Frontline communities aren't waiting to be asked how to fix a broken world. They're already doing it. Having lived through the realities of the climate and biodiversity crises, they hold vital knowledge about what a sustainable, just future can look like. For decades, feminist, intergenerational, and community-led funds and alliances have backed these communities to lead the way.
At WINGS Forum 2026, we joined different philanthropic actors and ecosystem builders to explore a critical question: what can philanthropy learn from trusting communities to lead, at a moment when the world can't afford anything less than systemic change? We also considered how these ideas can contribute to wider shifts across the funding ecosystem.
At the forum, we teamed up with Alianza LatinoAmericana de Fondos de Mujeres y Feministas de América Latina y el Caribe, FES (Finance Engage Sustain | Financer Engager Soutenir), and Global Fund for Children for Funding from the Frontlines: What Community-Led Funds Are Teaching Philanthropy. The session created space for an interactive conversation around flexible resourcing, ecosystem support, and sharing decision-making power, against the backdrop of a rapidly shifting funding landscape.
If you joined us at WINGS Forum, thank you for thinking out loud with us. We were glad to be part of a conversation bringing different perspectives into the room and exploring what more community-led approaches to philanthropy can make possible.
Learn more: www.wingsforum.org
About WINGS Forum: WINGS Forum brings together philanthropy leaders, professionals, networks, experts, and changemakers from around the world, gathering roughly 400 people in Montreal for its eighth edition. This year's theme, ACT: Activate, Collaborate, Transcend, pushes past dialogue toward practical, collective action.