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Introduction

Raise the Bar

A Tool to Move From Harmful to Liberatory Funding Practices with Palestine as Your Compass

Raise the Bar is a tool to help funders (and funder organizers) identify and address harmful philanthropic practices so they can support justice and liberation movements from a place of deep solidarity and authentic partnership. It draws on the many years of practice and learning of members of the Funders4Palestine (F4P) community and the Palestinian liberatory resourcing initiative Rawa, and builds on research carried out by Funding Freedom. It is intended for public and private foundation staff and leadership, individuals (including independent consultants) and networks seeking to organize the philanthropic sector, as well as individual donors and board members. Although each of those entities may take different lessons from the tool, the intention is for it to support each actor in the wider philanthropic sector to consider not only their internal practices but also their wider role in the funding ecosystems they are connected to, including how their individual actions may impact the whole. Raise the Bar may also be a useful tool for movement organizations aiming to make sense of their own funders and to shape the broader philanthropic landscape in which they operate.

Raise the Bar seeks to:

Guide learning and assessment for deeper values alignment

This is a practical tool for helping donors and funders assess their current practices, identify those practices that may be undermining the development and growth of movements seeking justice and transformation, and experiment with concrete steps toward more liberatory approaches to funding. Our goal is for Raise the Bar to serve as both a mirror and a roadmap for aligning funding strategies with justice, equity, and collective liberation.

Establish a shared accountability framework

Raise the Bar offers standards for identifying harmful funding practices across the philanthropic sector. This includes recognizing practices often normalized as “good enough,” since they can hold back the emergence of more liberatory practices that necessarily promise to disrupt philanthropy. These standards, we hope, can help generate conditions for greater accountability to the communities that funders—and, in particular, progressive funders—aim to serve.

Shift norms and practices and build pressure for change

Raise the Bar seeks to illuminate the pathway from minimal reform to transformative change by identifying harmful practices that must stop, liberatory approaches that serve as a north star, and the decisions and steps that get us there. While grounded in the recognition that every institution or individual will start in a different place and move at a different pace, Raise the Bar equally emphasizes the necessity of collective power and organizing as an ecosystem.

User Guide

Raise the Bar

This tool is organized into sections, each focused on a specific area of funder practice. In each section, a range of concrete practices are organized into four categories that serve as a spectrum from liberatory, to how to get there, to what’s holding you back, to harmful.

Liberatory

Liberatory practices represent a set of approaches and actions taken up by philanthropic actors committed to and in constant practice of accountability with movements. These practices are grounded in transparency, trust, and the redistribution of power and resources to communities directly harmed and impacted by systemic injustice. They ensure ongoing political education, actively repair historical harms, center community leadership, and build power across institutions to dismantle systems of oppression. The bar here is high: we recognize that few funding institutions, even many that are currently funding powerful and transformative work, are meeting all of these criteria. We include them because it is important to articulate a vision of how philanthropy would look if it were fully aligned with liberatory movement values, even if that vision remains aspirational for many.

How to Get There

How to Get There suggests concrete practices that reduce harm, contribute to creating the conditions for more liberatory practices to take hold, and/or serve as stepping stones to more transformative change. This may include shifts in policies, strategies, language, or funding structures.

What’s Holding You Back

What’s Holding You Back helps you identify existing gaps between values, policy, and day-to-day practice that persist and prevent more liberatory practices from taking hold. This section can serve as an assessment tool to identify areas where progress is most needed, or to explore the underlying factors or forces that may drive more harmful practices.

Harmful

Harmful practices lie at the opposite end of the spectrum. These are funder practices that compromise, undermine, and/or endanger efforts to advance justice and liberation. Philanthropic organizations engaged in these practices actively undermine, obstruct, and/or perpetuate harm against Palestinian communities and broader social justice movements. Such practices may include silencing or censoring, over-compliance and depoliticization, extractive funding relationships, lack of accountability to impacted communities, and investments that reinforce militarization, occupation, or systemic inequality.

Liberatory

Liberatory practices represent a set of approaches and actions taken up by philanthropic actors committed to and in constant practice of accountability with movements. These practices are grounded in transparency, trust, and the redistribution of power and resources to communities directly harmed and impacted by systemic injustice. They ensure ongoing political education, actively repair historical harms, center community leadership, and build power across institutions to dismantle systems of oppression. The bar here is high: we recognize that few funding institutions, even many that are currently funding powerful and transformative work, are meeting all of these criteria. We include them because it is important to articulate a vision of how philanthropy would look if it were fully aligned with liberatory movement values, even if that vision remains aspirational for many.

Liberatory

How to Get There

How to Get There suggests concrete practices that reduce harm, contribute to creating the conditions for more liberatory practices to take hold, and/or serve as stepping stones to more transformative change. This may include shifts in policies, strategies, language, or funding structures.

What’s Holding You Back

What’s Holding You Back helps you identify existing gaps between values, policy, and day-to-day practice that persist and prevent more liberatory practices from taking hold. This section can serve as an assessment tool to identify areas where progress is most needed, or to explore the underlying factors or forces that may drive more harmful practices.

Harmful

Harmful practices lie at the opposite end of the spectrum. These are funder practices that compromise, undermine, and/or endanger efforts to advance justice and liberation. Philanthropic organizations engaged in these practices actively undermine, obstruct, and/or perpetuate harm against Palestinian communities and broader social justice movements. Such practices may include silencing or censoring, over-compliance and depoliticization, extractive funding relationships, lack of accountability to impacted communities, and investments that reinforce militarization, occupation, or systemic inequality.

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Who is this tool for?

Allies in private foundations: Individuals working to shift internal practices and policies inside private foundations can use the tool as a mechanism for internal reflection and organizing, as well as an advocacy tool to influence peers and leadership.
Intermediaries in progressive philanthropy: Organizations that act as bridges in progressive philanthropy–donor-advised funds, regranting bodies, fiscal sponsors, feminist funds, activist-led funds, and public foundations–tend to have closer ties to movements and communities than private philanthropic institutions. This tool is intended to support those already seeking to model accountable and trust-based approaches, advance liberatory practices, strengthen strategies, advocate within networks, and influence philanthropic peers.
Funder networks and collaboratives across the spectrum of social justice and progressive philanthropy, whether they are organizing individual donors, funding institutions, or both–are invited to embed the tool into their learning agendas and standards of practice.
Philanthropic media, researchers, and evaluators whose work tracks sector trends and shapes larger narratives can use the tool to set stronger baselines, shift discourses, and uplift liberatory models.
Social justice movements and organizations: Raise the Bar is grounded in the unwavering truth that all justice, liberation, and systemic change—past, present, and future—have been and will continue to be led by social justice movements. By naming the philanthropic sector’s entrenched habits of opacity, extraction, and gatekeeping, we hope to equip social movements and the organizations that flank them with a framework to navigate and assess the funding landscape with political clarity, and to work with allies in the philanthropic sector to move toward more liberatory practices.

We recognize that philanthropic institutions operate within different governance structures, constraints, and political realities, and that a fully liberatory approach may not be immediately available to every funder who engages with this tool. In some contexts, reducing harm, protecting movement partners, or enabling allies to navigate restrictive environments more effectively may represent the most meaningful progress possible in the short term. At the same time, this tool intentionally holds a high bar. Without a clear political horizon—and without sustained pressure to move toward it—incremental steps risk becoming an end in themselves, rather than a pathway toward structural change. Holding this tension requires creativity, coordination, and a willingness to work collectively across institutional boundaries.

For that reason, although this tool is centered on individual or institutional practice, our intention is that funders use it to consider how their individual practices shape and influence the wider philanthropic (and, by extension, movement) ecosystems. For example, the practices of source funders (private foundations, family foundations, governments, etc.) tend to have a ripple effect across the whole ecosystem, since public, community, and feminist funds usually rely on them for funding. We invite source funders to consider this as they review the tool, evaluate their own practices, and work to make the case internally for less harmful and/or more liberatory practices. This often requires deep interrogation of the gaps between values and practices, and by extension, the gaps between intention and impact.

The section on Funder Organizing and Philanthropic Advocacy highlights practices for acting beyond individual institutions and engaging philanthropy as an ecosystem. As you use this tool, we invite you to consider not only what is possible within your own organization, but also how resources, influence, and risk can be shifted across the ecosystem. For example, if you work within a private foundation with a family board, developing participatory grantmaking structures may be a longer-term effort. In the interim, you might move additional resources to intermediary funders with more democratic governance and stronger accountability to movements.

Assessing both the constraints and the privileges of your institutional position—and acting accordingly—is a core practice of moving beyond institutional individualism toward a more collective, liberatory approach that acknowledges each actor’s possibilities and constraints within a shared vision of transformation.

Ideas for how to use this tool

As a resource for staff, board, and funder education
To guide internal evaluation of policies and practice
To build internal alignment between program, grants management, communications, and operations staff
As an internal accountability tool to test values alignment and set concrete goals and a timeline for improvement
To assess current and potential funders
To identify openings for change in complex institutional environments
To build a shared vocabulary in funder communities

Context

Philanthropy & Palestine

"Throughout the tool, Palestine is positioned as a critical lens and litmus test for philanthropic practice—precisely because it exemplifies how even the most progressive funders often fail communities resisting occupation, colonialism, and systemic violence."

Context

Philanthropy’s role in Palestine offers a revealing lens into how philanthropic systems can undermine, rather than advance, movements for liberation and justice around the world. Particularly since the 1990s, philanthropic interventions in Palestine have been shaped by political and economic agendas that reinforce rather than challenge Israel’s colonial dominance, and obstruct rather than advance liberation. Grants to Palestinian civil society organizations are often politically conditioned, penalizing those rooted in liberation frameworks while rewarding institutionalized or corporatized models that fragment society and demobilize collective resistance. Aid and philanthropy alike have entrenched dependency and weakened the grassroots infrastructure that once formed the backbone of Palestinian self-determination—a common scenario across post-colonial contexts. This has particularly devastating consequences for Palestinians living under conditions of apartheid, occupation, and ongoing colonization. As more and more resources are diverted as a consequence of disinformation campaigns, specious accusations of terrorism and anti-Semitism, and onerous technical and legal restrictions, and as global solidarity efforts are compromised by widespread criminalization and politically motivated defunding, Palestinian communities struggle to maintain local forms of mutual aid and social solidarity in response to crises, let alone rebuild sustainable long-term community-based organizing infrastructure.

Since October 2023, these dynamics have grown more extreme. Beyond the billions of dollars in military aid that has flowed from the United States to Israel throughout the last several decades (including approximately $20 billion since October 2023), Jewish-identified philanthropy has raised over $2 billion for Israel since the current genocide began. Meanwhile, philanthropic institutions with otherwise progressive priorities have escalated their punishment of organizations aligned with Palestinian liberation, cutting funding and pressuring grantees to stay in their lanes by discouraging or explicitly prohibiting cross-movement solidarity. As detailed in the 2025 Funding Freedom report, funders frequently impose restrictive grant conditions and selectively fund initiatives that align with their political comfort zones. This selective funding undermines movement autonomy and fractures collective power. This crackdown is not just financial; it also uses Palestine as a wedge issue to discipline the broader justice ecosystem (Alden, 2024). Meanwhile, Israel and its allies are advancing ever more dangerous plans: humanitarian bubbles, concentration camps, speculative real estate-driven reconstruction, and further entrenchment of genocide and occupation through securitized aid.

Challenge: Philanthropy’s Legacy and Norms

Philanthropy’s complicity in these harms is not incidental. The sector itself was created through—and remains shaped by—systems of inequity rooted in colonialism, racial capitalism, and imperial expansion. These extractive systems enabled massive wealth accumulation through exploitation, theft, and dispossession of marginalized communities (Roelofs, 2003; INCITE!, 2007; Gilmore, 2020).

Today, philanthropic institutions hold trillions of dollars in assets, concentrated largely in countries that amassed wealth through colonial and imperial domination. In the U.S. alone, philanthropic assets grew from roughly $1 trillion in 2019 to $1.5 trillion by 2024, while the legally mandated annual payout for foundations remains just 5% (Nonprofit Quarterly, 2024). Donor-advised funds (DAFs)—which have no legal payout requirements and serve as inaccessible black boxes for private wealth management—now hold over $250 billion in assets (National Philanthropic Trust, 2023).

This means hundreds of billions in tax-subsidized wealth are effectively warehoused away from being mobilized for urgent, community-defined needs. Most foundation endowments are invested in opaque index funds that channel capital into corporations driving the climate crisis, militarism, criminalization, and anti-immigrant policies—directly undermining the safety, sovereignty, and wellbeing of the very communities progressive philanthropy claims to serve (Justice Funders, 2024). Indicative of philanthropy working as designed, it also too often wields its power to silence, control, and punish social justice movements that challenge these oppressive systems.

Opportunity: Advancing Tangible, Liberatory Practices

Amidst this hostile landscape, and despite the rising tide of fascism worldwide, efforts to hold philanthropy accountable are steady and growing. This includes calls to redirect resources to grassroots Palestinian organizations (for example, the In Our Name campaign and F4P’s Giving Guide) and to amplify funding practices rooted in solidarity (see Grassroots International’s Solidarity Philanthropy report). Raise the Bar joins those efforts, offering lessons on transformational allyship and on shifting power, resources, and decision-making to those most impacted, both in the context of Palestinian liberation and for social justice movements globally.

The current moment presents a critical opportunity for philanthropic actors to move toward genuinely transformative, liberatory practices that center justice, community leadership, and systemic change. This shift demands intentionality, humility, and deep accountability—both internally within philanthropic institutions and externally toward the movements and communities most impacted by their funding decisions. Without these commitments, even the most well-intentioned philanthropic efforts can reinforce the very systems they aim to dismantle—what Audre Lorde warned of as “the master’s tools.” By contrast, accountable funder practice looks like: 1) Actively pushing back against harmful power dynamics (inter-personal and institutional), extractive funding, and colonial legacies in philanthropy; and 2) Committing to transparency, shared power, reparations, wealth redistribution, and responsiveness to communities’ evolving needs and priorities.

By focusing on Palestine in our assessment of philanthropic practices, we invite a deeper reckoning—one that confronts philanthropy’s complicity, recognizes past and current harms, and advances liberatory practices in solidarity with Palestine and social justice movements across the world, moving us toward the transformative funding urgently needed to build justice and systemic change. Throughout the tool, Palestine is positioned as a critical lens and litmus test for philanthropic practice—precisely because it exemplifies how even the most progressive funders often fail communities resisting occupation, colonialism, and systemic violence. It is our experience that the recognition of Palestine as illustrative, rather than exceptional, challenges the philanthropic tendency to fragment struggles, and strengthens our global movements for justice. As a result, while Raise the Bar focuses on Palestine, the lessons therein are broadly applicable to any funder seeking to liberate their funding practices.

We hope the examples compiled in Raise the Bar will help pave the way from symbolic recognition of the need for accountability to the adoption of concrete practices that reinforce solidarity, reparations, and support for self-determination. And by raising and holding the bar high, we aim to lift philanthropy’s eyes to the ultimate horizon: a world where wealth and power are no longer hoarded, but shared collectively and democratically in service of justice and liberation in Palestine and beyond.

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Raise the Bar Tool

Grantmaking
Strategy & Approach

Download Brief

Intro

This section outlines concrete grantmaking practices Funders4Palestine has observed that either constrain or open space for liberatory work on Palestine, building on analysis and reflections from movements.

Most funders advance their missions by focusing their grantmaking on particular issues, geographies, communities, or approaches. While strategies vary, grantmaking is most often practiced and mediated through relationships–between funders and intermediaries, intermediaries and grassroots groups, program officers and grantees, and all across philanthropic and movement ecosystems. Giving is also shaped–and often constrained–by parameters imposed by source funders–typically private foundations, governments, international agencies, or individuals. As a result, it is critical for source funders to recognize how their practices and parameters affect not only their direct grantees, but also the movement ecosystems to which they may not be directly connected.

Within these strategic and institutional parameters, a wide range of practices are possible. Harmful approaches tend to entrench restrictions and siloes, constrain autonomy, and center funder comfort. More liberatory practices, by contrast, center relationship, context, learning, solidarity, and shared risk. While not every practice or recommendations below will apply to every funder, we hope all funders will be able to draw useful lessons and reflections from them.

1. Funding liberatory Palestinian work

Funding liberatory Palestinian work across all issue areas

Funding Palestinian-led work across climate justice, gender and reproductive rights, education, health, etc., either directly or via intermediaries with Palestinian-led or Palestinian-advised decision-making mechanisms.
Holding a focus on particular issues or frameworks lightly, recognizing the complexity of the Palestinian struggle and how multiple issues and frameworks intersect in people’s lives.
Funding storytelling, art, cultural work, and creative ways of shifting narratives and humanizing Palestinian experiences as values in themselves, and as part of a deeper political project.
Embracing grantees’ work on norm and systems change, including via advocacy and political education.
Supporting efforts to build solidarity across movements, and supporting Palestinian leaders, organizations, and movements to join larger global or transnational conversations about the issues and struggles that matter to them.

Challenge the idea that some aspects of Palestinian-led organizing are "too political” by exploring the forces and beliefs that drive that idea.
If your grantmaking is organized by issues or themes, start funding Palestinian work in portfolios through which you have not traditionally supported Palestinian groups.
Make the case internally for long-term and holistic movement support, including the understanding that change doesn't happen in a single grant term. Learn about and participate in exposing the harm, ineffectiveness, and misguidedness of expecting quick, tangible results (consult the resources at the end of this section for strategies and ideas).
Work with movement-aligned legal counsel and resources (like Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights) to gain a deeper understanding of work that is threatened with criminalization.
When assessing “risk,” make sure to consider the risk of inaction.
Fund intermediaries that support liberatory Palestinian work as part of a wider mandate, or join a collaborative fund that supports Palestinian-led liberatory work. Take advantage of the learning opportunities offered by such spaces.

Funding according to narrowly defined issues and/or with restrictions on region, issue, or activities with no space for experimentation or crosscutting approaches.
Focusing on quick, tangible results rather than long-haul, movement-led work.
Shying away from or explicitly avoiding funding "political" and systems change work such as advocacy or political education.
Relying on legal counsel that takes a maximally conservative approach to who and how you fund.
Avoiding funding any work that has been politically targeted with criminalization without interrogating the actual legality of that work.
Failing to interrogate the connections between and across movements, communities, geographies, and instead viewing cross-movement and cross-regional solidarity as “mission creep.”

Explicitly preventing funds from supporting Palestinian-led work or solidarity work

Treating liberatory Palestinian work as too controversial, political, or dangerous to fund.
Discouraging or prohibiting particular forms of grantee partners’ advocacy; for example advocacy aligned with BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions).
Placing heavy restrictions on Palestinian grantee partners or grantee partners whose communities are in solidarity with Palestine.

2. Prioritizing Palestinian decision-making in grantmaking

Ceding decision-making power to Palestinians

Demonstrating respect for Palestinian grantee partners' leadership and autonomy with fully flexible, unrestricted support, trusting in their knowledge of what their communities need and supporting their ability to adapt to changing circumstances on the ground.
Decision-making power fully ceded to Palestinian liberatory activists via the highest level of community-led participatory grantmaking practice (if held in-house) or by moving multi-year, unrestricted grants to intermediaries (especially Palestinian-led intermediaries) that already have such mechanisms in place (to identify such intermediaries, visit funders4palestine/givingguide).
Funding Palestinian liberation efforts on their own terms.

Use organizational values around community self-determination, “nothing about us without us,” or the importance of placing affected people at the center of justice work to bring Palestinians into decision-making or evaluate intermediaries through that lens.
Cede power by funding via intermediaries that have full or a high degree of Palestinian decision-making.
If you can't cede power (yet), start to shift power by incorporating some degree of Palestinian consultation or decision-making into your grantmaking processes. Don’t stop there–work toward increasingly participatory grantmaking, and take steps to transition decision-making around resource distribution to impacted community-led control.
Reject frames that place Palestinians and Israelis on equal footing, particularly around access to power and resources. Ask your Palestinian grantees which Israeli groups, if any, they trust and collaborate with, and let that inform your grantmaking decisions.
When assessing “risk,” make sure to consider the risk of inaction.
Fund intermediaries that support liberatory Palestinian work as part of a wider mandate, or join a collaborative fund that supports Palestinian-led liberatory work. Take advantage of the learning opportunities offered by such spaces.

Funding via intermediaries that fail to include Palestinians in decision-making.
Funding Israeli groups without considering whether they are actively undermining Palestinian liberation efforts.
Relying on leadership and boards that remain not at all or minimally reflective of Palestinian communities to make grantmaking decisions.
Relying on leadership and boards that remain not at all or minimally reflective of Palestinian communities to make grantmaking decisions.
Grantmaking cultures that overvalue “objective” decision-making and offer little space for feedback, learning, and accountability mechanisms.

Undermining Palestinian decision-making

Treating Palestinian-led work as exceptional, risky, or unusual.
“Balancing" any funding of Palestinian civil society with funding to Israeli groups, including those actively undermining Palestinian liberation.
Excluding Palestinians from participating in or advising on grantmaking decisions because they are considered too “biased.”

3. Funding long-term liberatory movement infrastructure

Robustly funding long-term, liberatory movement infrastructure

Fund amply enough to cover the real costs of Palestinian community work, including core costs like rent, salaries, compliance, finance staff, or admin systems, especially since so much of the work of Palestinian organizations goes unpaid, underpaid, or self-financed, or relies on volunteerism.
Unrestricted large grants span multiple years, ideally with front-loaded (rather than phased) payments that maximize sustainability and enable effective financial planning.
Reserves and investments are permissible and encouraged uses of grant funds. This includes funding operating reserves, rainy-day funds, or long-term endowments that strengthen financial independence and resilience over time.
Working with grantee partners to design long-term funding trajectories—this can include step-down plans, diversified funding strategies, or transitions to alternative capital—as a means to avoid abrupt funding cliffs.
Demonstrate transparency with grantee partners about your institution’s time horizon (e.g., in case of planned sunset/spend-down) and where ultimate decision-making authority sits. This includes being transparent with grantees if your organization’s governance structures lack accountability, or depend on the will of an individual or set of individuals without direct connections to the communities or groups supported by their grants.
Investments in movement infrastructure include robust safety systems, such as legal defense funds, digital and physical security, rapid-response reserves, and community-owned land and spaces that provide protection and support resilience.
Resources are allocated for Palestinian- and movement-led convenings, retreats, and secure gathering spaces where strategizing and coalition-building can occur free from surveillance or repression. Such spaces are ensured to be community-centered, where funders are not required to attend, provide input, or approve the agenda.
Support is provided for rest, healing justice, mental health, and collective care practices that sustain organizers and communities over the long haul, recognizing that wellbeing is essential to liberation work.
Grants are only one tool in your toolbox, and you invest in alternative financial mechanisms: basket funds, low- or no-interest rate loans, asset transfers, and direct investments in self-sustaining infrastructure for long-term independence. For private foundations, this can look like experimenting with integrated capital investments that go beyond the 5% of your endowment that must be dedicated to grantmaking annually (for more information, explore the resources, trainings, and communities of practice offered by Justice Funders).

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Include the broader movement support ecosystem in your funding and/or investments: fund intermediaries, cooperative fiscal hosts, and other structures that move money efficiently while reducing bureaucratic barriers.

Minimize restrictions on grants and adopt a flexible, curious posture toward changes that occur during the grant period.
Avoid one-off transactions and move toward accompanying and supporting grantee partners over longer periods of time.
Explore internal context and history to identify potential levers and openings for change: are grants in other portfolios structured differently, or treated with more flexibility? Does your organization have a tendency to introduce fewer restrictions and offer longer term support to grantee partners led by particular communities or working in particular contexts?
Challenge assumptions around grant size and build the case for large grants

(for example, see this resource).

Fund intermediaries that are already robustly funding long-term movement infrastructure.
Find out what would enable grantee partners to build long-term, community-controlled infrastructure and how you can offer it, including beyond grants. For example, you fund direct community work, consider also funding the groups your grantee partners trust and rely on for any technical assistance, support, training, and flanking.
Deepen your knowledge of the broader philanthropic, legal, financial, and movement ecosystem in which your grantee partners are operating. This will allow you to identify gaps, obstacles, shifts, and opportunities, including new ways to move money and alternative structures that require investment.
Be transparent with grantee partners about the existence and identity of any source funders (for example, governments or family foundations) that might be the root of certain restrictions, opening the possibility for partners to reject such funds if they wish.
Reflect on the structures (if any) that hold your institution’s long-term commitments in place, and consider how that might be in tension with a commitment to supporting movements for the long haul.

Project-based funding, short-term or one-off grants, time-restricted grants, and other grantmaking approaches that restrict or block movements’ ability to build sustainability and independence from philanthropy
Restrictions on grants that prevent groups from using the funds to support long-term infrastructure (for example, making multi-year commitments contingent on specific outcomes, or allocating grants in amounts or with time restrictions that prevent their use for reserves.
Arbitrary, one-size-fits-all restrictions on how much of an organization’s annual budget your grant should represent.
Failure to understand the context in which grantee partners are operating, the conditions their communities face, or the movement ecosystems they are connected to.
A desire to “pick winners” rather than fund in ways that strengthen collaboration across movements.

Blocking or undermining the emergence of long-term, liberatory movement infrastructure

Funding only via narrow donor-determined frameworks, like humanitarian aid.
Restricting grant use to block grantee partners from holding reserves, making investments, or allocating resources to broader movement infrastructure like convenings, defense funds, etc.
Encouraging grantee partners to report on and/or claim exclusive credit for their wins, rather than learning about the wider movement infrastructure that makes those wins possible.

4. Moving money with creativity, flexibility, and anti-fragility

Getting money where it needs to go, absorbing necessary risk, and adapting new tactics and learning new approaches to do so

Funding grassroots unregistered groups and frontline individuals, and ensuring that your funding reaches groups led by and designed to reach the most marginalized and underrepresented communities.
Offering non-traditional money transfer mechanisms or currencies or otherwise adapting to any additional compliance burdens, based on a holistic assessment of risk that includes the risk of failing to support organizations responding to crisis.
Reserves and investments are permissible and encouraged uses of grant funds. This includes funding operating reserves, rainy-day funds, or long-term endowments that strengthen financial independence and resilience over time.
Release supplemental funds to current grantees during moments of escalation (raids, arrests, attacks, censorship, mass violence) without added requirements, rather than compelling organizations in crisis to pause their work in order to apply for emergency support.
Demonstrate transparency with grantee partners about your institution’s time horizon (e.g., in case of planned sunset/spend-down) and where ultimate decision-making authority sits. This includes being transparent with grantees if your organization’s governance structures lack accountability, or depend on the will of an individual or set of individuals without direct connections to the communities or groups supported by their grants.
Participating in or convening rapid-response pooled funds that allow multiple funders to deploy resources quickly and reduce duplication or delays.
Resources are allocated for Palestinian- and movement-led convenings, retreats, and secure gathering spaces where strategizing and coalition-building can occur free from surveillance or repression. Such spaces are ensured to be community-centered, where funders are not required to attend, provide input, or approve the agenda.
Building and maintaining strong relationships with peers and intermediaries so that you can coordinate to move funds when needed.

Continually question the degree of flexibility you provide, how that affects the groups you fund, and/or how it shapes the wider landscape for their work. If you run up against structural obstacles to expanding your own institution’s flexibility, cede power by funding intermediaries who already know how to flex farther.
Seek out peers who directly fund unregistered initiatives, support individuals, and/or use non-traditional money mechanisms when needed. How do they do it?
Work toward funding unregistered initiatives without sacrificing flexibility or adding burden for grantee partners.
Enhance emergency/crisis support resources and ease access to them for grantee partners.

Limited internal will or capacity to think and act outside the box when facing obstacles to moving funds.
A conscious or unconscious culture of offloading risk and labor to partners (for example, requiring registration, without support to do so or alternatives when registration may not be possible or strategic).
The tendency to confuse privilege with capacity, or the failure to distinguish between the capacity to communicate effectively with funders and the capacity to work effectively with communities.
Limited knowledge of or curiosity about the local conditions that may make registration impossible or unstrategic.
A belief that small or informal groups require greater oversight or lack strategic acumen.
Requiring potential grantee partners to secure 501c3 status or obtain a fiscal host if they wish to receive funding, instead of working with them to identify existing channels or relationships through a potential grant could be moved.

Funding only registered organizations and often still with layers of restrictions

Not funding unregistered initiatives.
Funding only international NGOs (often with Global North leadership) or US 501(c)(3) organizations doing work in Palestine.
If funding registered organizations in Palestine from the US, doing so with narrow, restrictive conditions: project funding (including Expenditure Responsibility), restrictions on region or activities, limits on political speech, etc.

5. Being in relationship with grantee partners

Being in consistent relationship with partners, including by demonstrating accountability

Maintaining transparent channels for questions, feedback, and additional support, with measures in place to ensure follow-up.
Willingness to listen and learn from partners, supported by mechanisms for regular feedback gathering from grantee partners.
Grantee partners can decline requests and bring forth challenges without retribution and make requests that will be taken seriously and responded to.
Support is increased materially and (with consent) publicly when grantee partners face backlash, reputational threats, or state repression.
Owning any past and current harms, and taking concrete steps toward repair and to avoid future harm. For example: 1) Exploring and disclosing the origins of private or family foundation wealth, including acknowledging the exploitative or extractive systems on which it was built. Justice Funders is a great place to explore these histories in community with others; 2) Shifting practices away from a history of harmful funding, and also publicly naming the historic harms; 3) Taking steps to own and repair harm when realizing a mistake has intentionally or inadvertently caused harm.
When grantee partners request it, making introductions to other potential funders, or otherwise opening doors to donors/funders.

Recognize the need to re-align your relationship with grantee partners toward justice and reparations rather than charity.
Express curiosity about grantee partners’ positions; recognize how judgmental or cautious approaches undermine shared understanding and mutual growth.
Be transparent with grantees when public positions they have taken could imperil their funding.
Open clear, transparent, and two-way channels of communication to facilitate dialogue, listening, and learning, including ongoing staff learning.
Open some channels that invite grantee partner questions and requests for additional support, taking grantee requests and suggestions seriously and responding to all feedback and questions.
Only ask grantee partners for feedback on areas where you are equipped to make changes.
Notice places where you pay lip service to the value of partnership, but aren't following through in action. What would need to shift to close the gaps between theory and practice?
Recognize the power dynamics always at play, and find ways to shift them where possible–for example, ensuring that grantee partners can say no to requests without risking retaliation.

A tendency to respond to issues, concerns, or rumors about grantee partners with depositions rather than dialogue.
A lack of open, transparent, meaningful, and non-punitive channels to bring challenges or make requests, or a failure to make partners aware that such channels exist.
Evading difficult conversations with grantees about transparency, institutional practices, or past harms.
Requesting feedback/evaluation from grantee partners without mechanisms for applying or otherwise following up on feedback offered.
Evaluating grantee partners without inviting them to evaluate you as a funder/donor.
Responding with defensiveness or punitive measures when grantees offer feedback.
An institutional tendency to distance yourself from grantee partners facing backlash, state repression, or reputational risk.
Acknowledging some past harms, but failing to engage in institutional learning and systemic change to prevent future harms.
Failing to identify ways that you can intervene to prevent harm or identify opportunities for deeper internal reflection and political education when grantee partners are at risk of being cut for political reasons.

Top-down, one-way communication with partners, leaving little to no space for partner consent, negotiation, recourse, or appeal

Prohibiting organizations you fund from expressing solidarity with Palestine; punishing or threatening groups that issue public statements or otherwise speak publicly in support of Palestinian liberation.
Treating grantee partners facing backlash or repression as “reputational risks” and using this as an excuse to monitor or investigate them, pressure them to self-censor, and/or defund them.
Monitoring grantee partners’ public communications for violations of frequently opaque and inconsistently applied guidelines and expectations.
Conducting investigations into grantee partners behind closed doors, often only involving partners when it comes time to inform them of an irreversible decision.

6. Demonstrating context and crisis sensitivity

Practicing context and crisis awareness and providing responsive support

Emergency resources are available for when (not if) grantee partners need to adapt, especially in response to sudden emergencies or crises, over and above the resources offered for their ongoing work.
Consistently monitoring political context so that you can offer legal, security, or rapid-response resources proactively.
Grantee partners can decline requests and bring forth challenges without retribution and make requests that will be taken seriously and responded to.
Crisis response is further coordinated through collective funder approaches that leverage resources to act quickly and in alignment with community needs.

Increase awareness of grantee partners’ context and needs, and experiment with dedicating a portion of your grantmaking budget to responsive support.
Seek out peers who offer robust crisis and rapid-response resources. How do they do it? Are there opportunities to pool resources?
Be transparent with grantees when public positions they have taken could imperil their funding.
Research and explore how you can start to offer emergency/crisis support, whether by opening a stream for crisis funding or connecting grantees to existing legal, security, and/or rapid response resources in the field.

Offering limited or inconsistent emergency resources for grantee partners facing precarious or oppressive local conditions.
Relying on grantee partners to provide education about the political context in which they operate
Evading difficult conversations with grantees about transparency, institutional practices, or past harms.
An inability or an unwillingness to adapt practice, even when learning of mismatch between context and grantmaking.
The belief that shifts in strategy or changes to activities during a grant period indicate a lack of accountability or a failure to plan properly.

Effective denial of political realities via rigid grantmaking practices

Little to no ongoing learning alongside grantee partners, and/or reliance on outside "expert" analysis to interpret the political context in which grantee partners operate.
Treating grantee partners facing backlash or repression as “reputational risks” and using this as an excuse to monitor or investigate them, pressure them to self-censor, and/or defund them.
When approached by grantee partners with emergent needs, defaulting to doubt that additional support is needed.
Providing little or no room for grantmaking to adapt to changing circumstances, effectively compelling grantee partners to present a false picture of their realities if they wish to continue receiving funds.

Additional resources

The Impact of Large, Unrestricted Grants on Nonprofits: A Five-Year View (The Center for Effective Philanthropy, 2023)

To request Funders4Palestine’s Giving Guide, which compiles information about intermediaries that support Palestinian civil society and organizations in the diaspora, visit funders4palestine.org/givingguide.

Additional sites and resources for those seeking to understand the political context in Palestine and for Palestinian solidarity work:
- Mondoweiss
- Drop Site News
- The Electronic Intifada
- Communicate Palestine, Narrate for liberation, engage with dignity.
- Popular Cradle podcast (in partnership with the Palestinian Youth Movement)
- Rethinking Palestine podcast (from Al Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network)
- Visualizing Palestine.
- Institute for Middle East Understanding

Insight & Incite: Rawa’s Monthly message to donors sharing a Palestinian point of view and calls to action in response to recent events

Justice Funders: Stories

Solidarity Philanthropy: Redefining Philanthropy’s Relationship to Social Movements (Grassroots International, 2025)

Stifled Generosity (Justice Funders)

The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project

Funding For Real Change

Funding Freedom: Philanthropy and the Palestinian Freedom Movement (Solidaire Action & Funding Freedom, 2022)

Guide on Multi-Year Flexible Funding –“Accelerating Equitable Grantmaking: Seizing the Moment to Norm Multiyear, Flexible Funding” (EDGE Funders Alliance & Ariadne Network)

Repression, Retrenchment, and Resilience: Philanthropy and Support for Palestinian Liberation After a Year of Genocide (Funding Freedom, 2025)

Defunding Dissent (Jewish Currents, 2024)

Community Philanthropy in the Palestinian Context: Concepts, Alternatives, and Challenges (Dalia Association & Bisan Center for Research & Development, 2024)

Authoritarian Attacks on Philanthropy are Coming: Here’s How We Can Stand Strong for Our Grantee Partners (Democracy Fund, 2025)

100 Days of Building Power and Solidarity: Observations and Recommendations about Immediate and Long-term Infrastructure Needs for Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab Groups in the U.S. (Building Movement Project & Muslims for Just Futures, 2024)

How a Single Instagram Post Cost One Nonprofit a Quarter of its Budget (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2025)

Funder or Censor? How Politically Conditioned Funding Harms Civil Society in Palestine (Visualizing Palestine)

A Clarion Call: How Attacks on U.S. Palestinian Solidarity Movements Undermine our Democracy (Responsive Philanthropy, 2024)

Signpost with arrows labeled Procedure and Policy above a stack of papers labeled Best Practice on a green circular background.

Raise the Bar Tool

Grants Administration & Due Diligence

Download Brief

Intro

Grants administration, management, and due diligence processes are more than value-neutral technical or administrative checkboxes. In fact, they are often the clearest indication of the degree to which your values are operationalized in practice.

With their tremendous impact on grantee-funder relationships, harmful practices around compliance and/or onerous technical or financial requirements can undermine otherwise liberatory approaches to grantmaking. This is particularly true for Palestinian-led organizations operating in historic Palestine or engaging in Palestinian solidarity work around the world, since such groups are often subjected to stringent, oppressive financial and due diligence requirements within an “anti-terrorism” framework that is, in the words of the Center for Constitutional Rights, “anti-Palestinian at the core.” Liberatory funding practices mitigate those requirements whenever possible, shoulder or share the burden of risk (real or perceived), and take steps to shield grantee partners from undue scrutiny.

Harmful practices tend to center funder comfort, treat grantees with skepticism, and consciously or unconsciously reproduce cultures of surveillance and criminalization. This section lifts up intentional, values-aligned approaches to grants management and administration and names the burdensome practices that Palestinian-led groups continue to face in their efforts to secure the resources needed to carry out their work.

DISCLAIMER: We are not lawyers and what we share here is not legal advice. To support raising the bar within this area, we highly recommend securing movement-aligned legal counsel to inform compliance and risk analysis practices.

1. Approaching anti-terror financing regulations with integrity

Consistently committed to harm reduction when navigating anti-terror financing regulations

Ongoing political education for staff and board (including program staff, grants managers, finance team, leadership, etc.) on the political origins of anti-terror laws and their role in criminalizing Palestinian liberation.
Collaborating with funder peers to challenge the legal frameworks of anti-terrorism financing, resource legal protection for the movements that they are designed to target, and share effective tools and arguments your organization has developed.
Proactively communicating with grantee partners when you are compelled to comply with anti-terror financing laws in order to release funds; working with them to minimize unnecessary harm and overcompliance and setting aside time and space to answer their questions or respond to their concerns.

Educate staff and leadership on the history and analysis in this resource as a means to ground practices in an understanding of the anti-Palestinian, racist foundation of anti-terror financing regulations.
Question your approach to risk, recognizing the shared risks and uneven power dynamics that compel funders to take on some degree of risk if they wish to support rather than undermine liberatory movements.
Be transparent with grantee partners about practices and policies in adherence with anti-terror financing regulations, and stay open to receiving and responding to feedback.

Uncritical acceptance of anti-terror financing regulations without consideration of how the “terrorist” label has been deployed selectively and politically throughout history.
Legal staff/counsel has a taken-for-granted conservative, funder-protective approach, which is not interrogated in relation to other organizational values that center grantee partners and seek to do no harm.
“Risk" is uncritically pathologized, refers only to self-risk (rather than risks to grantee partners), and is viewed as a problem to eliminate or minimize to the degree possible.
A tendency to respond to feedback or pushback from grantee partners with defensiveness and avoidance.
A belief that accountability only flows in one direction: from grantee partner to funder.

Approaching anti-terror financing regulations from a self-protection perspective

Compliance infrastructure designed to protect institutional assets rather than movement partners.
Conservative approach to interpreting legal requirements, including an "above and beyond" approach to anti-terror financing compliance.
“Risk" is uncritically pathologized, refers only to self-risk (rather than risks to grantee partners), and is viewed as a problem to eliminate or minimize to the degree possible.
Outsourcing due diligence to third parties that promise extensive vetting that centers funder protection and peace of mind.
No meaningful consideration of potential harm to grantee partners, including lack of data privacy and protection measures and exposure to government scrutiny.
No transparency with grantee partners around anti-terror financing compliance practices.
Responding to feedback or pushback from grantee partners with defensiveness; or worse, defunding or threatening to defund their work.

2. Approaching due diligence compliance practices with integrity

Practicing compliance as shared responsibility and risk, prioritizing grantee protection and community vetting

Holding a clear organizational understanding that risk is necessary, and there are many risks we cannot afford not to take.
Engaging in joint risk analysis with grantee partners, understanding that compliance practices built on trust allow risk thresholds to rise as needed.Engaging in joint risk analysis with grantee partners, understanding that compliance practices built on trust allow risk thresholds to rise as needed.
Engaging in joint risk analysis with grantee partners, understanding that compliance practices built on trust allow risk thresholds to rise as needed.
Applying minimum standard lens to due diligence, in accordance with organizational and movement values (e.g., when searching for red flags online, searches are limited to terms like “fraud” or “corruption” rather than “activism," “advocacy,” or “direct action”).
Using community and peer funder vetting sources (e.g., letters of reference), instead of external sources or third party vetting services, particularly for unregistered groups.
Coordinating with other funders supporting the same groups to share materials where possible as a means to minimize grantee partner labor and scrutiny.
Compliance staff are trained in harm reduction frameworks, equipped to resist pre-compliance, and resourced to adapt flexibly to changing political and legal contexts (e.g., ongoing education for staff on the evolving legal definitions of terrorism and how to distinguish between current laws and political rhetoric designed to menace).
Regularly eliciting feedback on due diligence and grants administration processes via robust, accessible channels and practices.
Educating other donors on the security risk to grantee partners posed by certain compliance practices, such as releasing/storing information on them into databases, and using third parties and AI tools.

Ensure program staff and grants managers are aware of compliance processes, and start exploring training in harm reduction and deepening shared understanding of the political and regulatory context for compliance.
Ensure that practices are in place to assess the credibility and values alignment of sources used in due diligence. This includes documentation of allegations found to be spurious and politically motivated.
Adopt a more expansive understanding of risk that contextualizes individual institutional security within wider philanthropic and movement landscapes. Recognize that risk is an intrinsic aspect of mission-based work, rather than a liability to be avoided and/or minimized by those who can afford to avoid or minimize it.
Start exploring if/when compliance practices stray from stated organizational values.
Seek out values-aligned and politically educated legal counsel.
Stop requesting unnecessary information from grantee partners, and consider the potential impacts on grantee partners and liberatory movement organizing of all information collected.
Adopt trust-based forms of vetting, such as endorsements from civil society partners and aligned foundations.
Be transparent with grantees about compliance and evaluation/reporting practices, including when, what, why, and how (e.g., be explicit when asking for names of staff and leadership that they will be run through due diligence; if data on certain metrics is required by source funders, let grantees know this and explain how it will be used).
Pay for grantee costs related to compliance, such as covering costs for audits, insurance, or legal counsel.
Engage in peer learning with other funders to discuss, troubleshoot, and evaluate your own practices (e.g., are you doing unnecessary, overly extensive, and/or more funder-protective practices?)
Open channels to receive and respond to feedback from grantees on due diligence processes.
Move any external vetting practices in-house and ensure communication and awareness across organizational areas (grants management, finance, legal, etc.).

Heavy bureaucratic burden (e.g., requests for unnecessary information and documentation) passed onto grantees as part of standard compliance practices.
Legal counsel advising on compliance is not values-aligned and/or lacks the political education and/or analysis to place restrictions on funds going to Palestinian-led work inside a wider political and historical context.
General lack of transparency with grantees about compliance practices.
Using third party and/or AI tools to support vetting.
No meaningful collaboration, connection, or communication between program staff and grants management staff, which often generates uninterrogated disconnects between stated grantmaking values and due diligence processes.

Weaponizing compliance (including pre-compliance) to block support for liberatory and solidarity organizing

Using Zionist or anti-Palestinian media and blacklists (such as NGO Monitor) as sources in due diligence.
Red-flagging online references to necessary liberatory movement practices such as "direct action.”
Approaching Palestinian organizing—or any liberation-focused work—as a threat to other priorities, fostering division and competition and undermining cross-movement, cross-border solidarity.
Including language in your grant agreements that prohibits grantee partners from criticizing the state of Israel or questioning US/Israel relations, or equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

3. Considering grantee partner burden in grants administration

Requiring lowest possible grantee partner labor in grants administration

Minimizing paperwork and grantee partner labor by eschewing proposals, or by accepting minimal burden universal proposals, proposals prepared for other funders, or simple application forms.
Allowing phone conversations, voice notes, videos, or other media in lieu of written applications, ensuring that all forms are simple and accessible, and can be completed in multiple languages.
Engaging in joint risk analysis with grantee partners, understanding that compliance practices built on trust allow risk thresholds to rise as needed.
For new grantee partners, accepting endorsements from trusted foundations or civil society in lieu of full written proposals, and requiring no or minimal (only absolutely necessary) documentation for renewal grants.
Adapting practices to grantee partner contexts: recognizing that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are under siege and displacement, so all bureaucratic requirements must be radically reduced.
Grants are structured without requiring formal reporting or requiring that funds be spent within a time period.
Reviewing grant agreement language with grantee partners before grant agreements are sent out for signature, making adjustments wherever possible.
Practicing informal reporting as an opportunity for shared reflection and learning, rather than monitoring and surveillance.
Using participatory and partner-led processes for learning and evaluation, including avoiding imposing or predetermining measures of success; allowing grantee partners not only to set priorities, but also to determine what meaningful change looks like.

Structure grants to be flexible (e.g., time periods are determined in communication with grantee partner needs, with access to low-burden extensions) and require minimum necessary low-burden reporting (e.g., accepting annual reports or reports prepared for other funders).
Regularly interrogate how low-burden your practices actually are, and start conversations with peers to find out if they have more streamlined processes, and if so, how they got there.
Question what information and documentation is actually necessary for compliance, particularly under heightened scrutiny of liberatory work, when extensive documentation may carry more risk for all parties than protection.
Request feedback from grantee partners about grants administration practices as a means to start building a case for specific improvements in accessibility (including languages offered, online and offline options, etc.), security, formats accepted, time/labor required, etc.
Provide support to grantee partners on how to navigate grants administration processes and platforms, including when they change (e.g., offering tutorials, walk-throughs, space and time to answer questions).
Allow confidential or low-visibility funding arrangements (e.g., not publicizing grants, using intermediaries) when public association with a funder could endanger grantee partners.
Coordinate with other funders on grants administration during periods of grantee partner crisis–what knowledge and resources might be pooled to support partners? Are there practices others are using that you can adopt?

Materials required to be submitted in English and/or in writing only, without considering accessibility in terms of language, ability, literacy, consistent internet connectivity and bandwidth, or technical capacity.
Requiring grantee partners to apply for funds via a specific online platform that may not be accessible for grantees in remote areas, or under occupation and siege.
Not notifying grantee partners (or failing to notify grantee partners in a timely manner) about changes to grants administration processes, and/or failing to offer or provide adequate support on navigating new systems.
Requiring grantee partners to notify funders of any deviations from the proposed work or budget, even if they fall within the grant terms and agreement.
Gathering information from grantee partners (e.g., via lengthy applications or reports) without considering why it is being gathered or how it will be used.

Little to no consideration of grantee partner labor in grants administration, often attended with weaponized bureaucracy

Applications and reports are overly extensive and complex, with little to no flexibility on deadlines or required materials, for organizations facing volatile political conditions with limited access to supportive infrastructure.
Reporting functions as a form of monitoring and surveillance alone, rather than an opportunity for learning and mutual accountability.
Requiring grantee partners to provide receipts and show proof of all transactions.
Using bureaucracy and compliance as an excuse to slow or block Palestinian-led organizations from accessing resources.
Requiring grantee partners to scrub anti-Zionist and/or pro-Palestinian language from their application or reporting materials.

Additional resources

Anti-Palestinian at the Core: The Origins and Growing Dangers of U.S. Antiterrorism Law (Center for Constitutional Rights, 2024)
The Criminalization of Solidarity: A Practical Guide for Movements and Communities Navigating Material Support for Terrorism (MST) Laws (Muslims for Just Futures, 2025)‍
Primer: Material Support for Terrorism Laws and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Sanctions (Palestine Legal, Center for Constitutional Rights, and CLEAR)‍
Solidarity Philanthropy: Redefining Philanthropy’s Relationship to Social Movements (Grassroots International, 2025)‍
The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project ‍
A Guide to Funder Listening in Action | Fund for Shared Insight

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Raise the Bar Tool

Communications

Download Brief

Intro

Funders do more than just move resources; they also exert public influence, shape narratives, and implicitly or explicitly contribute to manufacturing communications norms across the philanthropic sector.

In times of rising authoritarianism and fascist consolidation in the U.S., Israel, and across multiple countries and regions, even progressive funders tend to speak out less, temper their language, or avoid overt expressions of solidarity with or support for communities that face state repression, including Palestinians. And yet, we know that combating authoritarianism and advancing liberation requires bold, vocal, shared resistance and solidarity, including from those who control power and resources.

Adopting liberatory funder practices in this time and throughout history means speaking out despite tactics designed to silence and intimidate, creating opportunities to flank and platform movement leaders, communicating openly and regularly with grantee partners, and ensuring that public messaging is reflective of movement priorities and leaves no one behind. For Palestine, this means integrating and amplifying Palestinian voices and perspectives from Palestine and across the diaspora, and including calls for Palestinian liberation in any wider calls to advance human rights and social justice. On the opposite end of the spectrum, harmful practices generally center on self-censorship, censorship of grantee partners, failing to include Palestine in wider calls for justice and liberation, and advancing or privileging Zionist or other harmful narratives in internal or external communications.

1. Making public solidarity statements

Making public statements of Palestine solidarity that echo movements and connect Palestinian liberation to struggles for justice and liberation worldwide

Centering resilience and solidarity, rather than charity and aid, in public statements of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, with an emphasis on mutual empowerment, justice, sovereignty, and dignity.
Highlighting the links between Palestinian liberation and other liberation, human rights, and social justice movements around the world and throughout history.
Prioritizing the perspectives, expertise, and leadership of Palestinian organizations in your messaging wherever relevant.
Following the lead of Palestinian partners on when, whether, and how to speak out.
Holding your messaging accountable to your values, grantmaking, and operational practices and vice versa, including soliciting and integrating feedback from grantee partners about your messaging.
Publicly acknowledging past practices or behaviors that may have undermined Palestinian solidarity work.
Coordinating with partner organizations and peers to understand how they are developing their statements and identifying opportunities for collective action.

Elicit grantee partners’ feedback or suggestions on your communications materials and strategies.
Seek guidance from Palestinian-led organizations when crafting statements about Palestine or Palestinians.
Even if you aren’t prepared to make Palestine solidarity-specific statements, de-exceptionalize Palestine by including it in messaging on interconnected justice issues (e.g., gender, climate, human rights, etc.)
Evaluate the degree to which your messaging aligns with your organization’s values, including whether or not you apply different standards to different kinds of public communication.
Assess peer organizations’ messaging to ensure that your public statements reinforce a unified narrative aligned with Palestinian solidarity and a shared vision of liberation.

Inconsistent policies and practices on public communications that are not rooted in your organization’s values and that fail to incorporate grantee partner perspectives.
A conscious or unconscious practice of valuing the comfort of your funders/donors more than the importance of your solidarity with grantee partners when it comes to making public statements.
A culture of policing or instrumentalizing grantee partner speech (e.g., tokenizing Palestinian voices in messaging and conferences, inviting Palestinians to join a panel but telling them what they can or cannot say).
A desire to present Palestinians as “perfect victims” or apolitical recipients of aid without acknowledging the political causes of their conditions.

Questioning, condemning, or policing public statements of Palestinian solidarity

Condemning violence perpetrated by Palestinians without acknowledging power dynamics or holding Israel accountable for genocide, occupation, apartheid, violence, or international law violations.
Exceptionalizing Palestine by remaining silent (or making “both sides” statements) while speaking out about other interconnected issues and struggles.
Pressuring grantee partners and peers to remove public statements of solidarity with Palestinian liberation.
Selectively policing grantee partner speech relating to Palestine; encouraging other funders to do the same.
Censoring or prohibiting staff members’ personal public communications (i.e. social media posts) that express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

2. Identifying misinformation and challenging disinformation

For clarity on the difference between these two terms, see this resource

Actively challenging disinformation, propaganda, and smear campaigns directed at your grantee partners or at Palestinian groups

Affirming that supporting Palestinian liberation and funding Palestinian organizations is not, and has never been, antisemitic.
Standing with Palestinian colleagues when their verbal or written communications spark discomfort among peers and partners.
Collaborating with peer funders, civil society organizations, and media watchdog groups to coordinate responses to disinformation campaigns targeting Palestinian groups and solidarity movements.
Internal protocols are in place to quickly respond to disinformation directed at Palestinian grantee partners and peers.
Providing funding and support for Palestinian independent journalism, documentation projects, and narrative change initiatives that challenge disinformation and connect it to a broader understanding of how disinformation reinforces systemic injustices.

Allocate dedicated time and resources to ongoing political education for staff, leadership, and boards on Palestinian solidarity and social justice work, including how to identify misinformation and challenge disinformation.
Prepare a response plan for potential public accusations of antisemitism, (F4P recommends these resources, which place fighting antisemitism within a larger commitment to collective liberation).
Equip staff with shared language, messaging frameworks, and fact-checking practices to avoid spreading misinformation.
Participate in and coordinate with funder collaboratives and networks that share resources, trainings, and coordinated messaging strategies to address misinformation and drive coordinated action to challenge disinformation.

Materials required to be submitted in EnA tendency to use neutral or depoliticized language or to ignore root causes if/when pushing back against disinformation and misinformation.glish and/or in writing only, without considering accessibility in terms of language, ability, literacy, consistent internet connectivity and bandwidth, or technical capacity.
Fear of being accused of antisemitism (see this letter for a counterargument from Jewish donors and others working in philanthropy).
Lack of internal political education and limited staff capacity to identify and challenge misinformation and disinformation.
Fear of taking public accountability for misinformation you may have spread; a tendency to quietly remove language or statements instead of owning harm.
Limited to no coordination with peer funders and civil society organizations in the face of coordinated disinformation campaigns.

Amplifying misinformation and/or developing disinformation campaigns

Characterizing criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
Describing the genocide as a “war” or a “conflict” without acknowledging the long-term structural injustices of the occupation.
Issuing statements with “both sides” messaging or publishing opposing perspectives as a strategy for protecting your organization.
Characterizing Palestinians as a monolith.
Spreading misinformation or disinformation about the perils and legality of moving money into Gaza (or Palestine more broadly) and/or characterizing support for Palestinian-led work as tantamount to supporting terrorism.
Publicly accusing grantee partners or movement groups that support Palestinian liberation or express solidarity with Palestine of spreading antisemitism or advocating violence.
Remaining silent when disinformation targets Palestinian groups or grantee partners.
Basing decisions to defund or distance from grantee partners in solidarity with Palestine on disinformation campaigns, or treating such campaigns as legitimate sources of information on grantee partners’ work.
Collaborating with and supporting organizations, networks, and media that spread disinformation about Palestine and Palestinian solidarity work.

3. Managing internal and external communications

Actively contributing to the development of communications strategies and infrastructure that advances collective liberation across philanthropic networks and spaces

Working with grantee partners and other partners to shift narratives and coordinate strategies that strengthen collective impact.
Funding long-term narrative work and collective narrative infrastructure, including independent Palestinian and solidarity journalists, platforms, and other media (art, film, photography, writing, etc.) work.
Reinforcing and centering Palestinian solidarity as part of broader social justice and human rights work.
Maintaining a list of politically aligned emergency/crisis communications specialists, firms, and partners to support you and your grantees’ capacity to respond to emerging narratives, dynamic political conditions, and explicit attacks.
Strong internal processes to enable rapid communications alignment with partners during crises.
Inviting grantee feedback and leadership when making narrative or messaging decisions that affect their communities or movements.
Encouraging internal learning and dialogue about media bias, anti-Palestinian racism, censorship, and narrative suppression.

Assess the potential power of collective, movement-aligned communications strategies, as an alternative to individual institutional messaging.
Interrogate how Palestinian liberation shows up (or why it does not appear) in an organization’s stated commitments to human rights, social justice, or anticolonialism.
Deepen your understanding of how bad faith claims of antisemitism are being weaponized as a silencing tactic, and consider whose comfort is being centered by institutional practices that prohibit particular conversations.
Consult with values-aligned facilitators or other resource people who can help hold space for staff conversations, conflicts, and questions on the institution’s commitment to Palestinian liberation.
Build internal capacity to distinguish between safety, comfort, harm, and abuse, backed up by clear definitions and related policies and practices. Build similar organizational muscles around embracing generative conflict and conflict transformation as part of your organizational culture (see this resource and this resource, for example).
Build relationships with peer funders, movement partners, and communications practitioners that can share narrative insights, messaging frameworks, and response strategies.
Support or participate in networked communications models that connect local, national, and international narratives and amplify grassroots voices.

Fear of opening space for staff to have internal conversations about Palestinian liberation without interrogation of the negative consequences of silencing or censoring staff.
Cumbersome internal risk assessment and approval processes around public communications that compromise collective efforts.
Fear of being accused of fostering a culture of antisemitism.
A culture of institutional individualism that places the institution’s safety, comfort, and survival above all else.
A culture of conflict avoidance.

Using your power as a funder to silence, deplatform, or police liberatory Palestinian voices and block funding to liberatory Palestinian work

Blocking or censoring Palestinian and solidarity voices at webinars, events, panels, conferences, or other public or private forums.
Platforming Palestinians whose views align with your views while ignoring, silencing, or condemning other voices.
Prohibiting and/or sanctioning internal conversations about Palestinian liberation, and discouraging or prohibiting staff from attending events or participating in wider philanthropic conversations on the topic.

Additional resources

Visualizing Palestine

Communicating Palestine (including this terminology guide and this guide to countering disinformation)

APC Policy Explainer on Disinformation

Messaging Guidelines from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Resources from Funding Freedom’s 2025 Political Education Series

A Clarion Call: How Attacks on U.S. Palestinian Solidarity Movements Undermine our Democracy (Responsive Philanthropy, 2024)

Resources from Funding Freedom’s 2024 Political Education Series

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Raise the Bar Tool

Funder Organizing &
Philanthropic Advocacy

Download Brief

Intro

Each funder has its own individual identity, history, and set of possible opportunities and constraints.

Beyond these individual institutional contexts, shared spaces for funder coordination, education, and organizing–whether they are philanthropic affinity groups, formal funder networks, informal funder communities, or funder organizing and education efforts–often offer a wider range of possibilities for learning and action than any one funder can generate alone. And although the dominant culture of philanthropy–particularly private philanthropy–tends to emphasize institutional individuality and autonomy, truly liberatory approaches require funders to communicate, coordinate, and align in service of the movements they support. Part of this means leaning into the different roles that different funders are equipped to play, which allows philanthropy to act like an ecosystem rather than a series of islands.

Many entities exist to support funder organizing and education about Palestine in particular, and this ecosystem has grown significantly over the past few years. Other spaces incorporate a commitment to Palestinian liberation and solidarity as part of a wider focus on human rights, social justice, and anti-authoritarianism or anti-fascism.

Funders toward the more liberatory end of the spectrum are seeding, supporting, leading, and participating in such efforts. On the more harmful end of the spectrum, funders are using their power and leverage in collective funder spaces to silence Palestinian voices, exclude peers who support Palestinian liberation, and build narratives on human rights and social justice that omit any discussion of Palestine. This section unpacks funder practices across the spectrum, from coordination and shared education to organizing and collective action.

1. Building a stronger ecosystem of support

Organizing with other funders to act as an ecosystem, building collective knowledge, power, and resources

Working with other funders and donors to leverage each entity’s specific positionalities and strengths in the funder/donor ecosystem in service of wider goals.
Pooling resources or coordinating grantmaking in ways that reduce individual risk for funders while lowering barriers decreasing labor for grantee partners.
Convening shared funder spaces and one-on-one conversations to educate peer funders about Palestinian-led work in Palestine and solidarity organizations across the world and diaspora. This includes educating peers about the historical and ongoing suppression of such work.
Ensuring that liberatory Palestinian voices and perspectives are part of wider funder conversations and spaces dedicated to a range of social justice and human rights issues, and that activists are amply compensated and supported to participate and shape content.
Encouraging and supporting staff and board to participate in political education, training, and advocacy initiatives that strengthen internal capacity for collective action to support Palestinian liberation, as part of a wider commitment to movements for justice and liberation globally.
Coordinating with partner organizations and peers to understand how they are developing their statements and identifying opportunities for collective action.

Seek opportunities to deepen knowledge and build community in funder organizing spaces (e.g., co-sponsoring conference sessions or political education events, joining funder meetups or organizing groups, and joining existing funder organizing and advocacy efforts).
Live by the principle of “an attack on one is an attack on all,” standing by and supporting funder peers–especially less resourced ones–if they are attacked for expressing solidarity with Palestine.
Support or convene funder efforts to deepen learning and advance shared advocacy across issues, geographies, and movements, incorporating Palestine into discussions whenever possible.
Join funder sign-ons or add your name to group letters on Palestinian liberation that seek to shift narratives while creating strength and safety in numbers.
Invite funder organizers, external experts, or staff/board from funders that support Palestinian liberation to speak to staff, board, or committees.
Before sharing resources on Palestine/Israel, review them with Palestinian colleagues and/or build the capacity to recognize the political agendas and underpinnings of such materials before sharing.
Share information and resources with staff and board about progressive philanthropy’s current and historical impact on Palestinian solidarity and the underfunding of Palestinian-led work.
Support existing philanthropic infrastructure rather than building your own (for example, join collaborative or pooled funds and support community funds, feminist funds, public foundations, and other intermediaries).

Oversensitivity to “risk” that holds back or bogs down coordination efforts by requiring lengthy internal discussions or approval processes with leadership and/or legal.
Participating passively in funder organizing spaces or treating such spaces as opportunities for unilateral advocacy rather than spaces to build and advance collective learning and action.
Avoiding shared collaboration, learning, or advocacy spaces that touch on Palestinian liberation.
A culture of institutional individualism that places the institution’s safety, comfort, and survival above all else.
Siloing relationships and organizing by geography and/or issue area, with little attention to cross-border, cross-issue, or cross-movement connection.
Siloed and inconsistent approaches to supporting political education and knowledge-building; investing in learning for program staff exclusively.
No process or a limited process for vetting potential resources and speakers on Palestine/Israel.

Disrupting and undermining funder organizing for Palestinian causes

Defunding, threatening to defund, or using your power to limit the scope of collaborative funder efforts or networks working to advance Palestinian solidarity.
Establishing or leading collective funding efforts that include structural prohibitions against supporting Palestinian liberation or solidarity; seeking to silence or exclude peers in shared funding endeavors who speak up in support of Palestinian liberation.
Neglecting, preventing, or blocking the inclusion of Palestinian voices and examples into wider funder education efforts around global human rights, liberation, and justice struggles.
Insisting that funder education focused on Palestinian liberation include Zionist voices and perspectives as a counterpoint.
Putting out guidance that characterizes unregistered groups as inherently risky (or even illegal) to support and/or recommends enforcing depoliticization (i.e., funding only humanitarian work) as a risk mitigation strategy.

2. Engaging in collective action

Leading and/or driving forward collective actions that increase material solidarity with Palestinian liberation

Working with other funders to release shared statements and commitments to Palestinian liberation across issue areas; building communities of practice to support and hold each other accountable.
Contributing to pooled emergency or rapid response funds led by movements and/or funders.
Working with other funders to challenge anti-terrorism financing regulations.
Working with other funders to oppose legislation that seeks to criminalize social justice and human rights work under the pretext of combating antisemitism or so-called terrorism.
Speaking as a donor or board member at a family foundation to leverage your power and influence as a person or entity with wealth.
Working with peer funders and movement partners to develop and invest in creative approaches to strengthening the infrastructure that supports grantee partners, including alternatives to fiscal sponsorship.
Recognizing that attacks on one movement affect all movements; fostering collective action and mutual accountability in response.
Participating actively in funder spaces aimed at building alignment in service of movement priorities and shared goals.
Working in a spirit of partnership across public/private funder divides in service of strengthening an ecosystem approach to supporting movements.
Integrating advocacy across the work of your organization, recognizing the interconnectedness of justice movements and the importance of ecosystem-level strategies.

Consistently participate in (and actively/materially support) collective actions that deepen solidarity with Palestinian liberation as part of broader struggles for social justice and human rights, seeking to build sustained efforts that reach beyond signing pledges and amplifying calls to action.
Build on internal political education efforts by highlighting the risks of silence, inaction, and reliance on the status quo, including sharing case studies of effective funder organizing and advocacy efforts.
Integrate funder advocacy into your overall organizational strategy and begin to align your advocacy efforts with other like-minded funders doing similar work.
Explore opportunities for engaging in longer-term collective actions that seek to move money (e.g., joining a collaborative fund, contributing to pooled emergency funds, etc.).

Participation in collective action is inconsistent and opportunistic, rather than strategically integrated and systemically coordinated.
Joining group efforts only after a critical mass of peers have done so.
Joining group efforts for primarily symbolic or public relations reasons, instead of joining group efforts as a means to strengthen the shared funding ecosystem, move money together, or shift power relations.
Continuing to collaborate with funders you know are actively harming Palestinian groups and/or solidarity efforts without questioning or challenging how those behaviors undermine liberatory movement work.
Valuing civility and politeness over integrity and truth-telling.

Engaging in collective action to punish or marginalize solidarity with Palestinian liberation

Using your leverage to silence speech about Palestine from peers in shared collaborative funds or funder networks.
Putting out guidance that encourages movement organizations to avoid expressing solidarity with Palestine as a strategy if they wish to maintain strong relationships with funders.
Encouraging or pressuring other funders to de-fund anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian organizations, or using shared funder channels and platforms to silence peers, spread misinformation, or amplify smear campaigns.
Actively undermining or framing philanthropic organizing efforts as risky or problematic, discouraging or penalizing grantees and partner organizations from engaging in advocacy or funder organizing.
Remaining silent or inactive in the face of policies, regulations, or political pressures that threaten the sustainability and independence of social justice or liberation-focused organizations–or actively supporting efforts to harm these groups.

Additional resources

‍Funders4Palestine News & Resources ‍
Funders for a Ceasefire Now ‍
Jews in Philanthropy Open Letter (2024)‍
Block and Build Funder Coalition ‍
Palestine and Israel: Towards a New Philanthropy (The Forge, 2024)‍
Resources from Funding Freedom’s 2024 Political Education Series ‍
Resources from Funding Freedom’s 2025 Political Education Series ‍
Progressive Organizations Must Speak Up About Palestine (Nonprofit Quarterly, 2023)‍
The Palestine Exception: Interrogating Philanthropy’s (Non) Response to Genocide (Nonprofit Quarterly, 2026)‍
Palestine at the Center: Donor Organizing as Movement Work (Nonprofit Quarterly, 2026)
Individual donors may consider joining funder/donor communities such as Justice Funders, Solidaire, Women Donors Network, or Resource Generation.

Illustration of a torn paper with the words 'Due Diligence' magnified by a black magnifying glass, set against a green circular background with a green curved line.

Raise the Bar Tool

Organizational Policies & Practices

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Intro

A commitment to practicing liberation requires internal policies and practices to mirror external values and commitments.

Funding institutions operate with a range of structures and governance models, so not all of the practices below will apply to every funding institution (for example, only private foundations tend to have invested endowments). That said, almost every institution contracts with vendors, and many offer employees retirement benefits that include a range of investment portfolios.

Funders wishing to align their internal practices with a commitment to liberation can start by (1) assessing internal policies and practices on governance, staffing, vendors, investments, and payouts to ensure that such policies and investments are values-aligned, (2) sharing information transparently where appropriate, and (3) making adjustments to both policies and practices when necessary.

Harmful practices highlighted in this section include investing endowment and retirement funds in extractive or exploitative industries (including companies that support genocide, surveillance, oppression, and illegal settlements and occupation in Palestine), failing to invest in political education for board and staff, and treating minimum legal requirements for annual payouts as the ceiling, rather than the floor.

1. Aligning organizational policies and culture with liberatory principles

Explicitly and systemically aligning organizational governance, operations, and HR policies with liberatory principles.

Organizational leadership and governance roles are primarily occupied by values- and movement-aligned Global Majority leaders with relevant lived experience and demonstrated commitments to justice and liberation.
Embedding anti-racist, anti-Zionist, anti-ableist, anti-colonial, and intersectional justice frameworks that democratize power and support worker organizing as core organizational values implemented at every level.
Providing staff and board with ongoing access to resources for political education and justice-oriented training.
A track record of leveraging your philanthropic role to deepen accountability to Palestinian liberation and broader social justice efforts. This means that staff, leadership, and board members are actively engaged in such conversations, understand how to wield their roles and influence responsibly, and apply their power in alignment with movement goals.
An institutional investment in regular internal spaces for political education and practical engagement, ensuring that learning is directly connected to tangible organizing and actions that advance systemic change and community priorities.
Maintaining fiscal transparency and participatory budget practices, including sharing financial decisions with staff and, when appropriate, grantee and community partners.
Paying all staff across program and administrative roles at least living wages, and capping executive pay at an equitable ratio (e.g., no more than 2-3x the lowest-paid staff).

Interrogate your governance model against your values–is it holding you back? Is there space to imagine something different within organizational strategizing processes?
Start prioritizing movement-aligned, lived-experience, BIPOC, and Global Majority leaders for leadership positions; ensuring that transitions are transparent, timely, and participatory.
Explore how stated values around accountability and a desire to have horizontal relationships with grantee partners are supported and enforced via concrete policies and practices, rather than applied selectively and at will.
Reckon honestly with structural limitations in your institution (e.g., undemocratic governance mechanisms) that may make true accountability unenforceable. Make an effort to honestly communicate your institution’s limitations to your grantee partners, even if those limitations are in tension with your stated values.
Recognize that even if you practice trust-based grantmaking, if your institution’s existence depends on the will of a single individual or set of family members, a certain level of trust is not possible to achieve.
Seek out peers that practice greater transparency around grantmaking and resource allocation. How do they do it? How did they get there?
Make the case internally for including explicitly anti-Zionist frameworks in anti-racist and social justice-oriented trainings, presenting specific resources and case studies of peers who are doing so.
Open channels for staff to share concerns (anonymously if needed) about power dynamics, pay, etc.

Advisory bodies convened to offset a lack of reflective leadership and governance structures have no clear mandate and no real power; members are rarely consulted and not remunerated for their time.
“Movement” or “community” board members have no voting power, are expected to defer to board members with greater access to resources, and serve primarily as token representatives of the communities the organization seeks to support.
DEI or other equity processes are treated as box-checking exercises, inconsistently embedded in organizational culture, and rarely resulting in meaningful shifts in policies or practices.
Transparency around grantmaking and resource allocation is not systemic, and decisions are made by leadership without internal or external consultation.
Anti-Zionist frameworks are excluded from political education trainings, and learning spaces may be limited in scope and frequency, with few opportunities to apply lessons internally or externally.
Limited or no channels exist for staff and leadership to apply acquired political knowledge to broader institutional policies and practices, and/or the burden falls on Global Majority or more junior staff.
Pay disparities are normalized and lower level staff have little to no recourse to address the issue individually or collectively, and/or are ignored or punished if they do.

Rejecting progressive organizational governance, operations, and HR policies.

Leadership teams and boards fail to reflect the communities your institution seeks to support and lack the political analysis, capacity, and commitments required to apply the institution’s values consistently.
Using or investing in leadership pipelines that privilege philanthropy insiders, family networks, elite connections (e.g., Ivy League alumni networks), or white Global North professionals, thereby limiting movement-aligned and Global Majority candidates.
Resisting or rejecting DEI efforts.
Surveilling, censoring, silencing, marginalizing, or punishing staff that support Palestinian liberation.
Excluding staff who support Palestinian liberation from organizational decision-making, or preventing them from shaping policies and practices on resource allocation and organizational priorities.
Failing to disclose budget and grantmaking information and punishing staff who share such information in appropriate contexts.
Compensating leaders at a high level while underpaying junior and administrative staff, with no transparency around salary bands or pay equity.

2. Aligning vendors and contracts with liberatory principles

Ensuring all vendors, contractors, and investment firms are fully values-aligned, using both positive and negative screens.

Enforcing explicit policies to avoid contracts with any company on the BDS list, Israeli surveillance firms, or companies benefiting from the occupation and genocide or are part of extractive and exploitative industries.
Conducting regular reviews to ensure that no partnerships inadvertently support oppressive systems and/or holding vendors accountable to the organization’s liberatory principles.
Robust systems aimed at protecting grantee data and preventing surveillance are regularly monitored and updated.

Develop and implement clear policies to govern vendor selection, contracting, and investments in alignment with liberatory values, avoiding investments and partnerships with security/defense companies, Israeli surveillance firms, and extractive industries.
Phase out relationships with vendors connected to harmful industries and transition to values-aligned providers.
Introduce positive and negative screening processes to systematically assess new vendors, contractors, and investment firms for alignment with organizational principles.
Conduct regular reviews of vendor and investment relationships to ensure partnerships do not inadvertently support oppressive systems.
Implement security protocols and due diligence processes to protect sensitive grantee partner data and prevent surveillance or data misuse.

Vendor and data security policies are nonexistent, uneven, inconsistent, or lack oversight and/or enforcement mechanisms.
Lack of awareness about vendors’ ties to or participation in extractive, exploitative, or oppressive systems.

Contracting with vendors, contractors, and investment firms complicit in genocide, occupation, weapons, surveillance, prisons, and extraction.

Contracting with vendors, contractors, or investment firms connected to security companies, Israeli surveillance firms, entities on the BDS list, companies that profit from the ongoing occupation and violence against Palestinians, extractive industries, or other entities complicit in these harms.
Encouraging or pressuring other funders to de-fund anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian organizations, or using shared funder channels and platforms to silence peers, spread misinformation, or amplify smear campaigns.

3. Aligning investments and endowments with liberatory principles

Divesting, investing, and endowment spending align with liberatory principles.

All investments and investment decisions are transparently and publicly shared.
Implementing and continuously reviewing an investment policy statement fully oriented toward financing a liberatory, regenerative economy; ideally divesting from publicly traded companies entirely.
Divesting all endowment dollars, employee retirement accounts, and other investments from extractive and exploitative industries, prisons, weapons, Israeli bonds, or companies that support genocide, illegal occupation and settlements, or oppression and surveillance of Palestinians and other communities who face systemic oppression; consistently reviewing investments to ensure you stay divested.
Investing (beyond grants) in community-controlled infrastructure (such as community-controlled funds/regranters, trusts, fiscal sponsors, or other formations), supporting historically oppressed communities to reduce dependence on philanthropy and reinforcing their long-term sustainability and autonomy.
Directing endowment funds toward liberation-aligned initiatives with measurable impact and regenerative economic ventures, as determined by a movement/community controlled endowment.
Ensuring that investment advisors and wealth managers are values-aligned.
Going well beyond the 5% endowment payout requirements, redistributing interest income, and advocating toward 100% payout/abolishing philanthropy as a necessary condition for aligning with liberation movements.
Identifying and acknowledging your institution’s wealth origins (e.g., extractive industries, colonial economies) and implementing substantive financial reparations or community investments to address historic harm.
Publicly sharing all of the actions taken above to support and motivate other funders to follow suit.
Actively stewarding your investments by committing to shareholder advocacy efforts as a means to engage with companies on issues that are important to your mission, values and commitments.

Review your investments (endowments, employee retirement accounts, etc.) through a harm reduction lens and increasingly divest endowment dollars, employee retirement accounts, and other investments from some extractive and exploitative industries that support genocide, illegal occupation and settlements, or oppression and surveillance of Palestinians and other communities that face systemic oppression.
Don’t stop at a harm reduction approach: Work toward the next step by setting the stage internally (e.g., sharing case studies) to review investments through a liberatory, regenerative economy lens.
Share your investment policy publicly, including how you revised it to ensure that your endowment aligns with your mission, values, and commitments.
Hold open conversations with staff, board, grantee partners, and movement partners on how your institution’s wealth was built and how that wealth accumulation may have intersected with exploitation and/or extraction.
Direct endowment funds toward liberation-aligned initiatives with measurable impact and regenerative economic ventures, subject to review by accountable community bodies.
Treat the required 5% endowment payout requirements as the floor rather than the ceiling, and explore how to align your payout with your goals in consultation with grantee and other movement partners, or a board that is reflective of the communities you serve.
Support individual employees to take steps to divest retirement accounts and other investment entities provided through employment from extractive and exploitative industries and companies that operate in illegal settlements or support the genocide, occupation, and ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
Passively steward your investments by ensuring your proxies (shares) are being voted in alignment with your mission,values, and commitments.
Participate in public collective shareholder actions, including engagements with companies and divestment efforts.

Working with investment firms that are not values-aligned, deferring all investment decision-making to them, and failing to align your endowment with your mission, values, and commitments.
Treating endowment growth and institutional preservation as higher priorities than redistributing resources for justice and liberation.
Maintaining investment secrecy or limiting access to investment information; preventing staff, grantees, and the public from understanding where resources are invested.
Claiming investments are “neutral,” “apolitical,” or outside the scope of the organization’s mission and values.
Avoiding divestment conversations due to perceived financial risk, reputational concerns, or pressure from boards, advisors, or peer institutions.
Continuing to hold investments in index funds or pooled funds that include companies complicit in occupation, militarization, surveillance, or extractive industries, ignoring the impact they are having in reinforcing systemic injustice and harming communities worldwide.
Working with investment firms that are actively non-transparent about how they implement values-aligned investing, including preventing clients from understanding their own portfolios or endowments. This includes firms that push back on asks for more active capital stewardship from the client.
Refusing to consider alternative models such as spend-down strategies, mission-related investments, or community-governed investment approaches.
Excluding staff, grantee partners, and impacted communities from conversations about how endowment funds are invested or redistributed.

Divesting, investing, and endowment spending align with wealth perpetuation at the expense of liberatory principles.

Maintaining the bare minimum endowment payout required by law, and defaulting to a perpetuity model without conscious exploration or consultation with partners on whether that model best serves movement goals.
Investing your endowment, employee retirement accounts, and any other resources in militarization, occupation, Israeli bonds, extractive industries, prisons, and companies that operate in illegal settlements or support the genocide, occupation, and ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
Concealing endowment or investment details behind bureaucratic hurdles.
Leaving investment and payout decisions to boards and investment managers that are undemocratically selected or fail to represent the communities your organization supports.
Failing to explore or acknowledge the origins of your institution’s wealth or undertake reparative measures; thereby ignoring and/or perpetuating historical harms.

Additional resources

Resources from Funding Freedom’s 2024 Political Education Series

Resources from Funding Freedom’s 2025 Political Education Series

Center for Economic Democracy Moving Patient Capital to Movements Toolkit

Toolkit: How Philanthropy Can Divest from Genocide in Palestine and Beyond (Funding Freedom, 2025)

Adasina Social Capital’s Social Justice Investment Criteria

Investigate: Action/Research for Palestinian Rights (American Friends Service Committee, 2025)

Rights in the Palestinian Terroritories Occupied Since 1967 (United Nations, 2025)

Resource Generation’s Transformative Investment Principles

BDS Movement website

Moving Money for Freedom

From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human

Resisting Dystopia, Supporting Grassroots Resilience: From Gaza to the Caribbean to the U.S. border and beyond(Funders4Palestine and Funding Freedom, 2026)

Philanthropy, Raise the Bar: Divest from Genocide and Invest in Life in Palestine and Beyond (Funders4Palestine and Funding Freedom, 2025)

Racial Justice Investing Coalition

Full Spectrum Labs

Justice Funders’ Just Transition Investment Framework

Contributors

Raise the Bar: A Tool to Move From Harmful to Liberatory Funding Practices with Palestine as Your Compass was developed by Funders4Palestine. It draws on the many years of practice and learning of members of the Funders4Palestine (F4P) community and the Palestinian liberatory resourcing initiative Rawa, and builds on research carried out by Funding Freedom. The contents, information, and lessons shared herein are rooted in the collective and intergenerational knowledge of Global Majority and Global South movements. We acknowledge and honor the wisdom, experience, and labor of those movements, without which this tool would not exist.

F4P is grateful to our team of writers, tool architects, and reviewers that contributed to the creation of the tool:

Funders4Palestine Co-coordinators

Colleen Jankovic | Rawa
‍
Andrea Lynch
‍
Laura Vergara

Funders4Palestine Steering Committee

Reviewers*

Anandi Somasundaram | Racial Justice Investing Coalition

Hana ElSafoury | EDGE Funders Alliance

Kathryn Snyder | Women Donors Network

Roxana Rodriguez | Philanthropic advisor

Thaddeus Squire | Social Impact Sector Practicioner

Yeiri Robert & Cassandra Atlas | MADRE

* Some reviewers, including private foundation staff, advisors, and intermediary fund representatives, opted to remain anonymous due to the nature of repression in philanthropy.
‍

Yura Visual Arts

Design and web implementation

If you are interested in joining the F4P community, please contact at coordination@funders4palestine.org.

Moving From Harmful to Liberatory Funding Practices with Palestine as Your Compass

How Philanthropy Can Divest fromGenocide in Palestine and Beyond

Raise the Bar

A Tool to Move From Harmful to Liberatory Funding Practices with Palestine as Your Compass

Raise the Bar seeks to:

Raise the Bar

Grantmaking Strategy & Approach

Grants Administration & Due Diligence

Communications

Funder Organizing &Philanthropic Advocacy

Organizational Policies & Practices

Philanthropy & Palestine

Grantmaking Strategy & Approach

Intro

Grants Administration & Due Diligence

Intro

Communications

Intro

Funder Organizing &Philanthropic Advocacy

Intro

Organizational Policies & Practices

Intro

Contributors

How Philanthropy Can Divest from
Genocide in Palestine and Beyond

Funder Organizing &
Philanthropic Advocacy

Organizational Policies
& Practices

Grantmaking
Strategy & Approach

Funder Organizing &
Philanthropic Advocacy