GMA Funder Community’s short-term pooled giving and learning experience accepts grants from donors eager to identify and fund community-driven solutions to a large-scale problem affecting people across the country. Following focused learning sessions with experts, participants meet with prospective grantees and then decide together how to allocate the Fund’s dollars.
These participant-driven funds take place once a year and have addressed issues like Trauma and Resilience, Responses to the Opioid Crisis, and Environmental Justice. We welcome recommendations for prospective focus areas. Find links at the bottom of this page to read about past funds.
2027 Food Access Fund
The GMA Funder Community has launched its 8th annual pooled giving and learning experience, this time focused on food insecurity and food access in Eastern Massachusetts.
Federal nutrition programs like SNAP and WIC are under significant pressure, and the impact is already visible across the Commonwealth. In Suffolk County, roughly one in two households now experiences food insecurity, with rates even higher among families with children.
While food insecurity is a complex, systems level challenge, the Food Access Fund will focus on the role philanthropy can play in protecting existing supports, bridging gaps left by federal cuts, and accelerating community led solutions, particularly those led by the organizations closest to the problem.
Through four curated learning sessions beginning in January, participants will hear directly from local leaders working across the full continuum of the issue, from crisis response and food access to innovative interventions like food as medicine, and the systems change, advocacy, and policy work needed for lasting impact. The program culminates in a collaborative grantmaking process, with funder participants making grant decisions alongside their peers.
Food access touches nearly every dimension of well-being in the Commonwealth. The Funder Community experience promises to be eye opening and energizing, offering practical insight into how small-scale philanthropy can drive lasting change for the communities most affected.
To learn more about the GMA Funder Community, contact Director of Grantmaking Rachel Rifkin by phone at 617-391-3097 or by email at rrifkin@gmafoundations.com.
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Read about earlier funds launched by GMA:
2026 Housing Solutions Fund
2025 Fund for Young Adults – Guaranteed Income in Workforce Development
2023-24 Fund for Young Adults
2022 Child Behavioral Health Fund
2021 Environmental Justice Fund
2020 Opioid Response Fund
2019 Trauma and Resilience Fund