles or project deadlines, sustaining intergenerational collaboration over years rather than months.
Resourcing care and wellbeing structures—such as collective healing spaces, sabbaticals, and community care funds—so that activists of all ages can remain in the work without burning out.
To uphold democracy, we cannot rely on isolated interventions or short-term projects. We must resource youth-led movements with the long-term, flexible, and autonomous support they need to build durable infrastructures, innovate boldly, and sustain their work across borders. This includes investing in intergenerational spaces, leadership pipelines, and governance models that allow experience and wisdom to be passed on while empowering young leaders to take their place. Winning the fight for democracy requires all of this work—strategically aligned, well-supported, and working together—so that movements are not only surviving, but thriving for generations to come.
