What Is Participatory Grantmaking and Why It Matters
Participatory grantmaking represents a fundamental shift in how philanthropic decisions get made. Rather than relying solely on foundation staff, boards, or external experts to determine which organizations receive funding, participatory models distribute decision-making power to community members—often those closest to the problems philanthropy aims to solve.
This approach directly addresses a persistent critique of traditional philanthropy: the democratic deficit. When small groups of wealthy individuals or their designated representatives control resources meant to address public problems, accountability mechanisms break down. Communities lack meaningful input on priorities that affect their own wellbeing.
Participatory grantmaking emerged from activism and grassroots organizing. Haymarket People's Fund, founded in 1974, pioneered this approach more than 50 years ago. What began as one fund's radical experiment has evolved into a global movement spanning over 40 countries. Today, participatory grantmaking encompasses diverse models, from activist-led funding collectives to co-created processes within established foundations, each with distinct advantages and tradeoffs.
Key Insight: Over 50 years of documented evidence from Haymarket People's Fund demonstrates that participatory grantmaking can sustain long-term impact while building stronger community-foundation relationships than traditional philanthropy.
Why should foundations care? Participatory approaches generate measurable benefits: increased trust between funders and grantees, more strategic funding aligned with actual community priorities, higher grantee satisfaction, and stronger accountability to the people foundations serve. For communities, participation creates leadership development opportunities, redistribution of power, and control over resources affecting their futures.
The Three Core Models of Participatory Grantmaking
Not all participatory approaches work identically. Understanding the three primary models helps foundations and communities choose approaches that match their contexts, capacities, and values.
Model 1: Activist-Driven Grantmaking
Community-Controlled
Activist-Driven Grantmaking
In activist-driven models, community members and grassroots organizations control funding directly. Decision-making bodies consist primarily of activists, residents, and community leaders rather than foundation staff or professional fund managers. The foundation provides resources and administrative infrastructure, but community members set priorities, review proposals, and make final funding decisions.
Characteristics:
- Community members comprise majority (typically 50-100%) of decision-makers
- Foundation staff support process but don't vote or control decisions
- Explicit focus on power-building and movement advancement
- Often includes peer learning and capacity building as core components
- Grantmaking tied to broader social change strategy
Strengths:
- Maximum power shift to communities
- Strongest alignment with actual community priorities
- Builds community leadership and organizing capacity
- Creates democratic accountability
Challenges:
- Requires sustained investment in community capacity building
- Slower decision-making processes
- Demands cultural shift for many foundation staff
- Higher facilitation and administrative costs
Example: Haymarket People's Fund operates primarily through this model. Donors (activists and cultural workers) gather annually to set funding priorities and make grant decisions collectively. Community members drive strategy, ensuring funds support grassroots organizing directly.
Model 2: Co-Creation and Hybrid Models
Shared Power
Co-Creation and Hybrid Models
Co-creation models distribute power more evenly between foundation staff and community members. Decision-making bodies include both, often with explicit mechanisms ensuring neither group dominates. These approaches work well when foundations want to shift power significantly while maintaining fiduciary responsibility and organizational stability.
Characteristics:
- Roughly balanced representation of staff and community members on decisions
- Formal power-sharing structures and agreements
- Community members often participate in designing the grantmaking process itself
- Can include participatory budgeting elements
- May include online and in-person engagement options
Strengths:
- Meaningful power shift while maintaining institutional continuity
- Easier transition for established foundations
- Leverages staff expertise while honoring community knowledge
- More scalable across different foundation sizes
- Faster than fully activist-driven models
Challenges:
- Risk of tokenism if not carefully structured
- Requires explicit conflict resolution mechanisms
- Difficult to navigate differing priorities between staff and community
- May satisfy neither activists nor traditionalists fully
Example: Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) integrates community members into decision-making while maintaining staff expertise. Community advisors shape grant criteria and participate in funding recommendations, with final decisions made jointly.
Model 3: Funder Staff-Led Participatory Engagement
Foundation-Guided
Funder Staff-Led Participatory Engagement
In this model, foundation staff retain decision-making authority but incorporate significant community input into processes. Communities advise on priorities and provide feedback, but staff make final funding decisions. This represents meaningful participation without full power-sharing.
Characteristics:
- Foundation staff retain final decision-making authority
- Extensive community consultation through surveys, focus groups, or advisory groups
- Community input shapes criteria and priorities
- Transparent communication about decision processes
- May include public justification of funding decisions
Strengths:
- Minimal organizational disruption
- Lower implementation costs
- Faster decision-making timelines
- Easier to integrate with existing grantmaking systems
- Accessible to foundations with limited resources
Challenges:
- Limited power redistribution; communities advise rather than decide
- Higher risk of tokenism
- Community members may feel unheard if staff override input
- Doesn't address underlying power imbalances
Current Experiments: What the Research Shows
Over the past decade, participatory grantmaking has expanded globally, generating increasing research on effectiveness and impact. Key findings from documented programs offer valuable insights:
Documented Outcomes
- Grantee satisfaction: Organizations receiving grants through participatory processes report higher satisfaction with funding relationships than those selected through traditional mechanisms. Grantees appreciate both the power-sharing and deeper understanding of their work from community-based decision-makers.
- Strategic alignment: Community-selected grants align more closely with actual neighborhood priorities and emerging needs. Participatory processes catch issues that traditional foundation priorities miss, resulting in funding that responds to authentic community challenges rather than foundation agendas.
- Funding diversity: Participatory models tend to support broader organizational diversity, including newer and smaller grassroots groups that struggle to navigate traditional foundation application processes. This democratizes access to philanthropic resources.
- Community leadership: Participants in grantmaking processes develop skills and networks that extend beyond a single funding cycle. Many community participants go on to leadership roles in organizations, other foundations, and community institutions.
- Persistence and sustainability: Haymarket People's Fund's 50-year track record demonstrates that participatory models can sustain impact across decades. The fund has grown while maintaining activist principles and community control.
Field Evidence: Global Growth
Participatory grantmaking has expanded to 40+ countries across Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and North America. Growth accelerated between 2015-2025, with particular strength in Europe, where participatory budgeting roots influenced philanthropic innovation. This global movement suggests participatory approaches respond to fundamental challenges with traditional philanthropy.
Challenges in Practice
Research also identifies persistent implementation challenges:
- Participation breadth: Recruiting diverse participants remains difficult. Early participants often skew toward those with existing nonprofit connections or professional backgrounds. Lower-income residents, people with less formal education, and those most affected by issues sometimes participate least.
- Capacity demands: Participatory processes demand more staff time than traditional grantmaking. Training, facilitation, conflict resolution, and relationship-building require sustained investment that many foundations struggle to provide.
- Scale tensions: As participatory programs grow, maintaining genuine participation becomes harder. Processes that work with 20 participants often break down with 200.
- Power persistence: Despite formal structures, power imbalances can replicate themselves within participatory settings. Foundation staff expertise and resource control often override formal equal voting arrangements. Communities sometimes internalize funder preferences even when official decision-making power is shared.
Technology Platforms Enabling Participation at Scale
Digital tools have significantly expanded what participatory grantmaking can achieve. Modern platforms address core challenges by making participation more accessible, transparent, and inclusive:
Online Voting and Decision Platforms
Platforms like Patronicity and Civicplus enable large-scale participatory grantmaking by allowing thousands of people to vote on funding priorities online. These tools democratize participation by removing geography and scheduling barriers, allowing people to engage from home at times that suit them. Early data suggests online participation reaches more diverse audiences than in-person meetings alone.
Proposal Submission and Curation Systems
Dedicated grantmaking platforms allow community organizations to submit proposals through intuitive interfaces, then enable community members to review, discuss, and evaluate applications collaboratively. Transparency features show how decisions get made, supporting accountability and trust.
Learning and Capacity Building Tools
Some platforms integrate educational resources alongside grantmaking, helping community participants understand funding mechanics, nonprofit finance, and strategic decision-making. This reduces power imbalances created by specialized knowledge, improving the quality of community decision-making.
Technology Reality: While digital tools enable broader participation, they don't eliminate power dynamics. Online platforms must be paired with deliberate capacity building and anti-bias facilitation to avoid reproducing traditional power structures in digital form.
The Power-Sharing Challenge: Real vs. Tokenistic Participation
The central tension in participatory grantmaking involves distinguishing authentic power-sharing from tokenism. Tokenistic participation creates appearance of community input while decisions remain controlled elsewhere. Communities recognize and resent tokenism, which damages trust more than traditional approaches.
Markers of Authentic Participation
Research identifies key features that distinguish real from token participation:
- Binding authority: Community decisions actually direct resources. Staff don't override community selections except in extreme circumstances with full transparency and explanation.
- Meaningful choice: Communities choose among real alternatives that genuinely differ. Constrained choices ("pick from our shortlist") feel like participation but aren't.
- Transparent power structures: Clear agreements exist about who decides what, how conflicts resolve, and what happens if staff and community disagree. Hidden power dynamics breed resentment.
- Shared learning: Time is invested helping community participants understand funding landscapes, nonprofit operations, and strategic issues. Expertise gaps shouldn't undermine decision-making.
- Continuous design: Participatory processes are regularly evaluated and adjusted based on participant feedback. If participation mechanisms aren't working, they change.
Common Pitfalls Leading to Tokenism
- Inviting community input on decisions already made
- Selecting community participants who align with staff preferences
- Providing insufficient information for informed decision-making
- Failing to explain why community recommendations weren't followed
- Treating participation as occasional one-off engagement rather than sustained relationship
- Designing participation processes without community input
- Allocating minimal budgets for participatory work, signaling it's not important
Implementation Guide: How Foundations Can Transition to Participatory Models
For established foundations considering participatory approaches, a thoughtful implementation process matters enormously. Rushing the transition risks backlash and failure. Here's a practical roadmap:
Phase 1: Foundation Self-Assessment and Readiness (3-6 months)
- Honest power analysis: Assess current decision-making. Who really controls resources? What explicit and implicit rules govern decisions? What will funders/board members fear about power-sharing?
- Clarify motivations: Why is the foundation interested in participatory approaches? If primarily for reputation, that becomes obvious and undermines participation. Authentic interest in redistributing power is essential.
- Identify non-negotiables: What aspects of governance must stay centralized (board authority, legal accountability, fiduciary responsibility)? Being clear on this prevents participatory processes from overstepping legitimate institutional constraints.
- Resource commitment: Estimate actual costs. Participatory grantmaking costs 25-50% more than traditional approaches initially. Can the foundation afford this? If not, smaller pilots are wiser than full transitions.
- Build internal alignment: Staff and board must genuinely support power-sharing. Surface resistance early through facilitated conversations rather than forcing change.
Phase 2: Community Listening and Design (6-9 months)
- Listen to grantee communities: Before designing participation, hear from organizations and communities already engaged with the foundation. What do they want? What fears do they have? What would participation look like to them?
- Co-design with communities: Rather than foundation staff designing participatory processes, invest in designing them together with community partners. This ensures processes are culturally appropriate and actually responsive to community needs.
- Map community assets: Identify existing community networks, leadership, and organizations that might participate. Don't assume you need to create participation from scratch; often strong communities and networks exist but aren't connected to the foundation.
- Pilot with allies: Run small pilots with organizations and communities already friendly to the foundation. Use these to test processes, identify problems, and build staff competency before scaling.
Phase 3: Focused Implementation with Clear Scope (1-2 years)
- Start with defined grant pools: Don't convert entire grantmaking to participatory immediately. Begin with specific funds—perhaps 20-30% of total giving. This allows learning without organizational disruption.
- Clear decision authority: Explicitly define what community participants decide and what remains with foundation staff/board. As confidence grows, scope can expand.
- Invest in facilitation and learning: Professional facilitation during initial phases is worth the cost. It prevents participation from reproducing existing power imbalances and ensures processes stay focused.
- Build transparency: Publish grantmaking criteria, selection processes, and decisions publicly. Communities judging the foundation should see how it operates.
- Establish feedback loops: Regular evaluation with community participants drives continuous improvement. What's working? What needs adjustment? Build participant feedback into each cycle.
Phase 4: Scaling and Integration (Years 2-3+)
- Expand participatory scope gradually: As comfort increases and processes prove effective, expand to larger portions of grantmaking and larger participant groups.
- Institutionalize through governance: Embed participatory principles into foundation bylaws, mission statements, and policies. This signals permanent commitment rather than temporary experiment.
- Adapt infrastructure: Hiring, training, and compensation systems may need adjustment. Can the foundation hire community members as staff? Should different expertise get equal valuation? Can participation be part of job descriptions?
- Contribute to field: Share learning with other foundations considering similar transitions. Field-wide movement toward participatory approaches is more powerful than isolated foundation efforts.
Addressing Funder Resistance: How to Move Hesitant Boards and Staff
Participatory grantmaking challenges fundamental assumptions embedded in philanthropy. Resistance isn't irrational—it reflects legitimate concerns. Addressing resistance effectively requires engaging concerns seriously:
Common Objections and Responses
Objection: "Communities don't have expertise to make funding decisions"
Response: Research shows community members identify priorities and grantees as effectively as professional staff. Communities possess contextual knowledge that outsiders lack. Expertise gaps can be addressed through capacity building. Moreover, funders often overestimate the expertise required—much of what professional fundmakers do involves judgment calls and relationships, not specialized knowledge.
Objection: "This will be too slow and inefficient"
Response: Participatory grantmaking is slower initially, but research shows no meaningful difference in decision timeline after processes mature. The real question: is speed or quality and legitimacy more important? Communities sometimes identify long-term strategic value that faster traditional processes miss.
Objection: "We'll lose fiduciary responsibility"
Response: Fiduciary duty and participation aren't opposed. Foundations can maintain legal responsibility while distributing decision-making authority. Clear agreements about who decides what protect both fiduciary interests and participatory integrity.
Objection: "Donors/board members won't accept this"
Response: This often proves untrue when concerns are addressed directly. Many donors and board members support participation once they understand it deepens impact and strengthens community relationships. Frame participation as strengthening the foundation's mission rather than diluting it.
Strategies for Moving Beyond Resistance
- Education and exposure: Bring skeptical staff and board members to participatory processes in other organizations. Seeing it work reduces fear and builds confidence.
- Pilot success: Small pilots that succeed build credibility. Success stories convert skeptics more effectively than arguments.
- Clear accountability: Establish metrics showing participatory processes improve grantmaking quality, grantee satisfaction, and strategic alignment. Use data to address concerns.
- Honor legitimate concerns: Some resistance reflects real implementation challenges. Acknowledging that participatory grantmaking is harder and requires more investment, while still worthwhile, builds trust.
- Gradual transition: Slow implementation reduces threat perception and allows time for culture change. Speed often generates unnecessary resistance.
Case Studies: Foundations Leading Participatory Innovation
Haymarket People's Fund: 50+ Years of Community Control
Haymarket People's Fund represents the gold standard for activist-driven participatory grantmaking. Founded in 1974 by young donors committed to social justice, Haymarket pioneered the model that influenced generations of participatory funders.
Rather than foundation staff managing grantmaking, Haymarket operates as a collective. Donors (who must be grassroots activists or cultural workers) gather annually to set funding priorities and make grant decisions democratically. The process is intentionally slow and deliberate, with deep learning embedded throughout.
Haymarket's impact over 50 years demonstrates long-term viability: the fund has grown steadily, maintained activist principles through massive social change, and produced leaders who went on to found other participatory funds. Grantee organizations consistently describe Haymarket as understanding their work more deeply than traditional funders and providing support that extends beyond money to movement relationships.
Black Alliance for Just Immigration: Co-Creation in Practice
BAJI, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, integrates participatory approaches into its grantmaking. Rather than foundation staff controlling decisions, BAJI includes community members as core decision-makers while maintaining organizational capacity.
Community advisors shape the grantmaking criteria, review proposals, provide recommendations, and participate in final funding decisions alongside staff. This co-creation ensures funding aligns with community priorities while leveraging staff expertise and institutional knowledge.
BAJI's model demonstrates that co-creation works within single organizations, not just independent funds. The foundation reports that community participation deepens its understanding of immigration justice issues and connects funding to grassroots organizing in powerful ways.
Threshold Foundation: Gender-Based Participatory Innovation
Threshold Foundation pioneered participatory approaches organized around identity and self-determination. The foundation intentionally grantmakes to organizations led by women, LGBTQ people, and other historically excluded populations, and embeds participation throughout its work.
Threshold's members (donors) participate directly in grantmaking, with explicit attention to power dynamics and inclusive decision-making. The foundation demonstrates that participatory approaches can combine with other social justice commitments, creating intersectional practice that centers multiply marginalized voices.
Frequently Asked Questions About Participatory Grantmaking
How is participatory grantmaking different from traditional grantmaking?
Traditional grantmaking concentrates decision-making in foundation staff and boards. Participatory grantmaking distributes decision-making to communities, allowing those affected by funding to determine priorities and select grantees. This shifts power and often changes funding patterns, priorities, and grantee relationships.
Does participatory grantmaking cost more?
Yes, typically 25-50% more than traditional approaches, at least initially. Facilitation, capacity building, engagement processes, and staff time for relationship-building increase costs. As processes mature and efficiency improves, cost differences may narrow. Many foundations find the value—stronger community relationships, better-aligned funding, higher grantee satisfaction—justifies additional investment.
Can large foundations do participatory grantmaking?
Yes, though scale creates challenges. Haymarket shows that participatory approaches can sustain at moderate scale. Larger foundations often use participatory approaches for portions of their grantmaking rather than all of it, or combine online and in-person participation to manage scale while maintaining genuine engagement.
What's the difference between participatory grantmaking and participatory budgeting?
Participatory budgeting focuses on how governments allocate public resources. Participatory grantmaking applies similar principles to philanthropic resources. The concepts overlap significantly, and many participatory grantmaking processes are influenced by participatory budgeting practice and research.
The Future of Participatory Grantmaking
Participatory grantmaking continues expanding as foundations recognize both its value and the urgency of rebuilding trust in institutions. Several trends suggest where the field is heading:
Professionalization without control: As more foundations adopt participatory approaches, professional infrastructure is developing—training programs, platforms, facilitation networks. This allows participatory approaches to spread while maintaining commitment to genuine power-sharing rather than founder or staff control.
Deeper integration with organizational justice work: Leading participatory funders are weaving participatory approaches into all foundation work—hiring, board governance, communications, evaluation—not just grantmaking. This creates consistency between values and practice.
Global learning and adaptation: The field is moving beyond importing North American models into authentic adaptation to different cultural, political, and institutional contexts. Participatory approaches in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa increasingly reflect local organizing traditions and governance norms.
Attention to power persistence: Newer participatory initiatives explicitly address how power imbalances can reproduce themselves within participatory spaces. Deepening work on anti-racism, gender justice, accessibility, and disability leadership is becoming standard rather than exceptional.
The fundamental shift toward participatory grantmaking reflects a recognition that sustainable social change requires both resources and democratic decision-making about how those resources get deployed. Communities that participate in funding decisions develop leadership capacity while addressing problems they understand most deeply. This alignment of power, knowledge, and resources creates conditions for deeper, more legitimate, more sustainable social change than traditional philanthropy achieves alone.
Key Takeaway
Participatory grantmaking moves philanthropy toward its most transformative potential: using resources not just to solve problems, but to shift power toward those closest to solutions. Whether your foundation is just beginning to explore participation or scaling advanced models, the journey toward community decision-making power strengthens impact while strengthening democracy itself.
