As a mass movement for Palestine has been sparked and invigorated across the globe, people everywhere are making common cause with the Palestinian struggle and weaving connections with other calls for liberation. The global call for ceasefire is evolving into a united demand for justice that is transcending borders, remaking the political landscape and sparking an urgent call for a new order. 

Soheir Asaad is Director of Advocacy at Rawa, a Palestinian grassroots community fund using community-led participatory grantmaking across Palestine. Since 2018, over 60 grants have been awarded to grassroots community-based initiatives. Alliance digital editor, Charlotte Kilpatrick and executive editor, Charles Keidan talked to Soheir Asaad in July to discuss how Palestinian community philanthropy is navigating a path through the Genocide in Gaza.

Some progressive groups say donor responses to their statements about the Israel-Gaza War are leading to painful choices between speaking out and preserving revenue needed to avoid layoffs and program cuts.

A group of philanthropic funders are publicly calling for an immediate ceasefire in the ongoing conflict in Gaza and are demanding unimpeded access for humanitarian aid to reach the affected population, including food, water, medicine, and fuel, to address the catastrophic situation in the region.

Dozens of major funders and funding bodies, including some of the largest US and European foundations focused on human rights – have called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In an open letter, they condemn what they describe as Israeli war crimes and collective punishment of Palestinians living in Gaza.

Funding Freedom outlines the increasingly severe attacks on organizations that support Palestinian rights and offers human rights funders a roadmap for creating the conditions to give sustainably, consistently, and without doing harm. This report calls for our philanthropic partners to meet the moment and take an ethical stand on the side of human rights.

Universities, cities, unions, philanthropy, and all institutions should withdraw their support for Israeli human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Learn how to divest and explore a key divestment list developed by the Action Center on Corporate Accountability of the American Friends Service Committee.

The Philanthropy Open Letter for Humanity and Justice calls for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine; safe, unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid; stopping US and European funding and weapons for the Israeli military; and adherence to international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Seeking to correct the increasingly common misperception that Jews in philanthropy are uniformly aligned behind the false binary of Jewish versus Palestinian safety, this open letter signed by more than 200 Jewish donors and Jews who work in philanthropy calls upon colleagues in philanthropy to cease the harmful practice of withdrawing funding for and/or delaying payments to organizations that speak up for the lives and safety of the Palestinian people.

On October 19, 2021, six prominent Palestinian organizations were labeled as so-called “terrorist organizations” by the Israeli government. This designation criminalized their work on human rights, allowing the closure of their offices, the seizure of files and equipment, and the arrest of staff members, seeking to criminalize those who fund or support them in other ways. The open letter, signed by over 175 institutions and individuals defends the rights of Palestinian civil society organizations to carry out their crucial work, grounded in the values of the freedom of speech, the power of solidarity, and the right of all people to justice and dignity.