Funding intermediaries range widely in how accessible they are to fundraisers. A number of these groups make it easy to apply for funding. More commonly, though, it's less clear how to make an approach.
The list of funders below was created with our media partner Inside Philanthropy, which houses a trove of research designed to assist fundraisers—including articles on many of the intermediaries listed below.
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Amplify Fund
Based at the Neighborhood Funders Group, Amplify is a four-year collaborative that began in 2018 with the goal of moving money to community power-building efforts and upending top-down community development funding norms.
Arabella Advisors
While not a grantmaker itself, Arabella has been the parent or prime mover behind numerous vehicles for progressive philanthropy, including the New Venture Fund and the Windward Fund, as well as the 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund.
BEAI Fund
Building Equity and Alignment for Impact, a coalition of large green organizations, grassroots groups and philanthropy, formed a fund to help the grassroots get the resources it needs to expand its impact.
Black Social Change Funders Network
BSCFN arose in 2015 from a partnership between ABFE and the Hill-Snowdon Foundation. It’s an advocate for greater philanthropic investment in Black-led organizing.
Borealis Philanthropy
Borealis is a deeply progressive funding intermediary that operates numerous collaborative funds. They include the Black-Led Movements Fund, the Communities Transforming Policing Fund, the Fund for Trans Generations and the Immigrant Litigation Fund.
Boston Ujima Fund
The Boston Ujima Project operates a democratic investment fund to support projects in the city’s working-class communities of color.
California Donor Table Fund
This funding vehicle is a means for members of the California Donor Table to collectively contribute to social justice work in the state.
Center for Economic Democracy
Headquartered in Boston, CED is a capacity-building shop for movement organizations and grantmakers.
Chicago Racial Justice Pooled Fund
With the Woods Fund of Chicago in the lead, 13 foundations pooled their resources to move $3 million to local Black-led organizing.
CLIMA Fund
CLIMA’s focus is indigenous, women, and youth-led work to build climate resilience and mitigate climate chaos. Major backers include the Packard Foundation, the Whitman Institute, the Libra Foundation, the Swift Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund.
Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund
This fund started in 2016 as a project of the Democracy Alliance, and seeks to fund grassroots organizations and communities of color to lead on climate solutions in key states. Backers include the Hewlett, MacArthur, Kresge and JPB foundations.
Climate Justice Alliance
CJA formed in 2013 to unite frontline communities and build power in the climate movement, with a focus on just transition principles. The alliance has become an organizing force, building a large presence in the People’s Climate March and climate justice events around the Global Climate Action Summit.
Climate Justice Resilience Fund
This is one of the larger climate intermediaries, thanks to support from its founding funder, the Oak Foundation. Focused on women, youth and indigenous peoples, it backs work in the Bay of Bengal, East Africa, the Arctic and elsewhere.
Collaborative Fund for Women's Safety and Dignity
This collaboration, housed at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, draws on resources from major progressive grantmakers to support women’s safety at work and build on the #MeToo movement.
Collective Future Fund
Backed by a list of major foundations, the Collective Future Fund channels support to projects focused on survivor- and women-of-color-led movement building.
Common Future
Formerly known as BALLE, Common Future has evolved its localist economic opportunity work into a range of strategies to build inclusive economies, including efforts to organize funders.
Defending the Dream Fund
This collaborative vehicle got its start in the wake of the 2016 election as a way to respond to post-election threats. Partners include the General Service Foundation, the Hill-Snowdon Foundation and the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation.
Democracy Alliance
Founded in 2005 as a counterweight to sophisticated conservative funding infrastructure, the Democracy Alliance organizes and convenes well-heeled progressive donors and operates collaborative funds of its own.
Democracy Frontlines Fund
The Libra Foundation spearheaded this collaborative fund for Black-led organizing just before the 2020 election. It marks the entry of several big donors, including Sobrato Philanthropies and Eric and Wendy Schmidt, into outright racial justice movement funding.
Donors of Color Network
Donors of Color officially launched in 2019 as a cross-racial donor community dedicated to collective power-building to achieve racial equity.
Economic Opportunity Funders
Founded in 1992 as the Grantmakers Income Security Taskforce (GIST), EOF now boasts a membership of around 250 organizations, which have between them provided the bulk of non-governmental funding for welfare and economic policy reform over the past two decades.
Economic Security Project
Funded by tech luminaries as well as more traditional grantmaking institutions, ESP seeks to expand the political feasibility of basic income and to fight corporate monopolization.
Emergent Fund
Emergent got started after the 2016 election as a progressive rapid response and power-building funding vehicle. Partner organizations include the Women Donors Network, the Solidaire Network, the Threshold Foundation and the Democracy Alliance.
Energy Foundation
This intermediary began as a project of the Pew Charitable Trust, the Rockefeller Family Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation and now channels money from numerous funders toward efforts to promote a clean energy economy.
Environmental Defenders Fund
This pooled fund launched in 2017 in response to rising threats to environmental activists and civil society, making rapid response grants and backing trainings, organizational security, litigation and community-based campaigns.
Fund for a Safer Future
FSF pools resources from around 25 foundations and individual donors to reduce gun violence in the United States by supporting rational, evidence-based policy. Since 2011, it has moved over $10 million in grants.
Fund for an Inclusive California
Based at the Common Counsel Foundation, this fund seeks to bring pooled and aligned funding to bear on community disinvestment and inequity in the Golden State, through lenses like housing affordability and sustainable development.
Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing
FYCO got its start in the late 1990s as youth organizing gained popularity as a tool for change. Today, the collaborative operates several programs to provide direct support and guidance to youth organizers.
Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy
Abbreviated as FORGE, this collaborative joins together progressive global grantmakers interested in supporting worker-led and community-led movements abroad.
Global Fund for Women
Founded to support grassroots women-led movements directly, this fund backs work in the global south and elsewhere to free women from violence, advance sexual and reproductive health and rights, and further economic justice.
Global Greengrants Fund
This long-running grassroots intermediary moves money to support land, water and resource rights, along with climate justice and women’s environmental action. Its participatory grantmaking approach hands over grantmaking decisions to local residents.
Hawai'i People's Fund
This intermediary dates back to 1972, when it began funding grassroots community-based groups in the Aloha State.
Heartland Fund
This donor collaborative is run by funders with roots in the Midwest, national funders, and an advisory committee from communities the fund supports. Its funding interests include energy and environmental justice as well as conservation.
Highlander Research and Education Center
The Highlander Center provides fiscal sponsorship services, fellowships and other support to grassroots organizers in the South, one example being the We Shall Overcome Fund, which it has administered since 1966.
Lever for Change
Lever for Change is a nonprofit “affiliate” of the MacArthur Foundation that manages further iterations of that grantmaker’s 100&Change grand challenge. It also hosts new challenges, some with a justice focus, backed often by newcomers to philanthropy.
Living Cities
Living Cities has a long history as a community development pass-through intermediary. It has evolved in recent years to embrace regional efforts to boost racial equity.
Maine Initiatives
This intermediary got its start in the 1990s with a small circle of donors who got together to fund social change in Maine. It now makes general support grants to progressive groups in the state, with some emphasis on immigrants and refugees.
Movement Voter Project
The Movement Voter Project is dedicated to connecting progressive grassroots groups with supporters ready to donate. It’s a 501(c)(4), but it does provide guidance for donors interested in backing 501(c)(3) organizations.
National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research
Established with support from Arnold Ventures, the collaborative funds research in an effort to “broaden agreement on the facts associated with gun policy, and support development of fair and effective policies.”
Neighborhood Funders Group
NFG is a progressive philanthropic affinity group whose members share an interest in grassroots movement building, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color. NFG makes grants via the Amplify Fund.
NEO Philanthropy
NEO is a public charity that provides a constellation of services to the social justice nonprofit sphere, including fiscal sponsorship, donor services and capacity building. NEO hosts collaborative funds like the State Infrastructure Fund and the Four Freedoms Fund.
New Media Ventures
New Media Ventures exemplifies venture philanthropy’s turn to the left in recent years. It funds new progressive organizations after the manner of venture capital, providing incubation and unrestricted support to its tech-centric portfolio.
New Venture Fund
A popular 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship vehicle for progressive initiatives, the New Venture Fund hosts projects that tackle the structural challenges of inequality and environmental degradation. It regularly handles hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Ohio Transformation Fund
A collaborative fund formed in 2015, OTF’s current focus is on addressing the damaging impact of the current criminal justice system. National partners include Ford and the Art for Justice Fund.
One for Democracy
A kind of “Giving Pledge for democracy funding,” One for Democracy challenged donors to commit 1% or more of their wealth to strengthen democracy in the year 2020. Pledgers collectively committed in excess of $67 million, including to a set of c3 and c4 funds set up specifically by One for Democracy.
The Partnership Funds
A project of the New Venture Fund, this initiative moves money to local and regional member-led networks engaged in progressive power-building. The plural name refers to the 501(c)(3) fund and an associated 501(c)(4) entity situated under the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
People of Color Donor Collaborative
This collaborative came together in 2018 to seek a greater understanding of how high net worth people of color give away money, and how to organize them. The group seeks to engage donors of color, and enjoys backing from major progressive philanthropies.
Philanthropic Initiative on Racial Equity (PRE)
PRE has been around since 2003, when it set out to draw more resources and attention to the fight against institutional racism. Its offerings include local and regional events and donor resources.
Pop Culture Collaborative
This collaborative seeks clarity and impact in the often nebulous realm of narrative change philanthropy, in particular around efforts to change how the stories of underprivileged people get told.
Progressive Multiplier Fund
The Progressive Multiplier Fund supports social justice nonprofits looking to bolster their sustainability by generating independent revenue. It’s backed by a host of left-leaning philanthropies.
Propel Capital
A venture philanthropy shop, Propel has leaned into progressive organizing lately, backing early-stage organizations that seek media impact, a stronger democracy and a more equitable global economy.
Proteus Fund
Proteus employs a “high-touch” approach to building the progressive field, and supports democracy reform, racial justice and policy change via donor collaboratives like the Piper Fund, the RISE Together Fund, and the Rights, Faith and Democracy Collaborative.
Rachel’s Network
Named in honor of Rachel Carson, this community of women donors oversees a number of funding projects at the intersection of environmental justice and women’s leadership.
Resilient Democracy Fund
This pooled fund was founded in 2018 to address digital divides in the civic participation and voter engagement space. Its focus is on relational organizing: empowering people to engage their own family and friends in getting out the vote.
Resource Generation
Resource Generation is a key donor organizing hub for young progressives with class privilege. It’s organized around local chapters and fundraises among its membership to support grassroots organizing.
Solidaire Network
Solidaire got its start following the Great Recession and Occupy Wall Street, when several progressive donors envisioned a platform to drive resources toward structural change by growing the donor base and letting movements lead the way.
Solidarity Economy Initiative
Based in Massachusetts, SEI channels funds from local grantmakers to a cohort of BIPOC-led grassroots groups working in the state to challenge extractive capitalism.
The Solutions Project
Actor Mark Ruffalo spearheaded this organization, which now prioritizes environmental and racial justice efforts led by women of color. A variety of notable progressive foundations and donors have pledged their support.
Southern Power Fund
Following the historic protests in the summer of 2020, this collaborative funding initiative came together to move $10 million to Black-led Southern organizations. Part of that sum supports a long-term fund to support organizing in the region.
Third Wave Fund
Third Wave is an intersectional feminist grantmaker and donor organizing platform that hosts several funds designed to grow the capacity of movement groups and respond rapidly to threats and opportunities.
Thousand Currents
Thousand Currents funds groups working in the Global South—led by people from those communities—toward food sovereignty, climate justice and economies that enrich local people.
Threshold Foundation
This nonprofit channels support from its individual members to a variety of progressive causes worldwide. Funding circles focus on topics like fair elections, immigration justice, climate resilience, and peace in the Middle East.
Tides
One of the biggest names in the world of progressive philanthropic support and fiscal sponsorship, Tides has sponsored over 1,400 nonprofit projects and managed more than $3 billion.
Way to Rise
Way to Rise is the 501(c)(3) arm of Way to Win, a post-2016 “political funding community” that organizes progressive donors and pursues 501(c)(4) and PAC strategies to build power in communities of color.
Windward Fund
Like the New Venture Fund, Windward is a project incubation and fiscal sponsorship entity affiliated with Arabella Advisors. Its goal is a more impactful environmental movement.
Women Donors Network
WDN is a major locus of networking and organizing for progressive women donors. Its network now numbers over 200, who between them contribute over $175 million to progressive causes per year. WDN has been heavily involved in the creation and incubation of a wide variety of philanthropic projects.
Women Moving Millions
Women Moving Millions is the brainchild of sisters Helen LaKelly Hunt and Swanee Hunt, who envisioned a collective of well-heeled female donors making big gifts to advance women and girls. WMM offers programming to support its members in their grantmaking.
Women’s Catalytic Fund
Based at the East Bay Community Foundation, this giving circle channels money to social change organizations led by and serving women in the Bay Area and elsewhere in California.
The Workers Lab
Founded by Carmen Rojas, who now leads the Marguerite Casey Foundation, this organization backs the worker power movement, in particular through an Innovation Fund supporting leaders with innovative ideas.