Since November 2020, the Southern Power Fund has moved over 16 million dollars to over 375 organizations, groups and formations in 15 states across the US South and Puerto Rico.
In response to 2021’s winter storms, we moved over $1.3M within four days to groups and organizations on the ground and $1.5M in two months in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida and Tropical Storm Fred.
SPF does not have a reporting requirement or collect specific demographic info from those who receive funding, instead building upon long-standing southern movement relationships.
Collectively, our anchors have generations of experience building relationships and moving work across the South.SPF is composed of representatives from 10movement organizations, including the four anchor organizations.
We’ve raised $18 million across our 4 anchors, building on efforts led by Grantmakers forSouthern Progress and Funders for LGBTQ Issues as well as individual donor organizing led by the Solidaire Network and Resource Generation.
The next phase of our work is designed to move resources to Southern frontlines in a way that intervenes during crises, fortifies existing efforts, and grows new alternative structures to build the world we all deserve.
According to data from the National Center for Responsible Philanthropy and Grantmakers for Southern Progress, between 2011-2015 (most recent data available), foundations invested only 56 cents per person in the South for every dollar per person foundations invested nationally. Furthermore, foundations only invested 30 cents per person for structural change work in the South.
The Southern Power Fund’s immediate goal is the strategic and effective distribution of funds to frontline organizations leading transformational efforts throughout the South. The four Southern anchor organizations have collectively and strategically distributed funds to BIPOC-led and multiracial organizing efforts in this time of multiple crises. So far, the SPF has collectively raised over $18M, and moved $14M+ to the region through low barrier grant making to groups on the frontlines. Considering the significant underinvestment in deep south states, such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, the SPF prioritizes supporting groups and organizations in these states that continue to experience this underinvestment by philanthropic dollars.
The Southern Power Fund is committed to redistribute $100 million over the next five years (at least $10-15 million annually) to a wide range of frontline organizations and formations. The three strategic streams of funding include seasonal rounds of redistribution to intervene on unsustainable cycles of emergency funding; to fortify existing movement formations; and to grow land investment projects that create autonomous funding streams for movement.
Seasonal rounds of redistribution to provide no-strings attached general operating funds to prepare for, respond to, and recover from ecological, economic, and social disasters.
Annual support to sustain existing movement infrastructure that redistributes resources to organizations and joint efforts throughout the year.
Provide significant seed funding to 10 projects annually that present a plan for long-term investment projects like land purchases, housing, community land trusts, and infrastructure development.
The 21st century South has survived the rise of the white right and the regressive policies that came with it, the intensifying in strength and frequency of man-made climate disasters, and the impact of a disinvestment in healthcare infrastructure during the age of COVID-19. We know that Black, immigrant, and rural communities in the South are experiencing a disproportionate impact during these times. Meanwhile, Black Southern leaders are now coordinating a historic uprising against police brutality and in defense of Black lives, and in the process are building a new South worthy of our people.
In order to address the systemic challenges related to the lack of philanthropic investment in the South, the remaining $2 million of the dollars raised will seed a fund to support long-term southern community resilience planning, development, and implementation beginning in 2022. The long-term impact of this effort will be resources to seed solutions, preparedness and resilience for the socio-economic, cultural, and climate crises already slated to come.
The four anchor organizations of the Southern Power Fund include Southerners On New Ground, The Highlander Research and Education Center, Project South and Alternate Roots. Thes long standing organizations know first hand how Southern based movement infrastructure continues to be under-resourced and undervalued by philanthropic investments in the region. As such, the structure of the Southern Power Fund creates an opportunity for these anchor organizations and their partners to move money to groups and formations that traditional funders are either unable or unwilling to support.
Southern leaders and their organizations have built a regional tapestry of movement infrastructure that successfully resists and challenges the (once uniquely Southern, now national) systemic and targeted oppression of Black, Brown, Native, Queer, Disabled and poor communities – despite continued underinvestment in the South by institutional philanthropy and a lack of investment in organizations led by people of color. The Southern Power Fund is a partnership among Southern movement leaders and philanthropic allies who’ve been building strategies together for decades. The work of the Southern Power Fund responds to the needs and vision of Southern movement leaders and builds on both institutional funder organizing efforts led by Grantmakers for Southern Progress and Funders for LGBTQ Issues’ Out in the South Initiative as well as individual donor organizing efforts led by the Solidaire Network and Resource Generation that value and follow Southern leadership. Through this work, we will offer directives to funders related to long term Southern strategy, including the development of a Southern based fund that will be governed and managed by frontline leaders using techniques established and shared with us by existing Southern social justice funds.
Want to give to SPF? We accept funds through any of the the four anchor organizations of our Steering Committee.
If you are an individual donor, choose one of the four anchor organizations to give to: Alternate ROOTS, the Highlander Center, Project South, or SONG. Include “Southern Power Fund” as a note with your gift so we can track your donation and add it to the collective fund.
If you are an institutional funder and would like to join other foundations supporting this important work, please contact Tamieka Mosley from Grantmakers for Southern Progress at tmosley@g4sp.org or Chantelle Fisher-Borne from Funders for LGBTQ Issues at chantelle@lgbtfunders.org.
For questions or if you need assistance with donating, contact info@fundthesouth.org.
A home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South.
A movement building institution that produces popular education tools, organizes community and regional initiatives, and supports grassroots organizers and educators in the U.S. South.
A coalition of cultural workers based in the US South who strive to be allies in the elimination of all forms of oppression.
A catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South.
An organization of working class artists and cultural organizers who create projects and practices of cultural solidarity with grassroots struggles against oppression, and propose alternatives that generate possibilities for transformations in our world.
A community resource and training incubator for transformation justice in the global south based in Jackson, MS.
Fights against homelessness and works toward fixing food insecurities.
Offers hope and creates an environment that provides a continuum of unconditional acceptance and care to individuals and their families who suffer the effects of drug addiction, mass-incarceration, homelessness, poverty, unemployment, hunger and illness-without regard to race, sex, creed, color, religion or social status.
This kind of support is going to be a game changer for our organization this year and I hope you understand how big of an impact you’ve made on our work.We are so humbled and grateful to have even been nominated and I’ll be honest here: when I read your email, I burst into tears and said, “This can’t be real.”
– SPF Funded Group, 2021
Built on longstanding southern movement relationships, the Southern Power Fund is connected to hundreds of grassroots organizers and organizations that have worked together to take care of and organize southern Black, Brown and Indigenous communities for generations. Though not known to many in traditional or progressive philanthropy, the work of these organizations is powerful and led by those directly impacted.
The structure of the SPF allows for money to move quickly, responding to work happening on the frontlines, in contrast with more traditional funding streams that are steeped in white supremacy culture and have slow, burdensome proposal and reporting requirements. These hurdles to funding often make resources inaccessible to organizations doing some of the most brilliant and creative work in the South.
