Collective Future Fund Announces $11 Million Multi-Year Investment in Survivor-led Movements to End Violence

Funding awarded to 25 grantee partners will provide long-term sustainability for transformational movements grounded in safety, power, and dignity

NEW YORK—Today, the Collective Future Fund (CFF) awarded grants to 25 organizations in its first multi-year grantmaking effort, totaling $11 million over the next three years. The grant recipients are working at the forefront of movements to end gender-based violence in all its forms, and are all led by BIPOC women, queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary and im/migrant survivors of color. 

Since March 2020, the Collective Future Fund has disbursed rapid response grants to groups addressing the immediate safety needs of survivors of violence and communities of color during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent economic crisis, and racial justice uprisings. The multi-year funding announced today will help sustain this work and provide reliable and flexible support to grantee partners as they lead and create community-driven solutions and shape policy through building power, strengthening the voices of survivors, and work in solidarity across communities. $8 million in payments of this funding will be dispersed in 2021, in response to the pressing needs facing organizations in the wake of 2020. Despite a long history of women of color, im/migrant, transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people of color driving social change as movement leaders and visionaries, funding for these groups is scarce, with less than 0.5% of philanthropic dollars being directed to women and girls of color annually, with even less directed to transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities. 

“2020 exemplified the resilience and dedication of BIPOC- and survivor-led organizations, with our communities facing cascading, interconnected, and ongoing pandemics — from escalating patriarchal violence, to economic uncertainty, to COVID-19. Our grantee partners faced these challenges head-on, proving again the importance of leadership rooted in lived experience and collective power,” said Aleyamma Mathew, Director of the Collective Future Fund. “It is critical that our support of these powerful movements does not stop with rapid response grants. We want to help sustain and grow the transformational work of building a world free from violence, and implore other funders to follow suit and provide the stable flow of resources that survivor- and women-of-color-led organizations need to make lasting change.”

“Our movement – to build safety and healing for our community – is so often asked to make magic happen with really limited resources. Knowing that support is guaranteed for a few years gives us the space to develop a more expansive vision of our work and to invest in longer term strategies that really address the root causes of violence and oppression,” said Toni-Michelle Williams, Executive Director of Solutions Not Punishment, a Black trans and queer led Atlanta-area organization that builds safety, collective embodied leadership, and political power.

“Too often, movements that center the leadership and experiences of survivors, women of color, transgender, and non-binary people of color are under-resourced and underestimated,” said Dr. Connie Wun, Co-Founder and Executive Director of AAPI Women Lead, an organization working to strengthen the progressive political and social platforms of Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the US through the leadership of self-identified AAPI women and girls in solidarity with other communities of color. “This underinvestment is rooted in white supremacist, patriarchal expectations of what a leader looks like – and we see over and over the violence that this ideology and viewpoint perpetuates. We must push back against these falsehoods and invest abundantly and enthusiastically in the work of those most impacted by race and gendered violence, including sexual violence.”

CFF’s grantee partners work across sectors and disciplines towards a violence-free future while uplifting long-ignored voices, utilizing a range of strategies domestically and transnationally –– from mutual aid and healing supports, to organizing campaigns and shifting narratives, to policy and legal advocacy. Among the recipients of Collective Future Fund’s multi-year grants is A Long Walk Home, an organization supporting Black girls to use their voices through art, organizing, and campaigning. Another, the Sovereign Bodies Institute, generates new knowledge and understandings of how Indigenous nations and communities are impacted by gender and sexual violence, and how they may continue to work towards healing and freedom from such violence. Other multi-year grant awardees focus on community-wide movement building, such as EveryBlackGirl, a national campaign and program working to create a world where every Black girl thrives.

CFF hosted an open call for proposal submissions from December 2020 to February 2021 and prioritized strategies that build power, amplify survivors’ voices, and work in solidarity across movements and borders. Recipients include: 

“To achieve meaningful progress on issues of safety and gender justice, the philanthropic community must commit to resourcing groups at the scale they deserve and that this work requires,” said Ada Williams Prince of Pivotal Ventures, a Collective Future Fund Collaborative Donor. “Supporting CFF means grantee partners bring rich experiences and strategies to the collective work of building a future of safety, power, and voice for survivors everywhere. It’s up to us in philanthropy to invest in organizations/intermediaries such as the Collective Future Fund who make sure there is support for BIPOC women, queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary and im/migrant survivors of color who are leading this incredible work.”

“The grantee partners chosen for these multi-year grants have gender and racial justice at their core, actively building a future of safety and liberation for all of us,” said Holly Bartling of the General Service Foundation, a Collective Future Fund Collaborative Donor. “The approach CFF has taken in this grantmaking – with a priority to build the voice and power of communities most impacted by injustice – has resulted in a diverse slate of partners who are creatively approaching issues of violence in their communities. These partners are taking an intersectional approach to both the work and the communities they support. We are thrilled that CFF can provide multi-year general operating support and we firmly believe that this support will contribute to the sustainability and growth of this critical movement ecosystem.”

View a list of Collective Future Fund’s Collaborative Donor Partners here. 

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Collective Future Fund works with philanthropy and visionary changemakers to build a collective future where all women, girls, trans, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people and survivors of color are not only safe from state, workplace and interpersonal violence, but live in shared abundance, joy, and power.