Participatory Grantmaking Principles, Potential, and More

The past decade has seen growing distrust in established institutions and heightened demand for public participation in decision-making processes that affect local communities. In philanthropy, these trends spotlight a fundamental tension: the power imbalance between those who give (funders) and the communities that are impacted.

While public engagement is hardly a new concept, participatory grantmaking offers a bridge between philanthropic decision-makers and the people they seek to benefit. But what is participatory grantmaking, and how can it be practically implemented to bridge that gap?

In this guide, we’ll answer these questions and more, covering the following topics:

• What Is Participatory Grantmaking?
• Challenges and Barriers to Adoption
• How to Measure Success in Participatory Philanthropy
• 3 Participatory Grantmaking Examples

Participatory grantmaking requires participation from not just communities, but all parties in the philanthropic process—including grantmakers and nonprofits. 

What Is Participatory Grantmaking?

Participatory grantmaking is a philanthropic approach that shifts decision-making authority from funders to the communities affected by funding decisions. 

The fundamental ideology behind participatory grantmaking is this: Funders (or impact investors) generally lack diversity and, therefore, lived experiences that inform more thoughtful and effective solutions to the community’s problems. Rather than simply consulting community members, this practice allows communities to decide who and what to fund, strengthening grantmakers’ connections to the lived experience of the people they seek to benefit and driving more valuable outcomes.

The Case for Participatory Philanthropy

The need for collaboration is clear, but why is participatory philanthropy the solution? These approaches drive benefits across the nonprofit sector:

For communities: 

• Greater voice and influence. Most notably, participatory grantmaking gives communities direct input into decisions that affect them.
• Empowerment in community issues. These processes promote civic engagement, which yields further opportunities for local leadership.

For grantmakers: 

• Improved funding outcomes. Community-informed decisions lead to more effective grantmaking, meaning funders can address the issues that matter most.
• Stronger alignment with community priorities. When communities set funding priorities, grantmakers ensure they’re properly allocating resources.

Keep in mind that nonprofits, as the impact producers within these communities, play a vital role in this process. Participatory grantmaking enables more supportive relationships between nonprofits and funders, leading to greater progress toward their shared missions.

How Does Participatory Grantmaking Work?

The current participatory approach consists of organizations adopting and testing practices independently, meaning there’s no single established process to follow. The lack of a standardized framework can make this approach difficult to sustain.

Before grantmakers and communities can engage in participatory philanthropy, you must establish a baseline for this process. Most participatory grantmaking models include the following elements:

• Pre-grant phase: Before the grant is awarded
• Identifying community needs and funding gaps
• Co-creating the application process
• Defining decision-making criteria 
• Clarifying decision-making roles for funders and community members
• Grant phase: When making the grant
• Refining the grantmaking review process
• Selecting grantees through processes like community voting or consensus panels
• Designing and conducting peer review processes
• Allocating non-financial resources such as mentorship or capacity-building support
• Post-grant phase: After the grant has been distributed
• Reviewing outcomes and impact reports to measure project and process success
• Sharing data and lessons learned publicly

It’s important to note that the above opportunities also have limitations. We’ll review these drawbacks in more detail shortly, but grantmakers and communities should work together to modify these processes based on their needs and goals.

Challenges and Barriers to Adoption

Despite its promises, there are a few challenges to the proposed framework for participatory grantmaking. However, the benefits of this model far outweigh its drawbacks, and there are several opportunities to address these challenges to establish a more sustainable model.

Common barriers and solutions include:

• Challenge: The participatory grantmaking process’s time and resource intensity may deter grantmakers from engaging.
• Solution: Streamline processes with tools and pre-established frameworks to reduce the time and resource commitment for grantmakers. For example, funders can leverage an impact framework to track their progress and easily review data with consensus panels.
• Challenge: Communities can become disinterested in participating if their suggestions aren’t taken seriously.
• Solution: Grantmakers can build trust and motivation by providing transparent feedback that clearly communicates how the panel’s input shaped decisions. Additionally, impact reporting systems that incorporate community-defined success indicators draw a direct connection between decision-making and results aligned with local priorities.
• Challenge: Potential conflicts of interest and competition for funding may interrupt the effort’s cohesiveness.
• Solution: Grantmakers and communities should work together to develop clear governance structures and conflict-of-interest policies that promote fairness. A collaborative effort from grantmakers, the community, and impact producers will yield an aligned effort toward a shared vision.

While the lack of a standardized approach to participatory grantmaking contributes to its perceived drawbacks, this process ultimately allows funders to support communities and grantees in ways that extend well beyond the immediate grant cycle. A long-term, structured approach shifts the power back to communities and the nonprofits that serve them, giving them greater control, resilience, and the ability to pursue their missions sustainably.

How to Measure Success in Participatory Philanthropy

Unlike traditional philanthropy, where outcomes are often tied solely to programmatic results, participatory grantmaking generates additional value through community engagement, power-sharing, and capacity development. As such, grantmakers must apply a broader, more inclusive lens when measuring their impact, which includes tracking metrics such as:

• Participation level: How many people from the community were engaged in the decision-making process? How diverse was their representation? How often did they contribute throughout the grant cycle?
• Participation satisfaction: Did participants feel heard, respected, and meaningfully involved? Capture this data through surveys, interviews, and reflection sessions.
• Actions taken: What changes or initiatives resulted from the participatory process? This could include shifts in priorities, revised funding structures, or new collaborations.
• Participant outcomes: How did the experience impact participants? For example, did participants feel they acquired leadership skills? Perhaps they walked away with access to more resources than before, or greater confidence in their work.
• Community outcomes: What changes did the community experience as a result of these efforts? Examine changes in community cohesion, trust in institutions, or the emergence of new community-led projects and solutions.
• Field outcomes: How was the broader philanthropic or nonprofit ecosystem influenced? Consider the adoption of similar models, policy changes, or increased dialogue around equity and inclusion.

Ultimately, continuous development is at the heart of participatory grantmaking. There’s no singular “right” way to go about this process, and no two organizations will measure success the same. 

To determine their unique indicators of success, grantmakers must have the right tools and infrastructure in place to align their grantmaking processes with the community’s needs. Along with impact reporting tools and frameworks, collaboration with impact producers is critical to driving meaningful change. 

3 Participatory Grantmaking Examples

Make It Your Own (MIYO) by the Case Foundation

The Case Foundation’s Make It Your Own (MIYO) grant program is heralded as one of the first attempts at national participatory grantmaking. The program encouraged individuals from around the country to set grant guidelines, review proposals, and vote on which proposals should receive funding. Out of 4,641 total applications, 20 grant winners were selected through a voting process led by civic engagement leaders and the general public. 

Winners received:

• Innovative technology tools that helped them share project ideas with others and raise money online
• $100 to jumpstart their online fundraising campaign
• A $10,000 grant to help make their idea a reality 
• An opportunity to meet in person with other finalists, share ideas, and learn new skills to help implement projects

Two years after the grants were awarded, 80% of MIYO grantees were still highly

engaged with their projects and said that they planned to continue to build on them. Their projects achieved several markers of citizen-centered work, including better collaborations with community partners and a focus on longer-term cultural change.

Building Local Alignment (BLA) by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF’s) Building Local Alignment (BLA) initiative was designed to advance racial and health equity by empowering community members to act as equal partners in systems-level change. After a two-year process of recruiting Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) members and reviewing request for information (RFI) responses, the committee chose three grantees to start work on designing their own participatory grantmaking processes.

After grantees were chosen, GAC members reflected on the process and concluded that effective participatory grantmaking must account for a few key considerations:

• Build ample time into the process. Bringing together community members from diverse backgrounds and perspectives means accommodating the time needed for members to get acquainted, develop their processes, and address any issues.
• Invest in the infrastructure to support a successful process. Assistance from foundation staff, experts, and consultants equips community members to make informed decisions without removing their decision-making power.
• Create clear expectations for participant engagement. The way committee members participate greatly impacts which voices and lived experiences you amplify during the grantmaking process. Setting standards to maximize engagement from as many participants as possible ensures fair representation.

In the end, the BLA initiative revealed a pressing need for flexibility in participatory grantmaking approaches. As RWJF’s case study on the initiative points out, “participatory grantmaking is a multifaceted, iterative, nuanced process…every group will tackle it in different ways with different results.”

The Indigenous Tomorrows Fund (ITF) by Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP)

Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP) has a long history of participatory grantmaking efforts, but its new model, The Indigenous Tomorrows Fund (ITF), places special emphasis on engaging young decision-makers. By transferring decision-making authority to young leaders (ages 14-24), the ITF initiative aims to support projects that strengthen community well-being and cultural continuity from the perspectives of those who understand their communities’ nuanced needs the most.

The ITF will:

• Launch a diverse advisory committee
• Provide participatory grantmaking training to youth grant reviewers and decision-makers
• Award 24 grants of $30,000 to nonprofit organizations, schools, and Tribes
• Develop an evaluation framework and document learnings
• Expand over the course of the next five years to continue funding solutions

NAP’s approach does more than enable community members to make decisions—it equips them to do so through committee training, flexible outcome measurement, and a long-term, cyclical plan.

Wrapping Up

Participatory grantmaking offers a clear path toward more equitable and impactful giving. By inviting those most affected by funding decisions to share power and shape outcomes, grantmakers unlock both deeper trust and longer-lasting change.

This powerful approach to listening, learning from, and leading alongside the communities at the heart of philanthropic work presents an urgent opportunity to pursue collaborative grantmaking approaches. When nonprofits and grantmakers commit to learning from each other and from the communities they serve, they’ll rebalance the equation of power in service of the greater good.

Want to keep learning about community-centered impact? Check out these additional resources:

• How to Measure Social Impact Like a Pro: A Full Guide
• Social Return on Investment (SROI): Measure the Intangible
• Trust-Based Philanthropy: A Guide for Impact-Minded Orgs