Intersectionality in Grant Seeking: Multiple Funding Categories

When Your Organization Works at the Intersection of Issues

Intersectionality, as a framework, emerged from Black feminist scholarship. Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term in 1989 to describe how race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and other identities overlap to create distinct forms of discrimination. In organizational work, intersectionality means recognizing that the people and communities you serve experience multiple, overlapping systems of marginalization—and that your solutions must address this complexity.

Consider a few real-world examples:

• Immigrant women's reproductive health: Work that combines immigration advocacy, women's health, and environmental justice (since toxic exposure affects reproductive outcomes)
• Trans housing justice: Intersects homelessness, housing discrimination, gender identity, and often issues of race and immigration status
• Indigenous food sovereignty: Combines environmental protection, food justice, sovereignty, health equity, and cultural preservation
• Black youth climate leadership: Addresses racial justice, climate action, youth development, and equitable economic opportunity simultaneously

When you work at the intersection, your grant seeking must reflect that reality. You're not picking a primary issue and mentioning others in passing. You're describing how issues are fundamentally intertwined in the communities you serve and in the solutions you design.

This visual is more than metaphorical. Your organization literally sits at the intersection of multiple issue areas. The funding challenge is finding funders whose interests overlap in the same way—or convincing funders in each area that your intersectional approach strengthens their goals.

How Funders Categorize (and Why It Matters)

Understanding how funders organize their funding is essential to your grant seeking strategy. Most foundations organize around program areas, issue areas, or both. These categories serve several purposes: they help funders clarify their mission, make funding decisions consistent, communicate clearly with the field, and measure impact.

The problem for intersectional organizations is that these categories often reinforce silos. A foundation's program officer for environmental work may not communicate with the officer handling social justice grants. Their funding guidelines specify eligible use of funds. Their evaluation frameworks measure success within their issue area.

Common Funder Categories and Structures

The key insight here is that funder categories aren't just organizational quirks—they shape what gets funded and how impact is measured. When a funder's categories don't align with how you understand your work, you face a choice: conform to their categories or find funders whose understanding aligns with yours.

The Problem with Issue Silos for Intersectional Work

When funders organize strictly by issue area, several problems emerge for intersectional organizations:

• Incomplete impact measurement: Environmental funders don't see the equity impact of your work. Justice funders don't measure environmental outcomes. Neither sees the full picture.
• Funding gaps: Your work doesn't fit cleanly into anyone's category, so multiple funders may reject you as "out of scope."
• Pressure to specialize: Funders may pressure you to focus on one issue area to "fit" their priorities, even if that undermines your integrated approach.
• Diluted funding requests: You might apply to multiple funders, each contributing to different program areas, which fragments your narrative and limits total support.
• Staff burnout: Having to tell different stories about your work to different funders is exhausting and can create internal confusion about your actual mission.

Finding Funders Who Break the Silos

The first step in a successful intersectional grant seeking strategy is identifying funders who are open to or actively seeking intersectional work. These funders come in several varieties, and each requires different approaches.

Three Types of Funder-Friendly-to-Intersectional-Work

Type 1: Explicitly Intersectional Funders
These funders explicitly state that they fund work at the intersection of multiple issues. They understand intersectionality as a framework, and they look for organizations that do too. Examples include some social justice funds, community foundations with explicit anti-racist commitments, and emerging funders focused on multiply-marginalized communities.

How to find them: Search for phrases like "intersectional," "multiply marginalized," "multiple issue areas," "interconnected," or "integrated approach" in funding guidelines. Read funder's statements on anti-racism and equity. Check if their board or staff reflect the communities they fund.

Type 2: Flexible/Umbrella-Issue Funders
Some funders organize around broad umbrellas rather than narrow silos. They might fund "social and racial justice," "community health," or "environmental justice and equity." Because their categories are broader, intersectional work fits more easily.

How to find them: Look for funders with flexible program areas or general social change focus. Community foundations, public health funders, and some private foundations with broad "justice" or "equity" missions often fall here. Read their most recent annual reports to understand how they define their scope.

Type 3: Systems-Change Funders
Funders focused on systems-level change often recognize that addressing systemic issues requires addressing multiple interconnected problems. They may not use the language of "intersectionality," but their theory of change aligns with it.

How to find them: Look for funders interested in "systems change," "structural transformation," "root causes," or "ecosystem building." Read their grant letters and strategy documents to see if they explicitly discuss how multiple systems interact.

Research Strategy for Intersectional Organizations

Your research process should be different from a single-issue organization's. Here's what to prioritize:

1. Start with your funder list: Use databases (Foundation Center, Candid, GrantStation) and filter for broad issue categories, then read the actual guidelines. Don't rely on category tags alone.
2. Read beyond the categories: Look at what grants they've actually given. Funder websites, annual reports, and grant databases show whether they fund intersectional organizations. If you see organizations similar to yours in their portfolio, that's a green light.
3. Look for values alignment: Does the funder's mission statement include language about equity, systems change, or addressing root causes? Are they committed to anti-racism or multiplicity?
4. Check for flexibility: Do their guidelines allow for work spanning multiple issue areas? Is there room for narrative?
5. Talk to program officers: Before applying, call and describe your work. Ask directly: "Our work addresses X, Y, and Z together. Does that fit within your program scope?" Their answer tells you a lot.
6. Look for funding pools that fit: Some funders have general "opportunity funds" or "learning funds" that are more flexible than their main program areas. These can be good fits for innovative, intersectional work.

Writing Proposals That Honor Complexity Without Confusing

Once you've identified intersectional-friendly funders (or funders in each of your issue areas where you'll emphasize the relevant aspects of your work), how do you write proposals that are honest about your complexity while being clear and compelling?

The Core Tension

There's a fundamental tension here: you want to be fully honest about your intersectional analysis, but you also need to be clear and not confuse funders who may not be familiar with intersectional frameworks. The goal is clarity that doesn't require dilution.

The Proposal Positioning Framework

Use this framework to position intersectional work in proposals:

Writing Tips for Intersectional Proposals

1. Lead with the community, not the issues.
Instead of "Our organization addresses racial justice, economic justice, and environmental justice," try: "We work with low-income Black residents in industrial neighborhoods where they face pollution, job discrimination, and health inequities simultaneously."

2. Name the intersectionality explicitly, but briefly.
Don't bury it. Say something like: "Our approach is grounded in intersectionality—the understanding that these residents' experiences can't be addressed through single-issue solutions. That's why our work integrates environmental remediation, job training, and racial equity."

3. Show how issues reinforce each other (and how solving them together is stronger).
Example: "Without addressing housing discrimination, environmental remediation alone won't improve health outcomes—residents can't access healthy neighborhoods. Without job training, environmental protection can feel like a luxury they can't afford. Our integrated approach ensures all three change together."

4. Use "from" and "through" language strategically.
"We work FROM an understanding that..." or "We approach this issue THROUGH a racial justice lens..." This positions intersectionality as foundational, not added on.

5. Make your outcomes intersectional.
Don't just measure environmental outcomes, employment outcomes, and health outcomes separately. Measure outcomes FOR the specific populations experiencing intersecting issues. Show that progress happens together.

Customizing Proposals for Different Funder Types

Even within intersectional-friendly funders, customize your emphasis:

For explicitly intersectional funders: Lean into intersectional language. They understand it and value it. Spend time explaining your intersectional analysis in depth. Show that you're sophisticated about how systems interact.

For flexible/umbrella-issue funders: Focus on the issue area that best aligns with their mission, but acknowledge the integrated nature of your work. Example: "While our work is fundamentally about education equity, we recognize that education outcomes are inseparable from health, housing, and economic opportunity, so we..."

For systems-change funders: Use systems language. Talk about how you're addressing root causes and how different interventions work together to shift systems. You don't have to use the word "intersectionality," but show that you're thinking systemically about interconnected problems.

The Emerging Field of Intersectional Philanthropy

The field of philanthropy is slowly shifting. More funders are recognizing that intersectionality isn't just a buzzword—it reflects how social change actually happens. Let's look at what's emerging and what it means for your grant seeking.

Key Trends in Intersectional Philanthropy

1. Explicitly Intersectional Funding Initiatives
A growing number of foundations and giving circles now explicitly market themselves as funding intersectional work. Some examples: the Movement for Black Lives, the Chorus Foundation (which funds LGBTQ+ racial justice), various community foundations with intersectional giving programs. These funders actively seek organizations addressing the intersection of multiple issues or serving multiply-marginalized communities.

2. Anti-Racism as Integrating Framework
Many funders are adopting anti-racism frameworks that inherently require intersectional thinking. If you're funding anti-racism work, you have to grapple with how racism intersects with other systems—gender, sexuality, disability, immigration status. This shifts funder thinking toward integration.

3. Community-Based and Community-Led Funding
Funding models that center community voice and leadership are inherently more aligned with intersectionality. When communities define what needs funding, they usually define problems intersectionally. Community foundations, participatory grantmaking, and community-led funds are growing models.

4. Disability Justice Funding
Disability justice, as a framework, is explicitly intersectional. It insists on understanding disability through lenses of race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, and more. Funding models based on disability justice principles are increasingly seeing intersectionality as foundational.

Timeline of Intersectional Philanthropy Evolution

What This Means for Your Grant Seeking Now

The emergence of intersectional philanthropy is genuinely good news for intersectional organizations, but it doesn't mean the silo problem is solved. Instead, what's happening is a bifurcation:

The "intersectional side" of philanthropy is growing and becoming more sophisticated. These funders understand your work. There are more of them. They're often more innovative in their approaches. But there's also more competition, and they tend to have smaller grant sizes.

The "siloed side" remains much larger. Most foundation funding still flows through issue-specific programs. This means you'll likely continue applying to both intersectional-friendly and issue-specific funders.

Your strategy should embrace both: build deep relationships with the growing intersectional philanthropy sector, but don't abandon issue-specific funders. Instead, get better at positioning intersectional work within issue silos—which is what we covered in the previous section.

FAQ: Intersectionality and Grant Seeking

Here are the most common questions we hear about intersectional grant seeking:

Should I apply to multiple funders focusing on different parts of my work?

This depends on how you're organized internally. If you have genuinely separate programs (say, a health program and an environmental program), then yes, applying to health and environmental funders separately makes sense. But if your programs are integrated and the impact depends on them working together, split applications can fragment your narrative. In that case, prioritize intersectional-friendly funders and flexible funders who can fund the whole approach. If you do apply to issue-specific funders, make clear how their issue area fits into your integrated theory of change.

What if a funder wants me to emphasize only one issue area in my proposal?

If a funder's guidelines specifically say "only education" or "only environment," respect that boundary. But don't assume—call them and ask. You might say: "Our work integrates education and environmental health for low-income communities of color. Can I describe how those fit together in the context of education outcomes?" They may say yes. If they say no, you have a choice: apply within their narrow scope (and potentially distort your work), or invest your energy elsewhere. With limited time, it's often better to prioritize funders whose scope aligns with your actual work.

How do I talk about intersectionality without sounding like jargon?

Use concrete examples. Instead of saying "We use an intersectional framework," describe what that looks like: "We work with immigrant women experiencing housing insecurity. Housing insecurity for immigrant women isn't just about affordable housing—it's tied to wage theft, immigration status vulnerability, and gender-based violence. Our approach addresses all three because they're interconnected for our members."

Is intersectionality a funding strength or a liability?

It's increasingly a strength, but context matters. For explicitly intersectional funders, social justice funders, community-led funds, and emerging funding initiatives, intersectionality is a strength. For traditional program-specific funders, it can be a liability if you're not strategic. The solution: research. Know your funders. Apply to funders where intersectionality is valued, and strategically frame your work for funders where you need to translate it into their language.

How do I measure intersectional impact for evaluation?

Go beyond measuring outcomes in each issue area separately. Look at outcomes for specific subgroups (e.g., outcomes for Black women specifically, not just Black people and women separately). Measure how progress in one area enables progress in others. Include qualitative data showing how participants experience the intersection of issues. Plan for learning about what makes intersectional approaches effective. Most funders will be impressed by sophisticated intersectional evaluation; it shows you're thinking deeply about impact.

What if my organization isn't ready to be explicitly intersectional in grant seeking?

Then start smaller. Pick one funder to approach with your full intersectional story. Notice what happens. Did they fund you? Did they ask for clarification? Get feedback. You don't have to overhaul your entire grant seeking strategy overnight. You can start with one foundation whose mission feels aligned, have a conversation, and learn from it. Growth in grant seeking happens incrementally.