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Welcome to What’s Taking Root, a new series I’m curating for Proximate Press that highlights emerging ideas and resources to deepen grassroots grantmaking. I’m a philanthropy practitioner and ecosystem weaver who has mapped 100+ resources to reimagine philanthropy and global development.
In this first edition, we get into assumptions and hard truths about board governance, community-led philanthropic infrastructure, and funder solidarity with movements.
Root: Shaking up board governance is long overdue
Boardrooms remain one of the most exclusive spaces in philanthropy. New models of community- and movement-led governance demonstrate how power can be shared at the highest levels of philanthropic decision-making.
Several new resources emphasize that most board structures are based on assumptions and traditions rather than on actual legal requirements, and that community voice on boards is central to their philanthropic fiduciary responsibility. They highlight multiple funders shifting toward community governance, including the Kolibri Foundation and the Elimna B. Sewall Foundation.
Resources:
- Community on Board (Listen to Community)
- Toward Meaningful, Equitable Governance (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations)
- Authorized Voice and Power in the Board Room (BoardSource)
Action:
Take the first step by looking inward and questioning assumptions about expertise, professionalism, and risk. Attend an upcoming virtual deep dive conversation ‘Listen to Community: Shifting Power in the Boardroom’ on July 23rd
Root: The infrastructure for community-led philanthropy already exists
Whether examining Global Majority philanthropic traditions, locally led pooled funds, or what’s missing in speculations about an AI-fueled third wave of philanthropy, these resources underscore that the infrastructure for community-led development at scale already exists.
What is often perceived as a capacity gap is more accurately a recognition, trust, and funding gap. As long as philanthropy continues to assume that the Western (or Silicon Valley) model is the gold standard, funders will continue to overlook and ultimately constrain the leadership and systems that communities have already built.
Resources:
Resources:
- “Be Less WEIRD: What US Funders Can Learn from Global Majority Philanthropic Practice” (Jessyca Dudley, Yvonne Moore, Radhika Nayar in Nonprofit Quarterly)
- Locally-led Pooled Funds in the Global South: What the evidence shows (NEAR)
- “We don’t need more Rosey Robots: A response to the third wave of philanthropy” (Shayna Robinson, ICANN)
- “The Other Wave of Philanthropy” (Alaa Murabit, Every Pregnancy)
Action:
Follow organizations such as NEAR, TrustAfrica, International Indigenous Women’s Forum, Pawanka Fund, and the Global Fund for Community Foundations to learn from philanthropic traditions outside the U.S. and Europe.
Root: Supporting movements means showing up for the long haul as an ecosystem
Philanthropy has yet to realize its staying power for social change, and often undermines the very change it seeks to advance. It invests in democracy in short election-cycle bursts. It funds movement protection as a short-term emergency. It hesitates to fully resource movements through liberatory practices. It shies away from investing in financial capital and asset-building for sustained resilience.
These resources illuminate each of these shortcomings and collectively argue that solidarity requires more than grants: it demands long-term, high-commitment investments over decades in the broader ecosystems and infrastructure that protect and sustain the leaders and movements most impacted by oppression.
Solidarity also means examining how internal practices may inadvertently harm movements and engaging in funder-to-funder organizing.
Resources:
- “From Speed to Staying Power: Rethinking Philanthropy’s Timelines to Protect Democracy” (Sadé Dozan, Borealis Philanthropy)
- “Organizing for Movement Protection” (Malachi Garza, Solidaire Network)
- Raise the Bar (Funders for Palestine)
- “Beyond the Glass Cliff: Investing in the Conditions that Sustain Women of Color Leadership” (Building Movement Project)
Action:
Look beyond your grants and ask how your institution can act more courageously in solidarity with communities and movements.
Also worth digging into. . .
- Language barriers are creating systematic exclusion to critical funding for climate justice
- Grant reporting joyfully reimagined as a Black cookout
- How funders can build preparedness for AI reshaping the future of democracy and civic space
Thanks for reading! You can follow along with future editions of Grassroots Grantmaking here.
