Grantmakers for Southern Progress (GSP) is a membership-based network of funders and practitioners advancing structural change in the Southern United States. We work to interrupt extractive philanthropic practices and move philanthropy to partner with and fund community-based movement organizations. We envision a region of just and thriving communities, where all people have the power and resources necessary to live whole and prosperous lives. We support efforts to build a vibrant ecosystem of organizations rooted in Black, Brown, Indigenous and directly impacted communities in the South.
Who We Are
Our Mission:
Prioritize philanthropic giving and practice in the South on equity-focused structural change. This equity centered philanthropic giving strengthens the organizational infrastructure and power building within Southern communities, increasing racial, gender, and economic outcomes for people across the South.
Our Vision:
To move people and places out of poverty by changing the underlying structures that determine the economic opportunity, social inclusion, and political power of those communities that are the least well off in the southern region of the United States.
What We Do
Provide a framework for what philanthropic engagement can look like in The South. Through learning tours, convening and digital engagement we connect funders to organizations doing grassroots organizing in The South.
Our Strategic Goals
- Increase visibility, awareness, and connection to organizations leading change work in the region through strategic communications and convenings.
- Transform and increase philanthropic giving and practices to power building, black-led, women-led, queer and trans work.
- Strengthen and increase critical infrastructure in the South by increasing the amount of funds dedicated to movement infrastructure.
- Increase intentional collaboration, alignment, and coordination of investments between Southern and National funders to accelerate equity.
- Increase capacity building opportunities within the sector to advance intersectional grant-making and grantmaking with a racial equity lens to support the transformation of Southern communities by addressing racial, gender, and economic equity.
Search your souls for the courage to grow civic and economic power in our communities now and beyond COVID-19. Use your spheres of influence to put money to work and benefit people on the Ground.
– Tamieka Mosley and Nathaniel Smith, The South Has Something to Say: COVID-19 and Our Chance for Transformation
Ignite Change With GSP
Join Our Network and Ignite Change! GSP is a membership-based network of philanthropic leaders, practitioners, and individuals dedicated to leveraging resources for structural change in the South.
Join Us
Help us affect change in the South. Our work ensures the best resources are offered to the most vulnerable and deserving communities.