Philanthropy’s urgent mandate to divest from genocide, occupation, and systemic oppression is powerfully underscored by the launch of the Funding Freedom toolkit, which calls for funders to fulfill their moral responsibilities.
Philanthropy wields enormous power—rooted in vast accumulations of wealth generated by systems of inequality: colonialism, racial capitalism, and imperialism. These legacies are woven into every level of philanthropic institutions: from governance, to decision-making processes, fund disbursement, and the placement of the vast majority of assets into investment vehicles. Nearly 90% of foundation wealth sits in these investment funds, which benefit from tax-deductible status—allowing wealth to grow while avoiding contributions to public systems that sustain essential community needs.
Amid multiple genocides and compounding poly-crises, philanthropy stands at a critical juncture that calls for accountability and collective action. The urgency intensifies as a ceasefire in Palestine advances—a step that, though necessary, is the bare minimum; long overdue in the face of these horrific crimes. This moment calls for accelerating both immediate and long-term strategies that advance material solidarity with Palestine while strengthening social justice movements—working toward a world where genocides and systemic injustices are never commodified or treated as investments.
Funding Freedom’s How Philanthropy Can Divest from Genocide in Palestine and Beyond is both a toolkit and a call to action: a resource for organizing and mobilizing within institutions that claim to support justice and liberation yet sustain systems of oppression and violence through their investment practices. Every person working in or with philanthropy—donors, trustees, advisors, and staff—has a responsibility to examine where institutional money is invested, what those investments enable, and whether financial practices align with stated commitments. In the U.S. alone, foundations control an estimated $1.5–$1.64 trillion in assets—a pool of capital larger than the GDP of many countries and powerful enough to materially shape global markets.
Despite growing demands from social justice movements—especially student-led campaigns calling for ethical investments—most foundations and elite universities continue to obscure the composition of their endowments, concealing their financial entanglements in human rights abuses. The 2025 ShareAction report, Point of No Returns, shows that the world’s largest asset managers—including BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, and State Street—have failed to implement responsible investment policies, leaving trillions in philanthropic and university endowment dollars exposed to companies complicit in war, surveillance, fossil fuels, and systemic violence. These findings underscore that far from being neutral, philanthropic capital actively reinforces structures of oppression and exploitation.
The Gates Foundation (formerly Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) offers a clear example. With a $77 billion endowment, it holds massive stakes in companies directly tied to Israel’s occupation and genocide. According to its 2023 990 filings, this includes $14 billion in Microsoft, $7 million in Amazon, and $2 million in Lockheed Martin—firms repeatedly cited in UN Special Rapporteur reports for their role in supplying military technology, surveillance infrastructure, and weaponry. In total, over 18% of the Gates Foundation’s endowment—roughly $14 billion—is exposed to corporations complicit in human rights violations. This reality not only contradicts its stated mission of improving global health and equity but illustrates how philanthropy profits from the very violence it claims to oppose.
Similarly, the Wellcome Foundation, the largest foundation in the United Kingdom with an endowment of £37.6 billion, holds over £1 billion in investments directly linked to the occupation and genocide in Palestine, according to the UN Special Rapporteur’s investigation. These holdings include Amazon (£495 million), Microsoft (£483 million), and Alphabet (£448 million)—and this only reflects publicly available information. The total value of these investments far exceeds the foundation’s annual grantmaking expenditure of £1,577 million, highlighting a stark contradiction between its stated mission to improve health and save lives.
While not directly linked to the genocide and occupation in Palestine—and with very limited data available on its investments—Fidelity Charitable Fund, one of the largest donor-advised funds in the United States, demonstrates a similar pattern. Investigations show that over $1 billion is tied to the prison-industrial complex and the border detention and incarceration industry.
Divestment as a Central Demand
The financial interweaving of philanthropy with companies profiting from occupation and genocide raises urgent moral, ethical, and political questions that can no longer be deferred. Divestment isn’t simply a financial or reputational decision—it is a moral imperative with direct responsibility to all those connected and in relationship with these institutions.
Historically, divestment has been a powerful lever for social justice: from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, to climate justice campaigns, to Black liberation efforts targeting private prisons in the U.S. Yet in philanthropy, divestment has often been narrow and inconsistent—focused on isolated industries (if at all) rather than confronting the deeper reality that investment practices themselves can undermine the very missions funders claim to advance. The question remains: where is philanthropy truly directing its capital—through both endowments and grantmaking—and how do those choices impact communities and align, or fail to align, with its stated mission and the privileges of its tax-exempt status?
At its core, divestment requires tracing financial links to war, oppression, and exploitation, and using those links as leverage to isolate and withdraw support from harmful structures. Aligning philanthropic values with financial practices means refusing to allow assets—directly or indirectly—to support a global economy built on genocide, occupation, and oppression.
Organizing Tactics and Strategies for Divestment
Organizing for divestment within philanthropy requires collective, creative, and long-term approaches from inside and outside of institutions. It is about aligning values with financial practices and refusing to allow our sector’s wealth to underwrite genocide and oppression. Below are frameworks, principles, and steps to support those working inside and across philanthropy—donors, trustees, staff, advisors, and peers—as they organize for divestment from genocide and occupation in Palestine and beyond.
- Understand your Power and Responsibility: The first step is recognizing the power you already hold. Simply working in or with philanthropy—introducing yourself as part of a foundation, holding a trustee title, or managing grants—bestows institutional authority. People listen, meetings are scheduled, emails are answered, and priorities are taken seriously. This access is leverage. Organizing begins by mapping how your positionality allows you to influence decisions, access critical information, and build evidence-based cases for change. Recognizing this power transforms it into a tool for collective action.
- Build Your Base: Divestment is not about persuading a single decision-maker—it is about collective pressure. Strength lies in numbers. Fifty individuals individually contacting a CEO may be ignored; fifty acting together—or twenty donors issuing a joint statement—cannot be dismissed. Base-building can also include research, whistleblowing, and confidential documentation to reveal how endowments support harmful industries. Strong networks protect each other, amplify voices, and increase accountability.
- Connecting Struggles: Palestinian liberation is inseparable from broader fights for justice. Linking Palestine to all social justice issues and agendas—such as climate justice, racial equity, disability justice, and Indigenous sovereignty—expands solidarity and strengthens collective organizing. The ongoing genocide in Palestine worsens the climate crisis through environmental destruction, displacement, and the diversion of resources from community wellbeing toward militarization, showing how oppression in one context connects to global systems of extraction and violence. Historically, Black and Indigenous organizers have built cross-regional alliances with Palestinian movements, sharing strategies and tools for coordinated action. Yet philanthropy often isolates issues, funding in thematic siloes separately rather than supporting deep interconnections. Highlighting how philanthropic investments intersect with oppression worldwide strengthens the case for divestment, particularly when backed by evidence from UN reports or tools like the American Friends Service Committee’s screening database. Funders can use this knowledge to align endowments and grantmaking with an interconnected approach—linking Palestine to broader social justice work and divesting from harm—to ensure resources advance systemic justice rather than perpetuating oppression.
- Meeting, Gathering, and Growing: Organizing thrives when isolation is broken. Convene peers—virtually or in person—to build collective strength, foster trust, and coordinate action. Work across departments and roles to dismantle silos and establish shared commitments. Set tangible goals within your sphere of influence: introduce a divestment resolution, demand endowment transparency, or secure a policy review. Regular check-ins maintain momentum and accountability.
- Strategy and Stakeholder Mapping: Effective organizing requires identifying targets and mapping power: Who are the decision-makers? (Board chairs, investment committees, executive directors?) Who influences them? (Peer funders, grantees, external networks, staff coalitions?) Who will oppose you? (Financial managers, ideologically motivated trustees, donors invested in weapons or fossil fuels?) Targeted, informed action increases the likelihood of meaningful change.
- Practicing Hope and Solidarity: Organizing is slow, challenging, and sometimes risky. Philanthropic institutions are designed to isolate, silence, and punish dissent. Yet history shows that sustained collective action can shift even the most entrenched systems. Draw inspiration from Palestinian steadfastness (sumud) and decades-long liberation struggles worldwide. Anchor your efforts in hope, accountability, and networks such as Funding Freedom, Funders4Palestine, and Global Dev 4 Palestine.
Above all, remember: we organize not because it is easy, but because it is necessary. Philanthropy’s responsibility to divest from genocide in Palestine—and from all structures of oppression—is urgent, non-negotiable, and central to the sector’s ethical mandate.
Learn more: divestgenocide.org
