Overview
Around the world, philanthropy is wrestling with a fundamental question: How can we effectively fund systemic change in a time of democratic erosion, widening inequality, shrinking civic space, and intersecting crises?
THE DREAM & POWER FUND OFFERS ONE ANSWER:
Invest not only in organizations, but in the infrastructure that allows movements to flourish.
Through long-term, flexible, and trust-based funding, the Fund resources organizations working directly with girls and young feminists while strengthening the relationships, knowledge, narratives, care, and collective capacity that connect movements across communities, issues, and borders.
At the heart of this approach are some of the most overlooked and underfunded leaders of transformative change: girls and young feminists.
Why "Dream & Power"?
DREAM
Expands what is possible.
POWER
Creates the collective capacity to act, protect one another, and change conditions.
WORLDBUILDING
Brings new possibilities into being.
Together, they create the conditions for transformative change: the freedom to imagine beyond current realities, the collective power to act, and the resources and relationships to bring new possibilities into being.
How We Invest
Our model combines long-term, flexible funding for locally rooted organisations with investment in the relationships, knowledge, narratives, care and shared infrastructure that strengthen movements over time.
Our approach is grounded in five principles:
Locally rooted, globally connected
We resource community-rooted organisations working directly with girls and young feminists while strengthening connections across movements, issues and geographies—so locally generated knowledge, strategies and leadership can contribute to wider change.
Care, safety + protection
We invest in the conditions that allow girls and young feminists—and the people and movements organising alongside them—to participate, lead, take risks and sustain their work over time.
Flexible + Long Term
Partners determine what they need to sustain their work and respond to changing realities. We provide multi-year flexible support today, with an ambition to build toward partnerships of up to ten years.
Shared power + resources
Partners help shape priorities, guide learning and influence how the Fund evolves. Alongside organisational funding, they collectively steward a Shared Infrastructure Fund for collective priorities, collaboration and emerging opportunities.
Built to learn + grow
Our inaugural cohort creates a foundation for deeper, longer-term investment. Learning alongside partners will strengthen the model, inform future investment and contribute evidence about what it takes to resource transformative movements.
Types of Investments
Two interconnected investments in movement infrastructure
1
Ecosystem Infrastructure Grants
STRENGTHENING THE RELATIONSHIPS AND COLLECTIVE CAPACITY THAT ALLOW MOVEMENTS TO THRIVE.
Flexible, multi-year funding for locally rooted organizations working directly with girls and young feminists while strengthening wider movements through collaboration, shared learning, collective strategy, and cross-border solidarity.
2
Ideas & Narrative Power Grants
SHAPING WHAT SOCIETIES BELIEVE—AND WHAT FUTURES BECOME POSSIBLE.
Flexible grants support girls' and young feminist organizations, artists, researchers, storytellers, and cultural workers experimenting with ideas, stories, art, research, media, and creative strategies that challenge dominant narratives, expand political imagination, and seed new cultural and political possibilities.
Join us in Resourcing the Dreams & Power of Girls and Young Feminists
GIRLS AND YOUNG FEMINISTS ARE ALREADY BUILDING FUTURES ROOTED IN DIGNITY, FREEDOM, AND JUSTICE.
The question is whether funders will invest at the scale and over the time horizons their leadership and movements require.
The Dream & Power Fund is building a long-term, multi-million-dollar pool of resources for girls and young feminist organizations and the ecosystems that sustain their power—investing across organizations, relationships, narrative power, movement knowledge, care, and shared infrastructure.
We invite institutional and individual funders to join us through significant, multi-year commitments—and to learn alongside movements and one another about what becomes possible when we invest in the infrastructure of transformative change.
Stewarded by Our Collective Practice
The Dream & Power Fund is an initiative of Our Collective Practice, a feminist organization working at the intersection of movements and philanthropy to strengthen the evidence, narratives, resources, and practices that support girls' and young feminist leadership.