Grantmaking Team

DC Fund is a community-led grantmaking organization dedicated to racial & social justice that invests financial and social capital that transforms systems in DC. We fund and support efforts in Washington, DC, led by and rooted in communities of color to realize liberation, spark solutions, organize against oppression of all kinds, and create systemic change. Since 2011, Diverse City Fund has made 868 grants to people of color-led groups and redistributed over $5.3 million. We fundraise every dollar we redistribute.

We are a community-led grantmaker. DC Fund put grantmaking power into the hands of the Grantmaking Team (GT) to decide on grants. Traditional philanthropy often centers on white patriarchal wealth, with decisions made by donors and their circles, who usually lack firsthand knowledge of the impacted communities. This is why only 10% of philanthropic dollars go to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-led organizations. The Diverse City Fund’s model disrupts this by focusing on community-led social justice grantmaking. In our model, the Grantmaking Team decides, and we disburse funds. Grantmaking Team members are those who are directly affected and leading systems change work; they are our decision makers because they are the experts.

The ideal grantmaking team member will:

• Have alignment with DC Fund values, commitments, and priorities (see below)

• Identify as a person of color with recent lived experience in DC (i.e. be a current DC resident or have a strong connection to DC)

• Have been involved in local DC organizing to build community power and create systemic change (for at least 3 years)

• Understand the intersections of anti-Blackness, white supremacy, xenophobia, homo/transphobia, and other forms of oppression
• Be willing to co-create a radically inclusive space with fellow GT members, respecting that it is a multi-racial, gender-expansive space
• Understand the difference between direct services and systems change/root cause work
• Work collaboratively, and communicate effectively with their teammates during the decision making process

• DC Fund is committed to investments that advance gender justice in communities of color, counter homophobia and transphobia, and strengthen multiracial alliances across the gender continuum. This is a space that welcomes, values, and protects the perspectives and lives of our LGBTQIA+ siblings. 
• DC Fund is committed to investments that advance healing justice. Diverse City Fund believes that healing justice is fundamental to systemic change. Healing justice is a political strategy and framework to intervene on generational trauma from systemic violence and oppression through recovering ancestral medicine and/or building new traditions that center psychic, emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, and environmental well-being for our collective liberation.
• DC Fund understands that racial justice must include analyzing how other forms of oppression impact people of the global majority. We fund folks working at the intersections of racism and other forms of oppression, because we know people do not live single-issue lives. We support the rights of all people to exist and self-determine, because for us, racial justice is inclusive of justice for immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks, youth, women, disabled people, and all other marginalized groups of people.

• Serving on the Grantmaking Team is a 20-25 hour time commitment over the course of two months. Grantmaking Team members are asked to:
  • Attend an in-person onboarding/training session (5 hours)
  • Read approximately 15-20 applications (up to 7 hours)
  • Attend two in-person retreats to discuss and finalize funding decisions as a team (5 hours each day)
  • Attend a virtual debrief with Board of Instigators members and staff (1 hour)
• We ask that GT members are able to commit fully to this process and review applications with care and consideration for the applicants’ work. This includes showing up to retreats and meetings on time and prepared in order for your team to have more engaging discussions with your input. This also includes being able to have difficult conversations around allocation and distribution of funding.
• Be able to navigate a computer, Google Sheets, and the judging platform we use called Open Water. We are able to print out applications, and support GT members with navigating these programs.
• DC Fund is committed to doing what we can to keep each other safe during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We require masking at our in person meetings in order to keep spaces accessible to our disabled and immunocompromised community members.
• We pay GT members a $1,000 stipend for their time and expertise in making funding decisions.