Future Is Now Grants

Collective Future Fund Announces $1.2 Million ‘Future Is Now’ Grants to Strengthen Survivor-Led Safety Movements to End Gendered and Racialized Violence

by Press ReleasesUpdates

The 19 grant recipients, all with budgets less than $1 million, are shaping the future of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, South Asian, Muslim, Arab, queer, trans, gender non conforming and non-binary survivor-led safety work

NEW YORK – Today, the Collective Future Fund (CFF) announced 19 grassroots organizations have received grants as part of their new $1.2 million Future Is Now grant-making effort. The grants invest in organizations with budgets under $1 million  as they expand their culturally responsive programming to build power and address root causes of violence, with a strong focus on trans-led organizations and organizations building innovative healing and safety practices. The grantee partner organizations are Black, Indigenous, Latinx, South Asian, Muslim, Arab, queer, trans, gender non conforming and non-binary survivor-led, reflecting the Collective Future Fund’s commitment to supporting the leadership of these key communities who are most impacted by racialized, sexualized, and gendered violence and also powerfully leading some of the most significant issues of our times. 

After announcing multi-year grants in March of this year totalling $11 million, the Collective Future Fund’s Future Is Now prioritized organizations that are creating innovative strategies to end violence with creativity, resistance, and resilience. Recognizing that the crises of the past 18 months will not easily subside, particularly as survivor-led movements experience repression after hard-fought wins, investment ahead of the new year is critical. 

Violence Against Trans Communities Is at an All Time High.

This year has continuously undermined LGBTQ+ rights, with increased violence specifically targeting the trans community. 2021 is set to be the deadliest year yet for trans or gender non-conforming people, with the majority of those killed (60%) being Black trans women. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, twenty two percent of trans people who interacted with police reported being harassed due to bias—and when incarcerated, 40% of trans people experience sexual assault. Despite the growing violence against trans people, both racial justice and broad gender justice funders lack a firm commitment to providing resources to communities that are vulnerable to xenophobic and transphobic attacks. Even though the deadly outcomes of systemic racism were laid bare last year with the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many Americans are still failing to see the connection between our country’s long-standing inequities and the conditions trans communities face today. In addition to the high rates of domestic and sexual violence, trans and non-binary people are also targets of extreme state violence. Preventing violence against these communities requires us to be groundbreaking and proactive with our approach and support of trans and non-binary people. 

A central part of CFF’s strategy in supporting and growing this movement is investing in Black trans communities. The Future is Now Fund prioritizes Black trans-led organizations that are too often unseen and under-resourced by philanthropy by increasing the availability of life-changing resources. 

Trans Led and Focused Organizations Are Ignored by Philanthropy

“To create a future free of violence we address the ways that transphobia and anti-blackness work within philanthropy, we have to do more than fund them, especially when we know that this lack of resourcing leads to continued violence,” said Aleyamma Mathew, Director of the Collective Future Fund. “We must strategically support organizations with smaller budgets that are expanding and examining solutions to racialized, sexualized, and gendered violence. The future will be – and already is – shaped by BIPOC trans survivor-leaders.”

As the country continues to reconcile the pandemic’s impact, and as survivor-led movements continue to take their fight to the forefront, philanthropic support is needed now more than ever. For every $100 awarded by the U.S. Foundations, less than 3 cents benefits trans communities, leaving organizations that focus on trans and gender expansive folks on their own. Black-led trans organizations are not only more proliferated and can help ground a movement, they are also some of the less resourced because of the ways that intersectional anti-blackness, transphobia and systemic discrimination collude to continue to strip power, resources and rights.

If we are to dismantle systems of violence, we need to reinvest energy into innovative ideas. The bold transformation we wish to see can be achieved by pushing trans and non-binary power from the margins to the mainstream. 

CFF Is Reimagining Philanthropic Work

Collective Future Fund is innovating the field and building a new model for grant-making by supporting survivor led movements. In addition to funding trans-led organizations, CFF is working to ensure that the organizations who adapted and innovated healing and safety practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are able to thrive and build for a sustained future. 

“Building a future where all of our people can heal, grow, and thrive as their best and full selves is the reason why we do this work,” said Monica James, Executive Director from grantee partner Triumphant Together. “We’re building resources to support this transformation on a new blueprint that actually serves our community’s needs. We are so appreciative to have funders like the Collective Future Fund invest in this work and really stand beside us as allies and collaborators.”

“Our work is grounded in survivors – survivor leadership, survivor experiences, and survivor healing,” said Kristin Welch, Executive Director of Waking Women Healing. “As Indigenous women, girls, and two spirit people, we are reclaiming power over our futures and over self in mind and body, free from settler and gender-based violence, with access to healthy Waters and respectful connection to Mother Earth for all beings. We truly value the opportunity to do this work in community with Collective Future Fund and all their partners.”

Future Is Now Grant Recipients

Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples

Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom

The HEAL Project

Revista Etnica

Colectivo Ilé

Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence

Organizacion Latina Trans en Texas

Mirror Memoirs

El/La Para TransLatinas

Vida AfroLatina

HEART Women and Girls

Healing to Action

Triumphant Together

Mo HO Justice

Black Girls Restored

Coalition for Restaurant Safety and Health

National LGBTQ Worker Center

Trans Resilience Fund

Waking Women Healing

For more information about the Collective Future Fund, visit their website at https://www.collectivefuturefund.org/ 

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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.

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

by Press ReleasesUpdates

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: 

A Long Walk Home

AAPI Women Lead

African American Policy Forum

Black LGBTQIA + Migrant Project

Black Women’s Blueprint

Center for Women’s Global Leadership

Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women

EveryBlackGirl, Inc.

Freedom Inc

Fund for Trans Generations

Girls for Gender Equity, Inc.

In Our Names Network

Justice for Migrant Women 

National Women’s Law Center

Me Too International Inc.

Miami Workers Center

One Fair Wage

Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative

Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaP Co)

S.O.U.L. Sisters Leadership Collective, Inc.

Sovereign Bodies Institute 

StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP)

Tahirih Justice Center

Transforming Generations

“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.

Collective Future Fund Announces $1.75 Million in Rapid Response Funding For Women-of-Color-Led Initiatives for Safety

by Press Releases

The awarded groups center Black and Indigenous women, women of color, trans and nonbinary people of color, and survivors, working at the intersections of racial, gender, economic justice to end all forms of violence.

(NEW YORK) Today, the Collective Future Fund awarded grants to 35 organizations through the Survivor Safety and Support Fund launched in 2020 to address the myriad of issues driven by the pandemic, economic recession and the escalation of racial and gender violence, totalling $1.75 million. The grantees are working at the forefront of movements to end interpersonal, workplace, and state violence in all its forms, and are all led by and center Black women, Indigenous, women of color, trans and nonbinary people of color, and survivors.

The grantees work domestically and transnationally to build safety for women and girls of color using a variety of interconnected approaches––from mutual aid, to organizing, to advocacy and legal campaigns. Some grantees are working to build immediate safety for their communities, from holding retreats and support groups to providing financial and housing support for trans and gender non-conforming people of color in the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crises. Others are focused on organizing and advocacy to build long-term conditions of safety for women and girls of color, such as the #SayHerName campaign, focused on the often overlooked police killings of Black women; organizing clemency and prison bailout efforts for women who face additional risks from incarceration during COVID-19; efforts to stop family separation and deportations among undocumented survivors otherwise excluded from legal support; and a campaign to secure a fair wage and reduce workplace harassment and violence for tipped service workers, among many others. 

“With this grant, Menīkānaehkem’s Tiny Homes for Healing project is building more safe, transitional houses for survivors and vulnerable community members,” said Kristin Welch, Menīkānaehkem’s organizer and lead coordinator of its Women’s Leadership Cohort. “Native communities like ours have had to close shelters due to the pandemic, so these homes are meeting an urgent need for community members experiencing homelessness, economic difficulties, and gender-based violence while demonstrating how to be self-sustainable, gain a connectedness to Mother Earth, and grow community ownership of health.” 

“Our work to support and free Black LGBTQIA+ migrants held in ICE detention centers has become even more critical as conditions within these prisons worsen and put Black LGBTQIA+ lives at risk during the pandemic. Those detained are often fleeing violence and persecution, and we are actively organizing, fundraising, and engaging legislators to liberate Black LGBTQIA+ migrants who are being indefinitely detained,” said Ola Osaze, Director of Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project. 

The rapid deployment of these grants comes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where women and girls of color face disproportionate rates of job loss and economic hardship in comparison to their white and male counterparts, while simultaneously holding many of the jobs with the highest risk of exposure to the virus as essential workers. As uprisings for racial justice continue across the United States, this funding also benefits groups working to elevate and allieviate the often underrepresented rates of violence perpetuated against women, girls, trans and gender non-conforming people of color. 

“We are building a future in which women, girls, trans and gender non-conforming people of color, and survivors of violence are not only safe from state, workplace, and interpersonal violence––but live in shared abundance, joy, and collective power,” said Aleyamma Mathew, Executive Director of Collective Future Fund. “Collective Future Fund’s grantees work to build power across all facets of our lives, reimagine safety, and break out of silos that artificially segment our lives and movements into issue areas.”

Organizations were invited to apply to the grantmaking round based on recommendations from members of the funding collaborative and previous grantee partners. Recipients each received grants of $50,000. 

 

The Collective Future Fund brings together social justice movements, survivors, and donors to build a collective future where all women, girls, trans and nonbinary people and survivors of color are not only safe from state, workplace and interpersonal violence––but live in shared abundance, joy, and collective power. Learn more at www.collectivefuturefund.org  

MacKenzie Scott Gifts $5 Million to Collective Future Fund

by Press ReleasesUncategorized

This week, MacKenzie Scott announced her philanthropic commitment to the Collective Future Fund, as one among 116 organizations to benefit from her Giving Pledge. In response, Aleyamma Mathew, Executive Director of Collective Future Fund, made the following statement: 

“The Collective Future Fund is honored to be among the many racial and gender justice organizations to receive MacKenzie Scott’s support; this unrestricted grant will enable us to expand our commitment to working alongside our grantee partners towards a future in which all women and girls of color, trans and gender non-conforming people, and survivors are free from all forms of state and interpersonal violence––and thrive.

Women of color have always been at the forefront of transformative social change. But for decades, institutions of wealth and influence have discounted our power and kept this vital work marginal in philanthropic portfolios––a compounding disinvestment that we are only beginning to redress. This commitment is a promising step, and now our broader philanthropic sector must take up the mandate to dedicate robust and long-term support for women of color- and survivor-led work as core to any effort for social change. Resourcing girls and women of color, survivors, and trans and gender non-conforming people can transform the future––for everyone.”

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The Collective Future Fund brings together social justice movements, survivors, and donors to heal, resource, and mobilize to shape a collective future free from violence. With a priority on supporting efforts that are led by women of color, the Fund envisions a world in which all women and girls––cis, transgender, and gender non-conforming––can live, learn, and work in safety and dignity. Learn more at www.collectivefuturefund.org  

Female doctor working in hospital, holding intravenous drip, accuracy, protection, care

Announcing Survivor Safety and Support Fund

by In The NewsPress ReleasesUncategorizedUpdates

COVID-19 is exposing long-standing disparities and inequities created by unjust policies and systems that have left communities vulnerable, in spite of powerful mobilizations by grassroots movements. Millions of people who work in essential care and service industries including homecare workers and house cleaners, restaurant, grocery, and delivery workers, and health and child care providers, are facing risks to their own health, emotional stress, and the economic insecurity that comes with the evolving landscape of managing the coronavirus outbreak. 

Queer, trans, and cis women of color, Indigenous, and immigrant women and girls in particular make up a significant proportion of the essential workers in our communities showing up day after day to mitigate the transmission and impact of the virus. Even prior to this crisis, they faced widespread discrimination, harassment, and violence in the workplace and have been further marginalized by lack of health benefits or paid sick days, low wages, and job insecurity. 

In the United States, which has now become the epicenter of the pandemic, we anticipate that precarity will only deepen, and a lack of safety at home, in the workplace, and in institutional settings will expand. From the intimate space of the home where people are isolated from broader networks of support, to workplaces, to prisons and detention centers, survivors of gender-based violence are facing even more complex challenges. 

Evidence from other crises, including Hurricane Katrina and outbreaks such as Ebola, suggests that violence against women and girls increases during these emergencies. Moreover, women are the first to respond to the emergency and the last to be resourced, despite the undeniably central role they play in fortifying communities in a crisis.

Yet even as these women and girls are experiencing great vulnerability, they continue to be the powerful healers, protectors, visionaries, strategists, and leaders that are rising to meet this moment.  

As a funding collaborative, the Collective Future Fund has the ability to fuel coordination and collective action by supporting healing and mobilization efforts to ensure the safety of women and girls during the COVID-19 pandemic. A value core to our work is the conviction that resourcing women of color survivors and movement advocates can transform the future for everyone. That’s why we’re launching a $2 Million Survivor Safety and Support Fund to support survivors of gender-based violence. 

This rapid response fund, which will be implemented in phases over the course of 2020, will give increased funding support to our existing grantees, contribute to several other pooled rapid response funds that are resourcing immediate organizing and financial support for survivors and low-wage women of color and immigrant workers, and provide additional support to other critical efforts to advance safety and support the queer, trans, and cis women of color, Indigenous, and immigrant women survivors who are on the front lines of this crisis.     

Here’s what else we’re doing in this moment:

  • Entering into ongoing dialogue with colleagues in philanthropy about how to be responsive, responsible, and strategic in this unprecedented moment for our communities.
  • Engaging in a phased process over the course of 2020 to adapt its support to the field in consideration of a changing landscape and a new period of economic downturn.
  • Maintaining our funding to existing grantees even as they adjust their 2020 plans, activities, and timelines.
  • Moving forward later this year to provide multi-year general operating grants to additional women of color and survivor-centered organizations later this year.

While we are in the midst of this crisis, the Collective Future Fund understands that how we recover from COVID-19 will be dependent on how we respond at this moment. We know that every person is being affected by this situation at a personal level in different ways that might destabilize their health, mental and emotional wellbeing, physical safety, economic security, housing, or other aspects of their lives. We affirm that human lives and the well-being of our communities are of the greatest importance at this time, and we will only be able to meet the challenges ahead by caring for each other, calling upon our ancestral wisdom about survival and healing, and offering mutual aid and support to one another. 

Now more than ever, it is clear that our collective future is interdependent, and it is our choice how we turn the many challenges we are facing into an opportunity to transform our future together.

*Please note: The Survivor Safety and Support Fund will be implemented in phases over the course of 2020, and is not currently accepting applications for funding. We are currently prioritizing commitments to our existing grantees: women-of-color-led organizations that are working to meet the immediate needs of survivors and front-line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

For updates and announcements about future grant opportunities, please sign up using the form below. We are unable to respond to every inquiry because of the volume of requests. 

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Survivor- & Women-of-Color-Led Movements To Elevate Gender Justice in 2020

by Press Releases

Collective Future Fund Announces $3 Million In Mobilization Grants That Will Amplify Survivor-Led Movements in U.S. and Transnationally

(NEW YORK) Today the Collective Future Fund announced its inaugural grantees, a dynamic group of women-of-color-led social justice organizations that are doubling down on their work to end sexual harassment and violence in 2020.

The Fund is a new initiative of 14 leading philanthropic institutions that have committed more than a combined $20 million over the next five years to women-of-color and survivor-led efforts to end sexual harassment and violence against all women and girls.  

“Women of color have always led the way in bending the arc toward justice — from Ida B. Wells to Wilma Mankiller to Grace Lee Boggs to Sylvia Rivera. We are strategists, bridge-builders, and healers, and we know that sexual violence has been used to systematically mute our collective power. Resourcing women of color survivors and movement advocates can transform the future for everyone,” said Aleyamma Mathew, the Fund’s director and a nationally known expert on the intersection of gender and economic justice with over 20 years of philanthropy, advocacy, and organizing experience at the local, state, and national levels.

When the #MeToo movement, created by Tarana Burke in 2006, gained global attention in 2017, it opened up a broad conversation about daily realities of sexual violence as well as an opportunity for survivors and healing to be centered as the basis for cultural and political transformation. The Collective Future Fund was formed in response to a public call for philanthropy to meet this opportunity by investing in survivors and movement infrastructure. Donors collaborating to establish the Fund are calling attention to the persistent gap in philanthropic support for work to end sexual harassment and build movements for gender, racial, and economic justice; only 1.6% of philanthropic giving in the United States goes towards women and girls, and only .6% of foundation funding was directed at women of color in the U.S. last year. 

Previously known as the Collaborative Fund for Women’s Safety and Dignity, the Collective Future Fund is supporting 15 inaugural grantees working across the United States and transnationally through their Mobilization 2020 grants. These grants resource year-long projects focused on survivor- and women-of-color-led movement building to ensure their perspectives are a focal point in this critical year for shaping the public conversation about national and global policy priorities.

“The survivors calling for systemic change to end violence against women are the very same leaders at the forefront of efforts to protect democracy, build a just economy, and grow grassroots leadership centering low-income women, Black and Indigenous women, trans women, and migrant women,” said Puja Dhawan, Director of the Initiative to End Violence Against Girls and Women at the NoVo Foundation. “We are honored to join in supporting this bold vision through this first set of Collective Future Fund grants.”

The projects have a particular focus on elevating efforts to end interpersonal, workplace, and state-sponsored violence against women and girls — efforts that are essential to democracy and economic justice in 2020 through community organizing, advocacy, and involving survivors in civic engagement.

Tarana Burke, founder and Executive Director of me too. International: “The work we’re embarking on in 2020 towards interrupting sexual violence through survivor-led, survivor-centered programs, narrative change, and civic and social engagement transnationally is what we are most passionate about. Support from the Collective Future Fund will ensure a successful launch of these programs in community with groundbreaking organizations that we are honored to call comrades in the movement.”

Prof. Anita Hill, University Professor of Law, Social Policy and Women’s and Gender Studies, at Brandeis University’s Heller School: “Despite the valiant efforts of the 2017 #MeToo movement, there has been no comprehensive policy response from current elected officials or from 2020 presidential candidates to prevent gender-based violence. Our hope is to amplify survivors’ voices in ways that promote civic engagement, inform policy proposals and enhance public engagement on this critical issue.”

Other grantees are specifically building power in and amplifying the voices of communities that have experienced disproportionate colonial violence: 

Gloriann Sacha Antonetty, founder of Revista Étnica: “Violence deeply affects Black and immigrant women in Puerto Rico. In this moment of heightened activism, we have the opportunity to lift up Afrolatina women’s voices using art, storytelling and media, as tools for healing and organizing within the international afrofeminist movement.

Morning Star Gali, Project Director for Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples: “We are Native women survivors of violence who envision a future where Indigenous worldviews are centered so that true gender equity and justice replace patriarchal control. As we support women to address sexual violence, we’re drawing on the strength of our ancestors who have survived genocide and forced displacement, and carrying forward a sacred responsibility passed from our elders to bring our communities back into balance.”

Several transnational grantees are focused on building movements across borders for economic, racial and gender justice. 

Elizabeth Tang, General Secretary, International Domestic Workers Federation:  “In this momentous year—the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action when women came together from around the world to assert women’s rights as human rights—we’re mobilizing domestic workers to advocate for global policies that reflect their experiences and claim their rights as women and as workers.” 

“Despite many victories for gender equality in the past decades, the war on women and girls’ bodies continues, requiring us to build transnational solidarity and collective action. The Collective Future Fund is exciting because it resources Black, Indigenous, lesbian, bisexual, trans, immigrant, and disabled women and girls to claim their power, heal, and mobilize for justice –– from the United States, to India, from South Africa, to Chile, and Nigeria, and beyond,” said Nicolette Naylor, International Program Director, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice for the Ford Foundation.  

“In this critical moment, philanthropy has stepped up to answer the call of survivor-led movements and provide substantial resources for visionary work that reimagines what is possible for girls and women of color,” said Leticia Peguero, Vice President of Programs for the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

The Collective Future Fund’s donors include: Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Ford Foundation, General Service Foundation, Kapor Center, Nathan Cummings Foundation, NoVo Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Pivotal Ventures, Unbound Philanthropy, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Women Donors Network, and an anonymous foundation. 

The Collective Future Fund’s inaugural grantees include: 

  • A Long Walk Home Chicago, IL
  • Black Women’s Blueprint New York, NY
  • Gender-Based Violence Working Group at Brandeis University Waltham, MA
  • Fund for Trans Generations National
  • Girls for Gender Equity NYC
  • International Domestic Workers Federation Hong Kong / transnational
  • Just Associates Washington DC / transnational
  • Justice for Migrant Women U.S. / transnational
  • me too. International NYC / transnational
  • National Domestic Workers Alliance NYC / national
  • National Women’s Law Center Washington DC / national
  • One Fair Wage national
  • Restoring Justice for Indigenous People California
  • Revista Étnica Puerto Rico
  • Tahirih Justice Center Washington DC / national

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The Collective Future Fund brings together social justice movements, survivors, and donors to heal, resource, and mobilize to shape a collective future free from sexual harassment and violence. With a priority on supporting efforts that are led by women of color, the Fund envisions a world in which all women and girls––cis, transgender, and gender non-conforming––can live, learn, and work in safety and dignity. Learn more at www.collectivefuturefund.org  

The Collective Future Fund is fiscally sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), a nonprofit organization that manages more than $200 million in annual giving. As one of the world’s largest philanthropic service organizations, RPA has facilitated $3 billion in grantmaking to nearly 70 countries and serves as fiscal sponsor for more than 50 projects. For more information, please visit www.rockpa.org

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Aleyamma Mathew Announced as Executive Director

by Press Releases

The Collective Future Fund is excited to welcome Aleyamma Mathew as Executive Director. Since April 2019, she served as Interim Director of the Fund, bringing collaborative leadership and strategic systems-building to the start-up and planning phase. After completing this instrumental work, the founding partners named Aleyamma as permanent director, and are thrilled to have the benefit of her expertise, creativity, and deep relationships to move philanthropic resources in alignment with a vision of a future where all girls and women can live, learn and work with safety and dignity.

Aleyamma Mathew is a nationally known expert on the intersection of gender and economic justice. With over 20 years of experience in the philanthropic and advocacy sectors at the local, state, and national levels, she has led advocacy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and campaigns for economic policies to protect women’s rights, safety, and economic security, with a focus on women of color, immigrant and refugee women, and low-wage women workers.

Most recently, Aleyamma served as the Director of the Women’s Economic Justice Program at the Ms. Foundation. There she led investment strategies for ensuring women’s economic security, including through advocacy and organizing for improved wages, workplace policies, and childcare access for women, focusing on low-wage workers of color and immigrant workers.

Prior to joining the Ms. Foundation, Aleyamma was the Policy Director at the Partnership for Working Families, where she led multi-city campaigns focused on job quality, environmental protections, and equal access to public resources for low-income communities. Aleyamma also worked as the Program Director for the Women’s Institute for Leadership and Development for Human Rights where she trained grassroots organizations on assessing local policies using a human rights framework, and participated in the U.N. CERD Review Process in Geneva to highlight human rights violations against women of color in the United States. Aleyamma was part of the Founding Steering Committee and served as the Program Director for the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, where she developed research and policy initiatives and a technical assistance program for community based agencies serving low-income Asian, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, refugee, and immigrant communities.

Aleyamma received her M.A. from the New School for Social Research in New York City and her B.A. from Temple University. Aleyamma lives in Brooklyn, New York.