Last month Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism and Urgent Action Fund-Asia and the Pacific launched a report detailing how and why we created the latter, as a step towards further decentralising and decolonising philanthropy. Serving as inspiration for other philanthropic organisations, the story of UAF A&P’s creation offers one model for how this transformation can happen.
While not providing an exact blueprint, our learnings demonstrate that even in times of crisis—especially in times of crisis—the path forward lies in sharing power.
Based on nearly 30 years of supporting community-based feminist organisations around the world, we at Urgent Action Sister Funds know that grassroots feminist organisations are on the frontlines of addressing crises.
Because of their deep roots in community and intersectional practices, feminist organisations are best positioned to address the needs of the most marginalised people. They are the ones delivering humanitarian aid when formal systems fail, and providing spaces for collective care and healing after the peak moments of crisis pass.
And yet, by the end of 2025, half of women’s rights organisations are in danger of shutting down due to funding cuts.
What has UAF-A&P delivered so far?
In 2017, we launched Urgent Action Fund- Asia and the Pacific, the youngest of the Urgent Action Funds after our sister funds in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Since its founding in January 2018 to the end of September 2025, UAF A&P has provided 2,711 grants worth $12,014,837 to activists and defenders in 39 countries, supporting some of the most critical efforts for equity and justice in the regions.
In 2024, 69 percent of Urgent Action Fund-Asia and the Pacific’s grant applicants reported life-threatening attacks.
UAF-A&P accepts applications for funding in any language and responds rapidly: applicants receive a response within 72 hours. If approved, their grant is delivered in 10-15 days.
The fund’s grantee partners have included women’s rights activists from Afghanistan escaping the Taliban, and pro-democracy defenders from Myanmar resisting the military coup.
Others have included climate justice activists driving efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change via coastline rehabilitation (e.g., mangrove and coral planting). These feminists are leading long-term disaster preparedness in small Pacific Island nations experiencing coastal erosion, while others are resisting mining corporations in Southeast Asia.
The process
The idea behind this latest regional fund was to move power back into the hands of activists and movements in the regions. To lay the foundation for UAF-A&P, we consulted 163 local activists. These activists not only identified the systems they needed to continue to deliver their vital work, but they also contributed to a broader analysis of the state of women’s rights across the region.
Since then, we have woven community and activist wisdom, strategy, and knowledge into every aspect of our work – engaging a network of more than 100 advisors to ensure our grantmaking processes are led by frontline voices.
Input from activists on the ground determined the Fund’s intentional focus on Asia and the Pacific as distinct regions with unique and diverse contexts and movements. Critically, this led to the Fund being named ‘Asia and the Pacific,’ rather than the more common ‘Asia-Pacific’ – a distinction that has intentionally placed the Pacific on the philanthropic map, where currently less than 1 per-cent of grant funding is directed to women’s organisations.
How we decolonise philanthropy through regionalisation
The traditional philanthropic model has failed grassroots movements and will not be able to address their needs in this moment of urgency. Because it’s centralised, expert-driven, risk-averse, traditional philanthropy is particularly vulnerable to the kind of systemic shocks we’re experiencing now.
Traditional donors often centre funder priorities over community needs, favour large organisations with administrative capacity over nascent, agile, and small groups, and burden small organisations with rigid application and reporting requirements.
They also rarely fund individual activists or unregistered groups, who are sometimes the only ones responding to crises at the local level. Regional funds are closer to the ground, more nimble in response to changing conditions, and more deeply rooted in and accountable to the communities they serve. They already know and are supporting those at the frontlines.
The stakes of these differences are extraordinarily high. This rootedness and building of mutual trust with activists and movements is especially essential in an era of increased and intensified reprisals against activists.
In 2024, for example, 69 percent of Urgent Action Fund-Asia and the Pacific’s grant applicants reported life-threatening attacks, including torture, forced disappearance, rape, sexual assault and abuse, domestic violence, and excessive use of force.
61 percent of applications reported violations of the right to liberty, such as arbitrary arrest and detention or kidnapping and a further 73 percent of applicants reported facing threats, including harassment, hate speech, and stigmatisation.
It’s because of the Fund’s deep roots and networks of trust that activists sought its support in moments of crisis and persecution.
This is decolonising philanthropy in action. When we move decision-making power to the communities we serve, we create more responsive, adaptive, and sustainable systems.
No magic bullet
In the words of Octavia Butler, ‘there’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead, there are thousands of answers—at least.’At least one key element of the solution lies in investing – with trust, speed and abundance – in frontline feminist organisations around the world.
Decolonising philanthropy might not feel urgent or relevant in this moment of heightened crisis, but now is exactly the time to invest in shifting power to frontline feminist organisations.
The wisdom, skills, and relationships needed to address today’s challenges already exist within our communities—they just need resources and power to flourish. This is exactly what it will take to build the kind of robust, movement-led systems that can weather the storms ahead and emerge stronger on the other side.
Vinita Sahasranaman and Virisila Buadromo are the Co Leads of Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights, Asia & Pacific. Kate Kroeger is the Executive Director of Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism.
**This article was first published in Alliance Magazine on December 22, 2025.**
