Beyond the Spreadsheet: Redefining Sustainability for the Global Feminist Movement
In an era defined by accelerating political backlash, rising authoritarianism, and the erosion of hard-won civil liberties, the global feminist movement finds itself at a precarious crossroads. While gender equality is increasingly under attack, the very institutions tasked with defending it—feminist and women’s rights organizations (WROs)—are battling for their own survival. For these groups, "sustainability" has long been reduced to a bureaucratic checkbox, a technical requirement for grant applications that fails to capture the existential reality of the work.
However, a landmark report from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), titled Where Is the Money for Feminist Organizing?, challenges this narrative. By synthesizing data from 1,174 organizations across 128 countries, the report argues that true sustainability is not about financial accumulation or endless growth. Instead, it is the collective, political capacity to sustain movements, people, and struggles over time. To secure a feminist future, the global funding ecosystem must undergo a radical transformation—moving away from restrictive, short-term project cycles toward a model rooted in trust, autonomy, and long-term investment.
The State of the Ecosystem: A Chronology of Fragility and Progress
To understand the current crisis, one must look at the evolution of feminist resourcing over the last fifteen years. In 2010, an AWID global survey revealed a stark reality: half of all feminist organizations had never received "core" support—funding that covers administrative costs, salaries, and infrastructure. Most groups were forced to survive on project-based grants, which are notoriously difficult to sustain.
Through years of relentless advocacy, the movement began to shift the needle. Today, 71 percent of feminist organizations receive at least some form of core funding. This progress is largely credited to the emergence of a specialized network of women’s and feminist funds—institutions that prioritize flexible, multi-year support. These funds recognized early on that movements are built on relationships and human resilience, not just project outputs.
Despite this, the structural "scarcity mindset" of the broader philanthropic sector remains. The 2025 AWID data indicates that while progress has been made, it is insufficient. Nearly 30 percent of organizations still receive no core funding, and for those who do, it often accounts for less than one-fifth of their total budget. Perhaps most damningly, only four percent of surveyed organizations have access to grants lasting longer than three years. This leaves the vast majority of the movement in a state of chronic precarity, forced to pivot constantly to satisfy the shifting priorities of donors rather than the needs of the communities they serve.
Supporting Data: The Cost of Chronic Precarity
The quantitative data provided by the AWID study paints a vivid picture of a system that actively undermines the stability it claims to support.
- The Funding Gap: 86 percent of respondents report that there is little to no funding available for their specific themes, regions, or movement-building activities. This creates a "take what you can get" environment, where organizations must suppress their own strategic priorities to fit into donor-approved "buckets."
- The Autonomy Tax: 63 percent of organizations have had to alter their fundamental mission or strategy to align with donor agendas. This represents a significant loss of political autonomy and, in many cases, a compromise on the issues they were founded to address.
- The Restriction Barrier: Funders rarely permit grantees to build financial reserves. In a volatile world—marked by sudden political shifts or economic crises—this prohibition is a strategic liability. Without "rainy day" funds, a single funding cut or a sudden change in state regulation can force an organization to shut its doors overnight.
These figures illustrate a systemic failure. By treating funding as a series of short-term, high-compliance transactions, the philanthropic sector has inadvertently created a fragile, dependent, and reactive movement landscape.
Official Perspectives: The Push for Autonomous Resourcing
As institutional funding remains restrictive, feminist movements are increasingly turning toward "autonomous resourcing"—the practice of generating, managing, and distributing wealth outside of traditional philanthropic or government channels.
The AWID research marks a turning point in documenting these efforts. Autonomous resourcing is not merely a financial strategy; it is a political act of self-determination. By relying on internal community resources, feminist collectives can protect their political autonomy from the "strings" often attached to mainstream development aid.
"Sustainability on our own terms means that we need our organizations to last, but to last in ways that align with our values," note the Co-Executive Directors of AWID. "This means advancing social, economic, gender, and climate justice while remaining accountable to the communities we serve."
The report highlights a growing trend of feminist economic realities: cooperatives that feed local communities, agroecological projects protecting Indigenous seeds, and trans-led enterprises that create safety nets where the state fails to provide. These are not merely survival tactics; they are the blueprints for a more equitable future.
Implications: The Case for a "Just Transition"
The implications of this research are clear: if the funding ecosystem does not evolve, it risks accelerating the collapse of the very organizations necessary to protect democracy. The current "business as usual" approach to philanthropy is unsustainable in an era of global militarization and far-right expansion.
A Call to Action for Philanthropy
For the philanthropic and development sectors, the call to action is threefold:
- Shared Risk, Not Control: Funders must relinquish the desire to control outcomes. This requires moving toward trust-based grantmaking, where resources are provided with the flexibility to adapt to changing local contexts.
- Infrastructure Investment: Donors must stop funneling "gender equality" funds into global consulting firms and airlines, and instead invest in the infrastructure of feminist movements. This includes support for feminist-owned conference venues, shared financial services, and long-term organizational capacity.
- Redefining Success: Sustainability should not be measured by the number of people reached in a three-month project, but by the strength, safety, and resilience of the social fabric the movement builds over decades.
The Path Forward
The path to a more sustainable movement requires a "just transition"—a process that deliberately untangles systems of dependency. This involves an urgent, cross-sectoral collaboration between movements, community-led funders, and international financial institutions.
There is a historical precedent for this kind of change. When feminist movements organize with political clarity and solidarity, they have proven that they can shift even the most immovable systems. The current challenge is to scale that success. As the AWID leadership emphasizes, "If we have come this far on ingenuity, solidarity, and stubborn hope, imagine what becomes possible with abundant resources at our reach."
Conclusion: Sustaining the Struggle
Sustainability is not a static destination; it is a dynamic, lived practice. For feminist movements, it has always been about the courage to imagine a different world while doing the hard work of caring for one another in the present.
The data confirms that the current funding model is at odds with this reality. By shifting the focus from short-term compliance to long-term investment, the global community has a chance to move from a culture of precarity to one of abundance. The tools for this transformation exist; the models are already being practiced by grassroots funds and autonomous collectives. What is required now is the political will from those who control the world’s resources to finally treat gender justice as the non-negotiable foundation of a democratic future.
The world is currently in a state of flux, but as history has shown, feminist movements are the most consistent force for transformation. Resourcing them is not just an act of charity—it is an investment in the survival of human rights for all.
