Who gets to decide who decides? The power problem inside participatory grantmaking

Participatory grantmaking begins with a deceptively simple question: What would happen if people directly affected by funders’ decisions helped decide how resources were used?

Some foundations involve community members in setting priorities, evaluating applications, and making funding decisions. Others invite communities to shape a fund and recommend recipients while retaining final authority through an executive or board. Both may involve participation, but they distribute institutional power differently.

The Participatory Grantmaking Community (PGMC) defines participatory grantmaking as ceding funding decision-making power—including decisions about strategy and criteria—to the communities funders aim to serve. This distinction echoes Sherry Arnstein’s 1969 “Ladder of Citizen Participation,” which identified consultation as a form of participation that can give people a voice without giving them control. The central question is not simply whether communities are included, but what authority they actually hold.

NPQ has previously covered participatory grantmaking, including in Kelley Buhles’ “A Primer for Participatory Grantmaking.” This article builds on that coverage by examining how authority is distributed when communities participate in funding decisions.

Participation has levels

Participation can take place at different stages of grantmaking, and the stage at which community members enter the process matters. Jasmine McGinnis Johnson, one of the editors of Participatory Grantmaking in Philanthropy, describes participation as a process that can extend across grantmaking. Communities may help set priorities, review proposals, conduct site visits, make funding decisions, and evaluate results. As McGinnis Johnson put it, “participatory grantmaking is a process, not just the activity of making grant decisions.” She described it as an ethos that becomes institutionalized throughout an organization.

Participating in grant decisions does not necessarily mean controlling the conditions under which those decisions are made.

In a 2021 Urban Institute article discussing her qualitative study of 10 funders, McGinnis Johnson noted that nearly all the staff she interviewed, with perhaps one or two exceptions, had previously worked as community organizers. She also emphasized the importance of staff understanding and responding to the communities in which their foundations operate.

Staff can still shape the boundaries of participation. In my interview with McGinnis Johnson, she explained that decisions about which parts of the grantmaking process community members participate in are usually made by one or two foundation staff members, although some more experienced participatory grantmakers are exceptions.

The distinction matters because participating in grant decisions does not necessarily mean controlling the conditions under which those decisions are made.

Tower: Where institutional authority stops

The Peter & Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation offers a clear example of how grantmaking authority can be transferred without every institutional responsibility changing hands.

In 2019, the foundation created an advisory team of young people with intellectual disabilities. In 2021, it expanded the team to include people with lived expertise across all four of its focus areas and began redesigning the model. In 2022, the board of trustees allocated $200,000 for a fund the team would design and execute, marking its shift from an advisory role to grantmaking authority.

Megan MacDavey and Nick Randell of the foundation describe the community experts team as responsible for setting the fund’s focus, helping shape requests for proposals, reviewing applications, and making final award decisions. The board does not review or approve individual grants. For 2026, the fund has $375,000 to distribute. The board approves the annual allocation, while the team decides which eligible applicants receive funding.

Nissa Bisguier, a former team member who now manages the process, has experienced the distinction from both sides. As a participant, she reviewed applications, shared her views, voted on proposals, and negotiated priorities with other members. As manager, she aims to support the team without steering its decisions. “My goal is not to give my opinion on any of the applications,” she said. “It is really just to support the team members and provide the support they need.”

Still, final authority over grants does not mean the team determines every condition under which it makes decisions. The foundation sets geographic boundaries and limits funding to its established areas: intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, mental health challenges, and substance use disorders. The team can shape priorities within that remit, but it cannot redefine the foundation’s overall scope.

The process for setting priorities has also changed. In earlier years, team members helped develop requests for proposals from scratch, selecting themes such as peer support, leadership, or mentoring and prioritizing particular age groups. More recently, staff began with a draft informed by previous teams’ priorities.

Bisguier said this change was intended to give members more time to review applications and organizations more time to apply. Staff had also observed that successive teams often arrived at similar priorities. Members could still refine the draft, but staff had determined the starting point.

The distinction is not between staff involvement and complete staff absence. It is between supporting community members’ deliberations and steering their conclusions.

The foundation also retains authority over who joins the team. Staff contact organizations connected to the foundation’s focus areas and invite them to refer potential participants. Bisguier said that, in recent years, she has primarily handled recruitment, interviewing candidates and discussing her recommendations with Megan MacDavey and Nick Randell. Candidates must have a connection to the foundation’s geographic region and personal experience related to one of its funding areas.

Existing team members do not currently have decision-making authority over recruitment. “We haven’t had current team members have any decision-making about who got to join the team,” Bisguier said.

The foundation also shapes which applications the team initially considers. Staff screen applications for eligibility and place those that fall outside the foundation’s geographic boundaries or funding priorities in a separate folder. However, Bisguier said those applications remain accessible to team members who want to review them. Staff therefore determine the initial organization of the applications, while members retain the option to look beyond the eligible pool.

Bisguier said that she, MacDavey, and Randell try to balance providing information with avoiding undue influence over the team’s decisions. Staff sometimes have contextual knowledge about organizations and communities that they could share, she explained, but they deliberately withhold some of it so members can assess applications independently. The distinction is not between staff involvement and complete staff absence. It is between supporting community members’ deliberations and steering their conclusions.

The scoring process shows a similar balance. Earlier teams developed their own criteria. More recently, staff prepared a draft based on previous teams’ work, which members could revise. Members retained discretion over the wording and could choose their preferred scoring method, including numerical scoring or a yes-or-no system.

Bisguier also sees room for community influence to extend beyond the community experts team. She said that giving team members more information could help them participate in decisions on a broader scale.

When recommendation is not the same as authority

Tower’s model gives community members final authority over individual awards, but other foundations draw the line between community and institutional authority differently.

At iF, a Foundation for Radical Possibility, the community power grantmaking program operates in the Washington, DC, region. Community members make final grant decisions, while foundation staff serve as non-voting facilitators or administrators. The foundation sets the program’s geographic boundaries and broad priorities, but the community committee has final authority over individual awards.

Foundation North’s Pacific Youth Future Makers initiative shows a different arrangement. Between 10 and 15 young Pasifika people in South Auckland helped design the fund, define its purpose and eligibility, develop a review process, and make funding recommendations. But Foundation North’s chief executive retains final authority.

The power before the vote

These cases raise questions that comes before any grant decision: Who determines the conditions under which community members exercise authority? Who sets geographic boundaries? How much money is available? Who establishes eligibility rules, selects participants, and determines how applications are assessed?

McGinnis Johnson’s research shows how foundations can influence participation by deciding which stages of grantmaking communities enter. Tower illustrates how that influence can extend to the composition of the decision-making team, the applications considered, and the criteria used to assess them.

None of these responsibilities automatically invalidates community decision-making. Staff can provide essential expertise and administrative support. But the role they play matters because decisions made before a vote can determine which options are available when the vote takes place.

PGMC argues that meaningful power-sharing should begin earlier, with communities involved in defining problems, shaping strategy, and designing solutions. It also identifies decisions about how much money is available, how funding is divided, who receives it, and how success is measured as areas where power can be shared.

Who decides who decides?

The three cases distribute authority differently. Foundation North’s youth participants helped design a fund but could only recommend recipients. Tower’s community experts team makes final award decisions while the foundation retains control over the fund’s size, recruitment, and eligibility boundaries. At iF, community members have final authority over individual grants, with staff providing non-voting support.

Bisguier’s experience also suggests that meaningful participation is not simply about securing a preferred outcome. She recalled worrying that team members might feel dissatisfied when their preferred applicants were not selected. Some participants were disappointed, she said, but the process generally left members feeling heard because they had opportunities to express their views and make decisions together.

Moving beyond consultation requires more than inviting communities into decisions. It requires examining who sets the terms, chooses the decision-makers, controls the resources, and has the authority to change the rules.