Movement-Led Funds as Experiments in Regeneration
By Maria Nakae, Senior Director of Just Transition Investing, Justice Funders
What becomes possible when we shift power with integrated capital?
In Episode 10 of Make Shift Happen, I had the pleasure of talking with Tenesha Duncan, CEO and founder of Orchid Capital Collective, about the growing ecosystem of movement-led funds that are shifting the flow of capital and power while rewriting the rules of finance.
Orchid’s Tepal Fund and the Just Transition Integrated Capital (JTIC) Fund are both part of this ecosystem, drawing down resources from larger institutions and redistributing them in ways that embody values of shared leadership and democratic governance that are accountable to communities.
There’s urgency to this work.
As power concentrates among authoritarian regimes, it has never been so clear that transforming our economy from one rooted in extraction to one centered on regeneration requires moving more than money to frontline communities. We need to shift power.
When communities and movements democratically govern their own resources, we strengthen our collective muscle for "little d" democracy, where everyone participates in shaping the future that we are all fighting for, not just those with concentrated wealth and power.
We also build the durable infrastructure for economic relationships based on reciprocity, rather than extraction. It’s both an antidote to authoritarianism and an embodiment of who we want and need to be.
This way of moving resources is still new to philanthropy. To the extent that foundations support movement-led work, most funders are comfortable funding organizing, direct action, and advocacy that demands change and accountability from those who currently hold economic and political power. But as we’re witnessing in real-time:
Our vision for a just future and an economy that works for everyone requires building power within communities who have historically been denied it, rather than relying on the whims of those who currently hold (and hoard) it.
Movement-led funds aren’t only about distributing and governing capital differently. Funds like the JTIC Fund and Orchid’s Tepal Fund offer a reframe of the role of capital itself and what it can do when deployed in service of repair and regeneration.
Many movement-led funds use an integrated capital approach, which is the coordinated use of various forms of capital such as grants, 0% or low-interest loans, and technical assistance, to provide capital that best meets the needs of communities, rather than prioritizing financial return for investors. They model ways of relating to capital through principles of reciprocity and relationships, rather than the extractive and isolating mechanisms of funder-directed grants and profit-maximizing investments.
What we learn through these models can form the basis for how we redistribute and exchange capital in a regenerative economy. This is an enormous opportunity for philanthropy, whose endowments are uniquely positioned to make non-extractive, reparative, integrated capital investments that build the economic power of frontline communities.
In ceding decision-making power alongside moving integrated capital, we shift the status quo around who holds the power and governs the resources that our communities need in order to not only survive this moment, but to thrive over the long term.
Rather than merely “stopping the bad” of an economy that extracts from the many to benefit a few, we take a step toward “building the new,” of imagining and living into the values that undergird an economy that supports life and well-being for all of us and the planet.
Justice Funders is a partner and guide for philanthropy in reimagining practices that advance a thriving and just world. Tara Health Foundation uses their Just Transition for Philanthropy framework to inform our thinking and find inspiration and are honored to join their Spend Out & Regeneration Convening and Community of Practice.
Orchid Capital Collective invests in ecosystems where reproductive care, economy, and community meet. They're stewarding the remainder grantmaking dollars in our birth equity portfolio and carry forward our legacy of funding with integrated capital. As a Tara Health Portfolio Lead, Tenesha was instrumental in evolving our focus to include an intersectional analysis of gender and race.
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