Model and Strategy
Groundswell Action Fund was founded on a simple but revolutionary premise: that those who are most excluded from our democracy should be at the center of transforming it. The Fund resources 501(c)4 organizations across the US that are led by women of color (WOC), low-income women, and transgender people who are building lasting political power in their communities, fighting to win on crucial progressive issues, and advancing solidarity-based electoral strategies that expand access to democratic participation for all people. We find and vet the groups who are already changing the game on local, state, and national levels and put crucial support behind them.
In the US, the majority of people support social justice, but the majority of policies and systems do not. This gap can only be bridged when the people organizing a strong grassroots base to hold decision makers accountable receive the resources they need to succeed. GAF provides an easy way for funders and individual donors to resource these efforts. It is the first c4 fund of its kind in the country, and one of the largest to center WOC-led c4 work.
Impact
Groundswell Action Fund’s impact goal is to do in the c4 arena what Groundswell has done for women of color in the c3 arena: crack open a conversation about racial and gender inequity within philanthropy to galvanize more resources to women of color-led work. The Fund is disrupting the historical near-total lack of access of women of color to c4 funding, and organizing funders and donors to reverse these racial and gender disparities in giving.
While it was launched in the aftermath of the election, Groundswell Action Fund is not a short-term endeavor. We envision a dynamic, robust, well-resourced field of WOC-led 501(c)4 organizations building a vibrant grassroots base that has the scale, sustainability, and integrity necessary to win large-scale social change and dramatically improve the material conditions of those at the center of race, class, and gender oppression. This ecosystem of organizations will bring the leadership of the people most directly impacted to the forefront of our movements, and will bring the voices of those most impacted into the statehouses, town hall meetings, streets, congressional offices, and governor’s mansions where decisions about their lives are brokered and written all too often without their input.
Organizations will build determinative power across every sector, issue, and identity to advance an aligned yet nuanced front of resistance to right-wing attacks on Black communities and other communities of color, immigrants, Muslim communities, women, LGBTQ people, workers and the environment.
Leadership
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Vanessa Daniel
Executive Director
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Charlene Sinclair
Managing Director