Meeting the Moment: Groundswell’s Blueprint Update

When we introduced our 2020-2025 Blueprint at the end of 2020, we were amidst a tumultuous presidential term, devastating natural disasters, and a global pandemic that shifted the resources available to communities and how we interact with each other.

Since Groundswell Fund’s inception in 2003 and the start of our current Blueprint in 2020, we moved $100 million to the field. The Blueprint was an ambitious commitment to move an additional $100 million to grassroots organizations between 2020 and 2025 ($80 million through Groundswell Fund and $20 million through Groundswell Action Fund).

Endorsed by more than 100 prominent movement leaders, donor organizers, and philanthropic institutions, our Blueprint is a bold plan for us to scale up as an essential irrigation system for social justice movements while maintaining our focus on Black and Indigenous women-led and trans and gender-expansive people of color-led work.

We maintained steady progress during a protracted leadership transition and are on track to exceed some of our original goals (Groundswell Fund Blueprint and Groundswell Action Fund Blueprint). 

By the end of 2023, Groundswell Fund is on track to deploy $16 million in grants and capacity-building support to approximately 270 organizations across the U.S., while Groundswell Action Fund will deploy roughly $3 million in grants and capacity-building support over 50 organizations (numbers may change once finalized in 2024).

As we ring in the new year, we will have moved over $71 million of our $100 million Blueprint goal! 

Over the last three years of the Blueprint, we have learned that it’s most beneficial to our grantees when we can be nimble and responsive with resources when unexpected events occur.  Our grantees face a different world today than they did three years ago, with more significant needs, more urgent timelines, fiercer opposition, and the same often-strapped budgets.

As these and other crises have ballooned over the past few years, many of our philanthropic peers have deepened their investments in people of color-led work, particularly in Black-led movement organizing and in critical issue movements, including the Climate Justice Movement, Labor Movement, Birth Justice, Reproductive Justice, and Criminal Justice. While we are grateful for that headway, these movements remain deeply and chronically underfunded, considering the scale of the crises we face.

As we enter the final two years of our Blueprint, we welcome new C-suite leadership to guide our work and help us meet our goals.

Our new Chief Executive Officer, Yamani Yansá Hernandez, and new Chief Development Officer, Angélique Nguyễn Green, are developing ambitious funder-organizing plans to increase overall resources moving to the field. They are also exploring political education opportunities for donors and funders, including the importance of c4 funding as we face continued threats to our democracy. This is an exciting time as we enter the final stages of the Blueprint.

Your support of Groundswell has made the successes detailed in our Blueprint update possible. We are grateful for your partnership in advancing reproductive, racial, and gender justice in the United States.

We are proud to partner with you as we work to build a multi-racial, feminist democracy!