“Philanthropy is where organizers go to retire.” For those of us who transition into the world of charitable giving from roles in organizing and advocacy, it’s common to hear this sentiment shared — half-jokingly. While it may not hold true for all, it highlights the critical reality that social justice groups lack sufficient resources to sustain leaders and the mass movements we need, demonstrating the importance of philanthropy learning from organizing to build worker power. To address this issue, some frontline activists are stepping into a new strategic role: funder organizing.

One aim of this growing trend in philanthropy is to foster a new understanding of what it means to be not just an ally to movement leaders, but a force for change that reduces harm, fosters repair, and contributes to strategies that shift power. In reimagining our role in this way, we situate ourselves in the broader work of systemic transformation, examine the stories we’ve been told about grantmaking as generosity, and see that collective action is a necessary part of power building.

At Funders for a Just Economy, a national funder organizing hub at Neighborhood Funders Group that believes in building worker power and advancing economic justice, we operate with a systemic analysis of philanthropy that builds on the scholarship of Ruth Wilson Gilmore.

Applying the lens of racial capitalism, Gilmore observes that the money philanthropy controls is “stolen social wages.” First, it is accumulated through the exploitation of land and labor, particularly of Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. Second, it is shielded from taxation through vehicles like foundations and donor-advised funds. Finally, it is reinvested in the market, typically in extractive industries, to perpetuate the cycle of capital accumulation and control by a wealthy few.

Within this framework, funder organizing isn’t simply about resource redistribution; it is about reckoning with the contradictions of being employed in a sector that should not exist in the first place, while also doing the work to return capital to the people from whom it was taken, historically and in the present day.

Read the full article about learning from worker power building by Leanne Sajor and Neda Said at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.