October Update from the CEO: Fortifying. Resisting. Building new worlds.

Early this month at the annual Women Moving Millions summit, I had the privilege of joining our partners at Ms. magazine on a panel (pictured above) to highlight the Gender & Democracy series – a collaborative effort that uplifts the voices and leadership of Groundswell grantee partners. In a time of rampant misinformation, where free and independent press is being suppressed, feminist media is critical. In fact, I heard my local public radio station say that having access to public media is an emergency response strategy. I agree. Through this partnership, we are taking ourselves out as a “middleman”. Readers nationwide learn directly from movement leaders about what it means to protect bodily autonomy and advance a multi-racial, feminist democracy in practice, not just principle.

Groundswell is listening and evolving based on the conditions. We are not changing course, but sharpening our focus. We are supporting our grantee partners in fortifying, resisting, and building new worlds by rescaling our support to grassroots organizations, organizing funders to shift power, and supporting grantees’ capacity for self-determination that gives us glimpses of the liberated future we’re fighting for. For more than twenty years, we have been a leader, catalyzing other funders to invest in what grantees are telling us they need. During this evolution of Groundswell, we will focus on supporting organizations to build the infrastructure of freedom that will last beyond any single funder or political moment.

As philanthropy retracts around issues of bodily autonomy, we’ve asked ourselves how we can help our grantee partners become less reliant on philanthropy itself. I’ve been grounding myself in practices that will guide this next chapter – learning with Justice Funders’ “Fundamentals of Transformative Philanthropy” training and participating in LIFT Economy’s nine-month course on the “NEXT economy”, regenerative, justice-based systems. Lastly, I have been celebrating and drawing inspiration from Grassroots International’s Solidarity Philanthropy framework. Each offers tools for reimagining what it means to resource movements toward self-determination, care, and shared power.

Groundswell’s work in 2026 builds from these principles: moving from breadth to depth, resourcing fewer organizations with larger, more transformative investments to encourage strategies for long-term sustainability, along with experimentation with new strategies. We are integrating our work by combining what were five discrete funds into one integrated movement solidarity model under two funds (501c3 and 501c4) that centers the intersection of bodily autonomy and the multi-racial feminist democracy we are fighting for. Our capacity-building efforts will focus on three key areas, led by trusted vendor partners, while we deepen relationships with both donors and grantee partners as part of a shared community of practice — fortifying, resisting, and building new worlds together.

This isn’t just philanthropy. It’s an act of resistance and a commitment to build the future we all deserve.