Are you curious how participatory funding could work in your organization? We offer consultations with grantmakers and administrators, presentations for groups and associations, and more robust services like process design and facilitation. Depending on scope and location, there may be a fee for these services.
Participatory funding puts impacted communities at the center of funding decisions
Participatory funding is the process of individuals working together to determine how grants, public budgets, and philanthropic gifts are distributed in their communities.
Instead of a top-down model telling communities where to distribute money, a participatory funding and grant-making model supports community leadership in making decisions about resources available where they live and work.
The result is increased community engagement and participation in the funding process.
Putting participatory funding into practice
Educators at the University of Minnesota Extension have worked with public and private funders to help facilitate participatory funding in a variety of ways:
- Helping leaders from Goodhue, Crow Wing, and other counties across Minnesota engage with community members impacted by the opioid crisis to determine how to allocate opioid settlement funding.
- Partnering with Capital Impact partners to design and facilitate the Catalytic Investment Awards from the $250,00 Michigan Good Food Fund.
- Facilitating Action Learning Seed Fund shared gifting circles across the state of Minnesota in partnership with food system and public health funders to advance equity-based food system work.
- Educating regional and national organizations about how to use participatory funding models and work with food policy councils.
- Training individuals and groups on how to secure grants for community impact and why participatory funding matters.
- Sharing tips and techniques through practice-based scholarship.
“I believe as champions of equity, there is no better way to give grants. I also might go so far as to say we shouldn’t do anything except this process as equity demands that we empower the grantees, rather than keep the power for ourselves. I received so much positive feedback from grantees, which is unheard of with any other grantmaking process ... I’m entirely sold on participatory grantmaking and am advocating for it every chance I can!”
— Alicia Belay, Assistant Director of the Community Engagement Unit at the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services
Incorporate participatory funding into your work
Contact Noelle Harden
Reviewed in 2026