Redirecting Capital and Resourcing Frontline Communities
We partner with foundations, funders and investors to shift power and resources to grassroots organizations and social movements.
We recognize philanthropy and wealth accumulation as a direct result of systems of exploitation of people and planet, so we support capital holders to leverage grantmaking, investments and active ownership / shareholder approaches to play their role in a just transition from racial capitalism to the solidarity economy / economic democracy future.
We connect frontlines with funders.
We’re building a solidarity economy in our local ecosystem.
Solidarity Economy Initiative
Solidarity Economy Initiative is a project of Massachusetts-based social movement groups that are building new structures (land, housing, workplace, finance) with and governed by community members, as a symbiotic strategy with their resistance work. SEI funds "Just Transition" projects through the Solidarity Economy Fund, a pooled grant-making vehicle governed by SEI's grassroots leaders. After 10 years of deep work with a few leading grassroots organizations, in 2025, SEI is transitioning to an annual cohort structure; stay tuned on how to apply!
Solidarity Philanthropy Learning Circle
Solidarity Philanthropy Learning Circle is a parallel program to SEI, providing a year long cohort for New England based foundations, institutions and individual funders to engage in praxis together, both learning about foundational concepts and living into practices of Solidarity Economy and Just Transition. The program is guided by CED’s Social Movement Investing report, and includes opportunities for participants to resource the SEI Fund, build relationships with grassroots organizations, and work on shared projects together that utilize grantmaking, investments and other levers of power to strengthen the Solidarity Economy ecosystem regionally.
We mobilize resources and redirect capital.
This work grows and strengthens social movements to advance the goals of frontline communities.
Social Movement Investing
Social Movement Investing operates in partnership with aligned investors, wealth managers, community organizers and others, to accelerate the democratization of wealth from the gated hands of the 1% into the workers and communities who created it. We believe that deep, sustainable change can only occur when oppressed communities themselves are involved in stewarding the capital necessary to design, own and govern the systemic solutions to their problems.
Movement Finance Forum
The Movement Finance Forum, launching in late 2024, is designed to grow community power through movement aligned capital strategies. CED will anchor a national “network of networks,” bringing together frontline organizing groups, progressive asset owners, and other capital strategies practitioners. MFF is designed to provide ongoing infrastructure, offer year round learning opportunities, access to an online resource portal and an annual in-person convening to enable strategic coordination and experimentation across members.
We offer movement infrastructure support.
This includes popular education, technical assistance, fiscal sponsorship, and other organizational capacity for aligned projects.
Fiscal Sponsorship
CED provides fiscal sponsorship and incubation for local mission-related projects. Through providing administrative infrastructure to support the development of aligned projects, we model transformation locally and build the foundation for systemic change. Some of our fiscally sponsored projects include the Center for Cooperative Development and Solidarity (CCDS) in East Boston and the Boston Jobs Coalition.
Community Movement Commons
Community Movement Commons brings Boston-based organizers, movement workers, community members, midwives, and healers together to host programs and spaces that heal individuals and the environment. CED is one of the core partners anchoring CMC, along with Neighborhood Birth Center, Resist, Movement Sustainability Commons, and Sisters Unchained, with hopes to bring more grassroots organizations into building this liberatory space together.
