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 four principles:
Locally rooted, globally connected
We resource community-rooted organisations working directly with girls while strengthening connections across movements, issues, and geographies, so locally generated knowledge, strategies, and leadership can contribute to wider systemic change.
Care, Safety + Protection
We support partners to connect, learn from one another, and build solidarity across contexts, while investing in the safety and wellbeing needed to sustain their work in the long term.
Flexible + Trust-Based
Partners determine what they need to sustain their work and respond to changing realities, while leveraging the flexibility to act on opportunities with the speed and scale the moment demands.
Shared power + Resources
Girls, young feminists, and partners help shape priorities, resources, and how the Fund itself evolves. This moves participation beyond consultation toward real agency and authority.
Types of Investments
Two interconnected investments in movement infrastructure
1
ECOSYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE
BUILDING COLLECTIVE POWER THAT
ALLOWS MOVEMENTS TO THRIVE
We provide long-term, flexible funding to an inaugural cohort of seven locally rooted organisations working with and led by girls and young feminists.
Together, cohort partners govern a Shared Infrastructure Fund and decide how to use it to strengthen their collective work and the wider ecosystem. Over time, this strengthens individual organisations and builds a more connected and resilient ecosystem—one that centers girls and young feminists and enables partners to build collective power beyond what any single organisation could achieve alone.
2
NARRATIVE POWER
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 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 make significant, multi-year commitments and to learn alongside partners about what becomes possible when organizations and movements have the infrastructure, resources, and decision-making power they need to create lasting systemic change.
Stewarded by Our Collective Practice
The Dream & Power Fund is an initiative of Our Collective Practice, a feminist organisation working at the intersection of movements and philanthropy to strengthen the evidence, narratives, resources, and practices that support girls’ and young feminist leadership and collective power.