Move the Money: Practices and Values for Funding Social Movements

On June 23, the Building Movement Project (BMP) released Move The Money: Practices and Values for Funding Social Movements, a set of resources designed for grantmaking institutions seeking to expand and deepen their support of movement organizations, networks and leaders. In this series of four videos, movement leaders and funders speak about the relationship between social change movements and philanthropy, exploring the importance of movements and the ways in which funders can better meet leaders’ needs. These videos, together with accompanying discussion guides, constitute a useful toolkit for grantmakers to use in their continuing support of social change movements. 

GSF’s executive director Dimple Abichandani and GSF grantee United for Respect’s executive director Andrea Dehlendorf joined a group of our esteemed funder colleagues and movement partners to participate in this project and help answer the important questions raised by BMP. In addressing the role of philanthropy in social change movements, Dimple discussed GSF’s belief that leadership and strategy development in efforts toward justice should live not with funders but rather with the people most impacted by injustice. She also mentioned GSF’s efforts to better support our grantees by implementing practices more sustainable for them, such as by replacing written reports with phone calls, which foster relationship building and better value grantee time.

We are grateful to BMP for the opportunity to take part in this project and to learn from the inspiring perspectives of all who participated, and we are excited to share these resources with our peers. We hope you find them as valuable as we do!