Participatory grantmaking (PGM) is gaining prominence as a transformative approach that directly involves communities in decision-making about funding and grantmaking. PGM also has applications in building a culture of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) at the team and organisation level by turning ideals into actionable practices. By shifting power from traditional donors to the communities themselves, PGM supports more equitable systems and enables marginalised groups to play a central role in shaping decisions that impact them.

Shifting Power towards Justice

At the heart of both PGM and JEDI principles is a commitment to redistributing power. In traditional grantmaking, power lies predominantly with funders, often based outside the areas where they fund, who set priorities and make decisions about where money goes. This reinforces a dynamic where certain groups, often those with more resources or connections, continue to have their voices valued and elevated, while marginalised communities remain dependent on others to address their needs and to speak on their behalf.

PGM directly challenges this structure by transferring decision-making authority to the people most affected by the grants. This is a powerful act of restorative justice, since people with both lived and technical expertise, who experience and deeply understand the systemic inequities the projects will address, are the ones determining where resources should be directed. PGM also leaves a lot of room for the type of grants and funding support to be co-designed: meaning that there’s room for organisational development support as well as project-based support to be made available.

Organisations that embrace PGM properly, like my past client the Fund for Global Human Rights, are taking meaningful steps towards improving their practices, and dismantling the paternalism inherent in traditional philanthropy.

Embedding Equity

Instead of assuming that external people including those on your organisation know what’s best for a community (which may or may not be true), participatory processes value local knowledge and lived experience.

This starts at the design stage, with communities defining their issues and proposing solutions to meet them. In this way, not only is the strategy more likely to reflect reality, but it allows you to practice recentring marginalised voices, and to live the values of inclusion so often mentioned in ‘mission’ statements.

Adopting this approach can help rebalance who gets to shape the priorities and impact of funding, strategies, and grantmaking processes such as organisational assessments and grant evaluations. It also enables a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by communities, and can strengthen understanding of the spaces you fund. Involving local people in the decision-making process helps ensure that grantmaking reflects a more holistic and equitable view of social issues, rather than one defined solely by outside perspectives.

Additionally, PGM helps break down barriers that often prevent smaller, less-resourced organisations from accessing funding. There is room for others beyond formally registered NGOs to be involved, including youth groups and community organisations. By centring community members in the process, the funding system has the potential to become more inclusive, recognising the value in grassroots initiatives and locally-led solutions.

Valuing Diversity

One of the core principles of JEDI culture is diversity—not only in terms of representation, but thought, perspective, and experience. Participatory grantmaking opens the door to a diverse range of voices, especially those who are frequently excluded from decision-making processes. That can also open up decision-making to include people from communities who are often marginalised – including younger people and gender-marginalised groups. Think of the potential that this deep knowledge of your contexts can add to a funding process. PGM allows for a nuanced understanding of how a specific issue affects different groups of people, how those in turn relate to each other, and identifies avenues that a successful strategy needs to employ to address deep-seated challenges.

In a PGM framework, community members with varying lived experiences—across race, gender, class, and ability for example—are given an active role in setting priorities and determining outcomes. In a co-facilitated approach, the solutions are discussed with a view to also identifying the roles different groups should play; that is, how you as the funder may need to step in during the project period to support advocacy efforts, for example.

This room for nuance and bringing in diverse perspectives also reduces the likelihood of developing ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions that will not work for everyone serve everyone effectively. It’s not enough to just open up the spaces. PGM ensures they shape the conversations and next steps themselves.

An Ongoing Process

PGM also emphasises, similarly to JEDI, that inclusion is not a one-off event but an ongoing, evolving process. By continually centring community members in grantmaking decisions, you can demonstrate commitments to inclusion, adapt to new ideas and suggestions, and proof that recommendations have been implemented (such as changes to your grantmaking policies). It’s a dynamic way to ensure that the right voices are centred, and that the resulting solutions are practical and relevant.

Staff and leadership in particular need to be open to sharing power, stepping aside, and learning from their partners. By default this also involves a great deal of unlearning and relearning, so meaningfully engaging with PGM involves certain critical, but relatively easy, long-term commitments at the individual level first.

It can be uncomfortable to step back from decision-making roles and to innovate our processes, but is a necessary foundation to rebalance the system towards proper inclusion. It is also easier to start building towards systems shifts by examining and then addressing your individual personal and professional practices, and to evolve how your teams and organisation adapts to feedback and external input.

All of this naturally involves a culture shift within organisations, which is where a JEDI process is a useful first step.

Practical Steps

To build a JEDI culture through PGM, you will need certain processes to be in place. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Community advisory boards

Forming groups of community members, non-grantee partners, and others not directly involved in your work, to help advise on and shape grantmaking priorities. These boards should reflect a diversity of experiences and identities within the community.

Accessible decision-making structures

The process of applying for or deciding on grants is transparent and accessible to a wide range of people; this means it should be made public in a document, translate dinto relevant languages, and feedback encouraged. It should be written clearly, outlining the process to co-design the approach, make decisions, revisit them during the project, and learn from the process at the end of each grant cycle.

Ongoing reflection and adaptation

As always, make space to regularly assess the effectiveness of your approaches, identify new ideas and improvements, and make adjustments during each cycle. These should ideally be externally facilitated, so everyone feels comfortable to share their perpsectives openly. Inclusion is not static, and continuous learning and adaptation are key to ensuring the process remains equitable.