The Groundswell Fund has announced that more than four hundred foundations and individual donors have signed on to its open letter calling for increased funding to grantmaking public charities that support grassroots racial justice movements and organizations.

Launched in June, the letter calls for "a significant transfer of resources into the control of institutions where people of color, who are primarily accountable to their communities, have the ultimate decision-making power over where dollars go," including grassroots organizations with the capacity to regrant funding to key leaders and organizations and public foundations "led by people of color who come out of grassroots movements." According to the Groundswell Fund, as of July 1, more than four hundred individuals, organizations, and institutions had signed on to the letter. Signatories include executives of the California Endowment, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Hispanics in Philanthropy,  Meyer Memorial Trust, Solidaire Network, Women's Funding Network, and the Akonadi, California Wellness, Ford, Kataly, W.K. Kellogg, Libra, and Raikes foundations.

Co-signed by thirty-one leaders of color of such "movement-accountable public foundations" — including EunSook Lee, director of the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund; Surina Khan, CEO of Women's Foundation California; Edgar Villanueva, principal of the Liberated Capital x Decolonizing Wealth Project; and Teresa C. Younger, president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women — the letter calls out white-led institutions for "attempting to plug the holes from lack of relationships, expertise, and cultural competency, with extraction and gentrification" by tapping people of color movement leaders as grantmaking advisors within existing structures in which white leaders retain decision-making power or by asking to "download" POC-led funds' grantmaking models for replication instead of supporting the funds themselves.

"It's time that philanthropy acknowledges the essential role that people of color-led, movement-accountable foundations play in the larger philanthropic ecosystem," the letter states. "Investments in these institutions are a key strategy for advancing racial justice and self-determination."

Groundswell CEO Vanessa Daniel, who organized the open letter with Solutions Project president and CEO Gloria Walton, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy that she was surprised by the response. "It would not have looked the same before the uprising," said Daniel. "It was a great moment of awakening in the country and the sector. There is momentum to really make positive change, and that is heartening."