How Philanthropy’s ‘Advocacy Penalty’ Harms Girls and Gender-Expansive Youth

Something troubling is happening to organizations supporting girls and gender-expansive youth: not only is the federal government pulling back support, but so is philanthropy.

Nearly all documented funding losses—$111 million out of $113 million, or 98 percent—hit organizations engaged in advocacy for gender equity.

Alliance for Girls (AFG) works with more than 120 member organizations serving girls and gender-expansive youth across the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County. According to our 2026 survey data, 84 percent of the 43 organizations surveyed reported losing funding in the last year. Foundation and federal sources accounted for the largest share of these losses. Additionally, 14 percent said they considered closing their doors due to funding losses.

‘Advocacy Penalty’ Against Those Fighting for Gender Equity

According to the Women’s Philanthropy Institute’s 2025 Women & Girls Index, organizations across the country that serve women, girls, and gender-expansive youth rely on government grants for about 20 percent of their total revenue—twice the rate of other nonprofits—making them especially vulnerable to the most recent ongoing wave of federal cuts.

Our data suggest that a significant amount of foundation dollars in California appears to be shifting away from organizations working to hold systems accountable for protecting the rights of girls and gender-expansive youth, including those most at risk under this current political climate.

The most striking finding is where those losses are concentrated. Nearly all documented funding losses—$111 million out of $113 million, or 98 percent—hit organizations engaged in advocacy for gender equity. Most of these organizations organize, train, and support young people and their communities as they push for policy change in ways that include testifying before school and local boards or advocating for better budget allocations for the services that matter most to them. Their work ranges from filing legal challenges to protect reproductive rights to reshaping systems that have historically failed girls and gender-expansive youth of color.

Half of these groups reported major funding cuts, and 72 percent reduced staff. The organizations hit hardest by this “advocacy penalty” are those working to defend and protect communities bearing the brunt of today’s escalating attacks on fundamental rights including reproductive healthcare, gender-affirming care, immigrant rights, and protections for LGBTQ+ youth.

Based on conversations with our member organizations and allies in California, the findings in our report are likely an undercount of the actual damage being done to the sector that serves the state’s girls and gender-expansive youth. Our data make this concrete: Advocacy organizations supporting these vulnerable youth populations in our network lost an average of $6.5 million—18 times more than non-advocacy organizations, which lost an average of $354,000 between February 2025 and February 2026.

The advocacy penalty is not just a California story. It is a national one. As Inside Philanthropy recently reported, the crisis facing organizations that serve girls and gender-expansive youth in California reflects broader national trends in funding instability for women and girls.

Instability Across Communities

Our report details how, over the past two years, the ground has shifted dramatically for girls, gender-expansive youth, and the organizations that support them. Rising racist, sexist, transphobic, and anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, combined with sudden funding cuts, have created deep instability across communities.

The strain goes beyond any one organization. Across our network, organizations are filling widening gaps in essential services like accessible healthcare, food security, and basic needs. Meanwhile, their staff runs on empty, and the need grows. The divestment continues, and the people doing the work absorb the cost.

A July 2026 report from UN Women, surveying 855 women’s organizations in humanitarian settings, found that 84 percent reported increased demand for their services since January 2025, while nearly a staggering 90 percent can no longer meet the current levels of need. Closer to home, the Women’s Funding Network’s 2025 member landscape report found nonprofit leaders feeling tired, anxious, overwhelmed, and stressed, a pattern that mirrors what AFG is documenting in California.

EmpowHer Institute (EmpowHer), a Los Angeles organization focused on leadership development and STEM opportunities for girls and gender-expansive youth of color, lost $1 million in federal, state, and corporate funding in the past year.

Rising racist, sexist, transphobic, and anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, combined with sudden funding cuts, have created deep instability across communities.

EmpowHer is finding ways to support young people by putting them in the driver’s seat, where they’re leading advocacy projects on issues important to them, presenting to peers and policymakers, and providing microgrants to the community without adult intervention. “This is helping them feel like they have more power in a situation where they have felt powerless,” said Dawn L. Brown, president and CEO of EmpowHer.

But resilience should not be mistaken for sustainability.

These types of community-based nonprofits are being asked to do more with so much less. For example, EmpowHer staff members have had family members deported while simultaneously running ICE invasion drills in the schools where they work, absorbing personal and professional trauma in real time, all while the organization froze salaries and hiring due to funding losses. They kept showing up anyway.

What we are witnessing is a broader erosion of the infrastructure supporting girls and gender-expansive youth, especially those of color. In Alameda County alone—home to cities like Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro—100% of organizations serving girls and gender-expansive youth reported being negatively impacted. These are the organizations holding communities together: serving Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth, immigrant families, trans and gender-expansive young people, and systems-impacted youth who have nowhere else to turn.

For organizations providing reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare and advocacy, the risk is even higher. With the long-term, targeted campaign to reduce sexual and reproductive health rights gaining significant wins at the hands of this administration, many organizations providing these services were forced to choose: Either stop providing many of these much-needed services—including, but not limited to, gender-affirming care and abortion—or lose all federal, and sometimes state, funding.

For those who chose to stick with their mission and continue providing services needed by some of the most vulnerable populations in our communities, the divestment was immediate. For example, one leader from a reproductive health organization, who preferred to remain anonymous, shared, “We decided that we were not going to stop doing abortion care services, which meant that we were defunded.” Unfortunately, the reduction in government funding has not been matched by a flood of philanthropic dollars for these organizations, so many have had to stop some crucial programs and advocacy, serve fewer people, or even close their doors entirely.

Why Funders Are Pulling Back from Supporting Gender Equity

One explanation could be risk aversion. It is unclear whether foundation dollars shifting away from advocacy are moving toward organizations perceived as less politically exposed—those with less contested missions or those working with less politicized populations—or whether they are simply being withdrawn from communities altogether. What is clear is that some of the organizations advocating for gender equity and the rights of girls and gender-expansive youths are being left behind.

There is, however, a bright spot. Forty-two percent of organizations surveyed in Alliance for Girls’ 2026 survey reported an increase in youth activism. As one respondent shared, “Young people are becoming more active and civically engaged…resulting in solidarity and readiness for action.” This reflects the tenacity of girls and gender-expansive youth themselves, supported by organizations that refuse to give up on them. But, again, resilience should not be mistaken for sustainability.

Now is a time when support from funders and donors can make a huge difference in the lives of girls and gender-expansive young people of color. Our report lifts up a multitude of ways for funders to step up: by moving funding to multi-year general support; providing emergency funds to groups at risk of shutting down; providing dedicated funds for resilience, coaching, and leadership support; and, last but not least, by supporting advocacy groups to keep up their fight for systemic and policy change.

For philanthropy, this is a defining test. Will funders continue to retreat to what feels safe? Or will they align their resources with the communities most impacted and invest in the advocacy, organizing, and movement-building that incorporates both a gender equity and youth lens? That is what is required to meet this moment.

Let’s work together to make sure girls and gender-expansive young people can find urgently needed support and build their power to demand and co-create a future where they, and the generations after them, can be safe, supported, and collectively strong.

Chantal Hildebrand is Executive Director of the Alliance for Girls, a network of more than 120 organizations serving more than 300,000 girls and gender-expansive youth* annually across the Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

*At Alliance for Girls, “girls and gender-expansive youth” refers to cis girls, trans girls, non-binary youth, gender non-conforming youth, gender queer youth, and any girl-identified youth.