Women - and Indigenous-led community funds are rewriting the rules of US philanthropy
Large foundations still set the terms of American giving. Yet beside them, a quieter set of institutions has been working on another model for decades: women’s funds, giving circles, and funds led by Indigenous communities. They differ in size, budget and politics, but what they share is a belief that decisions about money should be made by, and with, the people those decisions affect.
In Boston, for example, a grassroots organization can receive money from the Boston Women’s Fund without ever filling out a grant application. The fund does not send out a request for proposals for its Community Impact grants. Instead, the public nominates groups, and an allocations committee made up of community members interviews the leaders and the people they serve. The fund’s 2023 grants followed what it calls “Requests for Conversations,” which replaced written applications so that grassroots leaders could keep their time for their own organizations.
It is a small detail, but it shows what happens when the people closest to a problem help control the purse. The questions philanthropy usually answers from the top—namely who is trusted, who carries the risk, and who makes decisions—get answered differently.
“The Boston Women’s Fund, founded in 1984 as the first women’s foundation in Massachusetts, describes itself as participatory and tries to give grantees funding that runs over several years wherever it can. Its allocations committee decides by consensus. In 2023 it granted more than $400,000 to 22 grassroots organizations, a 44 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. All were led by women or gender expansive people, and 95 percent of those leaders were people of color. In July 2025 it announced more than $475,700 in grants, supporting 19 grassroots organizations. These are not large sums by the standards of national foundations, but they are growing."
