Our Work
Groundswell Fund practices solidarity with movements working at the intersection of bodily autonomy and democracy. We move financial and capacity resources to grassroots organizations that organize, provide community care, and build power in communities where fundamental freedoms are under threat and new possibilities are being imagined.
It’s about Bodily Autonomy & Democracy
Our work strengthens the people, organizations, and ideas that allow movements not only to resist attacks, but to shape a more just and democratic future.
The Approach
- Movement Solidarity We partner with grassroots organizations as long-term allies, not short-term funders.
- Movement Infrastructure We strengthen leadership, operations, and organizational capacity so movements can sustain their work.
- Network Building We connect movement leaders, donors, and allies to strengthen collaboration and shared strategy.
- Long-Term Change We resource organizing that defends communities today while supporting new community-owned experiments that build the future they deserve.
- Focused Investment We invest deeply in a cohort of partners working in places that will determine the future of bodily autonomy and democracy for the entire U.S. because we believe that what happens in frontline regions impacts the future of bodily autonomy and democracy for the entire country.
Three Guiding Anchors
Fortify
Movements cannot win if organizations cannot survive.
We invest in the infrastructure that helps grassroots organizations remain resilient during periods of political backlash and rapid change. This includes strengthening leadership, operations, fundraising capacity, and legal readiness to enable organizations to sustain their work over the long term despite rising threats.
Strong organizations are foundational to protect communities and maintain momentum towards liberation.
Resist
Movements must be able to contest power in real time.
Groundswell supports organizing, narrative strategy, and nonpartisan integrated voter engagement efforts that allow communities to defend bodily autonomy and democratic participation. By resourcing organizing in places facing strategic political attacks, we help movements exercise power and shape the conditions affecting people’s lives.
Build New Worlds
Movements are not only resisting injustice — they are shaping a new type of future.
Across the country, grassroots leaders are building new models of care, governance, and economic life rooted in community self-determination. Groundswell supports experimentation and innovation that allows movements to prototype democratic alternatives and build systems grounded in collective care and shared power.
Partnership Model
Groundswell invests in a focused cohort of organizations building durable care-based, grassroots power.
*Groundswell’s definition of care-based power: Groundswell grantees understand that a core component of building community power is the process of supporting communities that are the most impacted to take care of each other while surviving systems that are bent on harm. Movement organizations help to build care-based power by supporting impacted communities to foster resilience and collective well-being through social support, shared resources, and mutual aid.
Rather than operating open grant cycles, we form long-term partnerships with organizations whose work strengthens movements across regions and issue areas. These partnerships combine grantmaking with leadership development, capacity support, and opportunities for shared learning.
This approach allows organizations to focus on long-term strategy and community impact rather than short-term funding cycles.
Strengthening the Field
Groundswell also supports the broader movement ecosystem through convenings, leadership development, and collaborative learning spaces.
By bringing together movement partners, donors, and allies, we strengthen relationships, share strategy, and support collective action across regions and movements.
Images courtesy of Ohio Women’s Alliance, Center for People Power, Groundswell staff member, I Be Black Girl (Rebecca S. Gratz), Take Action MN.