Solidaire Network
/OVERVIEW: The Solidaire Network supports “the frontlines of social justice movements in the U.S.,” spanning the areas of racial justice, Indigenous rights, criminal justice reform, environmental justice and gender justice.
IP TAKE: The Solidaire Network is an influential social justice funder that moves funding through direct grantmaking as well as donor engagement and donor organizing. While Solidaire’s direct grantmaking is somewhat modest – grantmaking totaled between $10 and $30 million in recent years – its impact goes beyond that, including what it calls “aligned grantmaking” comprised of donor funding that Solidaire has a hand in organizing. In 2022, Solidaire unveiled a 10-year strategy to “move $10 billion to social justice movements.” Inside Philanthropy writer Dawn Wolfe recently characterized Solidaire as “a philanthropy-serving organization whose ultimate goal is to upend conventional philanthropy. The organization believes that the systems that have allowed the concentration of power and wealth ‘must be fundamentally reimagined’ to fulfill the group’s vision for social and racial justice.”
Solidaire provides flexible, multi-year support to grantees. Its giving tends to prioritize grassroots groups in regions and communities that have experienced the highest levels of generational inequity and oppression, particularly in the U.S. South. This funder works closely with grantees and constantly learns and reassess how to best support movements in meaningful and effective ways. Solidaire is not currently accepting grant applications, as it focuses on continued grantmaking with existing partners. Interested grantseekers should note that Solidaire expects to open grantmaking to new organizations in 2025 “at the earliest.”
PROFILE: The Oakland, California-based Solidaire Network was established in 2013 as an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, when wealthy donors who supported Occupy collaborated with and funded frontlines movements. Founding executive director Leah Hunt Hendrix was particularly central to early donor organizing within the Solidaire Network. According to reporting at IP and elsewhere, early Solidaire donors were also moved by the Arab Spring and the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests after the police killing of Michael Brown, a Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. The goal of donors was “to transform political power in this country and our own relationship to power and wealth.”
Solidaire’s sister organization, Solidaire Action, funds 501(c)(4) organizations.
The Solidaire Network further describes itself as a “community of donor organizers who mobilize quickly to get critical resources and unprecedented amounts of solidarity to the frontlines of social justice movements.” According to its statement of purpose, Solidaire aims to “fundamentally change economic, political and cultural power systems by growing and nurturing a network of donor organizers to accompany movements for social and racial justice.”
The Network employs a three-pronged strategy to accomplish goals relating to its vision of “a world where all people have power to shape the decisions that affect their lives, and to flourish:”
Donor Engagement and Activism refers to the Network members’ direct involvement with “community building, political and popular education, membership meetings and innovative programming.” Members also participate in activities related to one or more relevant “regional hubs” and working groups related to grantmaking in the areas of Indigenous rights, criminal justice reform and/or environmental justice.
Resource Mobilization is the network’s strategy for increasing monetary support to “power building strategies for intersectional and interdependent movements.”
Shifting New Paradigms is the strategy through which Solidaire works to “transform” relationships between donors and the movements and causes they support by engaging in “praxis-based political education and peer learning.”
Beyond these strategies, Solidaire names five specific grantmaking goals.
Solidaire aims to “[p]rotect movements immediately” during times of increased likelihood of “violence and state repression.”
Grantmaking works to “[r]esource movement infrastructure,” which refers to financial support for specific needs of movements, including but not limited to “legal, communications, technology, financial, organizational development, healing, cultural work, and leadership development to sustain and support our movements for the long term.”
The Network focuses its grantmaking on resistance, specifically “organizations and activities that are focused directly on dismantling and disrupting extractive, exploitative, and oppressive systems steeped in structural racism.”
Central to the Network’s giving are “imagination and futures” that involve the creation of “new institutions, deeply democratic governance structures, and decolonized systems that recognize and respect the dignity of all oppressed peoples.”
Finally, Solidaire aims to “liberate wealth” for racial justice and Indigenous rights through grassroots movements and leadership.
Solidare’s current grantmaking vehicles are:
Grants for Racial Justice, Indigenous Rights, Criminal Justice Reform, Environmental Justice, LGBTQ Causes, Women and Girls
Solidaire awards grants through five programs that differ in strategy and the types of funding provided. Across all programs, funding prioritizes grassroots groups that have roots and leadership in the communities in which they work. Small- and medium-sized organizations are well-represented here, as are organizations that work in overlapping areas of social justice.
The Movement Infrastructure Fund provides “long-term scaffolding for movement organizations and formations to transform what’s possible.” Priorities of this fund include organizations and movements that are “overlooked and underfunded,” as well as those that are “led by those most impacted by injustice.”
One grantee, Indigenous Climate Action, represents a diverse group of Indigenous peoples engaged in movements for sovereignty and climate justice. Another grantee, Alabama’s Knights and Orchids Society, “builds the power of TLGB+ Black people across the South by providing a spectrum of health and wellness services.” Other past grantees include the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, Detroit Disability Power, Muslim Counterpublics Lab and One Fair Wage.
Having committed to its current grantees for periods ranging from two to five years, the Movement Infrastructure Fund is not currently accepting applications. A new round of grantmaking is expected to begin in 2025, “at the earliest.”
The Black Liberation Pooled Fund aims to “fortify Black resistance organizing, embolden the imagination and creation of liberatory Black futures, and invest in the development of Black movement infrastructure.” Since its launch in 2020, the fund has mobilized close to $20 million in grants to organizations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The Network describes the work of its grantee partners as “rooted in a Black queer feminist framework, an abolitionist lens and/or an anti-capitalist politic.” In New York, the Network has supported the BlackOUT Collective, whose mission “is to train 10,000 black people in the next 4 years to be direct action practitioners and strategist through campaign, abolitionist and rapid response frameworks.” Other grantees include Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center, Puerto Rico’s Parceleras Afrocaribeñas, the Black Phoenix Organizing Collective and the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Collective in Oakland, California.
The Janisha Gabriel Movement Protection Fund, named for “Solidaire’s former communications lead who passed away on September 6, 2020,” provides rapid response grants to organizations facing security threats. The fund was initially launched in 2020 in response to “immediate needs of movement leaders who were facing heightened risks, threats of violence and increased dangers due to the 2020 U.S. political climate.” After a brief hiatus the following year, the fund was reopened in November 2022, when organizers began to face “increasing far-right attacks for their work.” To date, the fund has awarded close to $4 million in protection grants for “digital, physical and legal security infrastructures.” The program’s average grant size is about $37,000.
The Network does not provide information about how to apply for a Protection Fund grant on its program page, but prospective applicants should email Solidaire for information about this funding.
Solidaire’s Building the Fire Fund is “dedicated to Indigenous reproductive justice” and its vision “is for Indigenous women’s health and self-determination to be front and center in philanthropic investment and in the broader Reproductive Justice Movement.” As with Solidaire’s other giving programs, the Building the Fire Fund’s work is intersectional and “weaves together” issues relating to reproductive rights, maternal and children’s health, safety, sovereignty and environmental justice.
Early grantees of this program include California’s Women’s Health Specialists of Feminist Healthcare, New Mexico’s Indigenous Women Rising and the Native American Community Board of South Dakota, among others.
This program is not currently accepting applications, but grantseekers should check back for updates about grantmaking opportunities, which may begin again as early as 2025.
Solidaire’s Unity and Power Fund “moves money to the front lines of antiwar and racial justice organizing for a just and sustainable peace in Israel-Palestine. We uplift the work of human rights organizing rooted in solidarity and mutual liberation.” This fund took root in 2023 and engaged in a proactive form of grantmaking, with Solidaire’s grantmaking team and frontlines partners identifying and selecting potential grantees. The first round of grants was approved by the Solidaire Board of directors in December 2023. Solidaire’s website notes that “The application submission window for the first round of the Unity & Power Fund has closed. As our members and allies in philanthropy continue to support inclusive peace organizing, we will roll out additional rounds of partnerships.”
Important Grant Details:
The Solidaire Network’s grants range from about $5,000 to $300,000.
This funder tends to work closely with its grantee partners over periods ranging from two to five years.
Solidaire’s grantees tend to be small- to medium-sized grassroots and community-led groups.
Much of the Network’s giving supports organizations and projects that address overlapping issues of interest relating to social justice and movement building.
Grantmaking is mainly limited to the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Solidaire expects to begin a new round of grantmaking in 2025 “at the earliest” and is not currently accepting applications.
Information about past grantees is available on each of the Network’s program pages.
Grantseekers may wish to sign up for the Network’s emails and newsletters using the form at the bottom of its website or sign up for application updates at the bottom of the grantmaking page.
The Solidaire Network can be reached via telephone at (510) 607-1999 or email at info@solidairenetwork.org.
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