Funding the Frontlines: $1.75 M Grantmaking Update
We are proud to share an update about our collective grantmaking. At WDN we are moving $1.75 million in funding to 17 impactful organizations that are building power where it is so desperately needed.
Thanks to the collective investment of this network, we are able to continue mobilizing critical funding to support the work of our grantees across the country. As we continue to see a surge of anti-rights legislation in the US, our grants are going to organizations working towards birth justice infrastructure, disinformation defense, voter engagement, and a global Just Transition. In several cases, we are filling critical gaps and providing seed funding to organizations on the frontline.
Organizers know best. Our deep trust and partnership with movement leaders enables us to eliminate funding barriers and enables organizations to focus on their work. We prioritize grantees with a strong vision for transformative change, power-building in marginalized and underserved communities, leadership that reflects the communities served, and an opportunity for our funding to be catalytic. This is how we leverage our resources to power justice!
Opportunity & Equality For All Impact Collective
$300,000 to 3 grantees
This October, our Opportunity & Equality Impact Collective responded to the critical need for additional and ongoing resources for abortion services and legal and legislative advocacy in the aftermath of SB 8 or the so-called “Texas Abortion Ban.” Support for pregnant people who cannot have an abortion or choose to remain pregnant is another critical piece of the reproductive justice ecosystem. The birth justice movement is working to return care infrastructure and culture to the hands of Black, Indigenous, and people of color birth workers who are at the heart of an anti-racist and community-based healthcare system. Thus, in addition to our abortion access rapid-response grantmaking, we recently granted $300,000 to support birth justice infrastructure and safe maternal care.
Grantees:
Groundswell’s Birth Justice Fund
National Birth Equity Collaborative
Participation & Representation For All Impact Collective
$1 million to 9 grantees
Over the last three years, our Participation & Representation Impact Collective has invested in voter engagement, voter protection, and election security strategies at the state and national levels. Movement leaders in key states have shared with us that funding often dries up after high-profile elections; this cyclical investment slows efforts to build necessary movement infrastructure, deepen community relationships, and advocate for progressive policy. Our conversations with them have illuminated the need to invest in long-term strategies and capacity-building in what will be a decades-long fight against voter suppression. Therefore this grantmaking cycle we collectively granted an additional $1,000,000 towards digital voter mobilization, strategies to curb mis/disinformation, and civic engagement in states where we have the opportunity to expand the electorate.
Grantees:
Stop Online Violence Against Women Inc.
Black Leaders Organizing for Communities Education Fund
Safe & Sustainable Future For All Impact Collective
$450,000 to 5 grantees
In partnership with Donors of Color Network, WDN pledged to continue our support of BIPOC-led organizations and coalitions working toward a long-term vision of climate and racial justice by signing the Climate Funders Justice Pledge. The greatest successes in battling climate change and centering justice have relied on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) activists and organizers in the communities that bear the brunt of climate disasters, yet only 1.3% of climate justice funding goes to BIPOC-led organizations. WDN continues to fund groups at the forefront of Just Transition efforts through our Safe & Sustainable Impact Collective. Funding in this grantmaking cycle is seeding vital climate justice efforts led by those who are overrepresented at the frontlines and underfunded at the institutional level to invest in long-term power-building solutions.
Grantees:
