Announcing our 2026 Grantee Partners and over $500k in Grantmaking
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Boston Women’s Fund (BWF) is proud to announce our 2026 grantee partners and over $550,000 in grants and sponsorships! At a time when our government and many institutions have stepped back from boldly supporting communities weathering injustice, BWF is honored to continue to lean in, funding visionary women and gender-expansive leaders who are building a better future for us all.
The grantmaking process began a year ago, when BWF dove into creating our new theory of change, our blueprint for how we want to show up for the communities we serve and our understanding of the best way for us to drive change toward equity and justice for all people.
On the other side of that process, we found our values best articulated through three elements: love, belonging, and flow. Love is an action and guides every step we take. Belonging is a strategy that ensures we’re working in genuine community to make change, and we flow resources to those who need them most.
How do love, belonging, and flow show up in grantmaking?
Love and belonging shape our approach to everything. Each of our 18 grassroots grantee partners received a $20,000 unrestricted general-operating grant, honoring the expertise that lives within grassroots leaders by enabling leaders to use the funds where and how they see fit.
Love is honesty, and belonging is making sure our grantee partners always know where they stand. So we boosted our transparency about grant amounts and timelines for support. Each year, we’ll explore renewing 12-month grants until we’ve been in partnership for up to 5 years. When that chapter closes, we commit to walking our partners toward what's next. We’ve also removed our $500,000 grantee budget limit for existing partners, so organizations are not penalized for growth, especially in this politically tumultuous climate.
Love is care. BWF also launched our first-ever Well-Being Grant, issuing each grantee partner an additional $5,000. The only stipulation? That they use the funds to support the healing, recovery, and well-being of themselves and their staff.Â
Funding the work means supporting the human behind it. We understand that the sustainability of grassroots organizations is directly linked to the well-being of the organization’s leadership. Key findings from our new research, Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change, completed in partnership with UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, made this abundantly clear.
All told, this year, Boston Women’s Fund channeled $551,450 in grantmaking and sponsorships into Greater Boston’s grassroots ecosystem, guided by our values every step of the way.
It’s typical for a foundation to center on one issue. But we’ve never been interested in the status quo. Our priority has always been our people — BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, low-income, youth, elderly, immigrant, refugee, and disabled women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals. We hope you’ll stand with us in supporting their dynamic pathways for change.
We are proud to support the following organizations as BWF’s 2026 grantee partners:
Abilities Dance Boston
Asian American Women's Political Initiative
Asian Women for Health
Association of Haitian Women in Boston
Birth Equity & Justice MA
Dominican Development Center
Essex County Community Organization
Grimes-King Foundation for the Elderly
Love Your Magic
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Matahari Women Workers Center
Melanin Mass Moms
Propa City Community Outreach
Sisters Unchained
Small House
Somali Parents Advocacy Center for Education
Student Immigrant Movement
Women Encouraging Empowerment
We also proudly sponsored the following organizations in 2026:
Beat The Odds
Big Soul
Dominican Development Center
Girls Reflecting Our World
Haymarket People's Fund
Love Your Magic
LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of MA
Resource Organizing Project
The Queer Neighborhood Council
UMass Boston's Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy
Women of Color Radio / HerVision
Young Queens RisingÂ