Dear LOAMers,
Welcome to the very first Fundermental. If you are reading this, you probably spend your days translating the work of a movement into language a funder can hold. Proposals, reports, decks, the careful paragraph that has to be true to the community and legible to a program officer at the same time. This letter is for that work.
Every day, LOAM reads what the funders in its atlas publish. Their websites, their reports, their LinkedIn and Instagram posts, the carousels and the quiet blog updates. It keeps the exact sentences and links back to the original. Once a month, I sit with all of it and write to you about what I see moving. Think of it as a reading of the ecosystem, the way a friend who has been paying close attention would tell it over tea.
This first letter covers 2026 so far, January through October. I compared what funders said in the first five months of the year with what they have said since June. The shifts are real, some of them are striking, and a few of them should change how you write your next proposal.
The big picture
Local is now the consensus.
If there is one word that defines philanthropic language in 2026, it is local. Locally led development is now the single most widely shared idea across the funders LOAM follows. Twenty three of them used it this year, from feminist funds to the largest private foundations in the world. No other concept comes close in breadth.
“They understand local needs and hold the knowledge, trust, and lived experience to lead solutions that work.”
What is interesting is how differently each funder means it. For Global Fund for Women, local means feminist grassroots organisations who are first to respond when crisis hits. For the Skoll Foundation, it is an invitation to humility, investing in the people closest to the challenge. For Packard, local organisations are best placed to deliver reproductive health care that feels personal. And for Mama Cash, it comes with a condition, long-term funding for locally-led adaptation and the resources to scale it up.
Packard put the most structural version of this idea into words in July, describing what it takes to support community leaders, long-term funding and the civic infrastructure that makes collective action possible. That phrase, civic infrastructure, is worth noticing. It moves local from being a description of who does the work to a claim about what needs funding underneath it.
What this means for you
Because everyone now says local, saying it no longer differentiates things. The proposals that will stand out are the ones that make local concrete. Who decides, who holds the relationships, what knowledge sits in the community that no outside partner could bring. Show the infrastructure, not just the presence. Funders are signalling they understand the difference, so meet them there.
Climate
Climate justice is getting quieter. Adaptation and the energy transition are getting louder.
Climate and environment remains the largest single theme in the atlas, holding steady at roughly a quarter of everything funders say. But inside that steady share, the vocabulary is shifting in a way that matters.
Climate justice was the dominant climate frame in the first half of the year. Since June, its use has fallen by about a third. In its place, three more practical words are rising. Climate adaptation is now used by seventeen funders. Climate resilience by eleven. And the energy transition, almost absent in the first half of the year, has become one of the fastest growing phrases in the whole atlas.
“The energy transition is no longer a question of "if"”
ClimateWorks frames the transition as already happening. Packard points to a rapid shift to renewables across the Global South because they are cheaper and quicker to build. The Rockefeller Foundation has folded the energy transition into a big bet on good jobs, alongside the care economy, food systems and AI. And with a Super El Niño now underway, ClimateWorks is urging philanthropy to prepare for its impacts.
Justice has not disappeared though. It has moved to the funders who were always closest to movements. Mama Cash wrote in September that real climate justice depends on the leadership of the people most affected. Open Society is tracing how the demand for cobalt, lithium and rare earths, driven partly by the green transition itself, is reshaping communities where minerals are extracted. In October, it called for global leadership driven by an ethical commitment to transforming communities where resource extraction takes place.
“Gender justice, climate justice and the defense of democracy are very much interlinked.”
What this means for you
If you work on climate, you are now writing to two audiences. Large climate funders increasingly speak the language of adaptation, resilience, jobs and transition. Movement funders still speak the language of justice and leadership by affected communities. You do not need to choose. The strongest framing this year bridges them, showing that justice is how adaptation actually works. The communities taking the lead on resilience, as Packard noted in California, are the proof.
Health
Health has tripled its share of the conversation
This is the quietest big story of the year. In the first five months, health and wellbeing made up about two percent of what funders said. Since June, it is closer to eight percent. Almost four times as much. Some of this is the calendar of summits, but not all of it.
The Gates Foundation set a goal to cut stillbirths by more than half by 2045. Bloomberg Philanthropies convened public health leaders on adolescent health, food systems, overdose and violence. The Skoll Foundation highlighted how Intelehealth is reaching rural women in India who face massive hurdles to travel for care. Hewlett shared how anonymised mobile phone data is helping health officials respond to Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
And a new phrase entered the vocabulary. The Rockefeller Foundation has been building an entire narrative around food is medicine, one of the fastest risers of the year. Its Indigenous Peoples Day message put it simply.
“let’s strengthen the heart with food”
What this means for you
Health is becoming the lens through which other issues are made urgent. Climate is being framed through heat and disease. Food through nutrition. Gender through reproductive care. If your work touches wellbeing in any way, even indirectly, there is room this year to name that connection openly.
Gender and LGBTQ+ rights
A smaller share, a sharper edge
Here is the shift that worried me most. Gender and inclusion fell from about thirteen percent of funder language in the first half of the year to about seven percent since June. Nearly half. Specific phrases went quiet too. Women human rights defenders and feminist grassroots organisation, both present in spring, barely appear after June outside the feminist funds themselves.
The context for this came from the Equality Fund in June, sharing a finding that should sit with all of us.
“For the first time in the 12-year history of this report, funding for LGBTI communities has declined.”
And yet the feminist funds have not gone quiet. They have changed register. Gender is now spoken of as inseparable from democracy. Global Fund for Women joined a conversation on gender justice and democratic resilience. Mama Cash wrote that human rights are under intense pressure all around the world. Its message in August was one I keep returning to, that change grows through communities, solidarity and the determination of people working together to challenge injustice.
Meanwhile LGBTQ rights, absent from the first half of the year in the atlas, appeared in the second half through Ford, MacArthur and the Fund for Global Human Rights, with MacArthur reminding us that Pride began as, and continues to be, a movement for equality. And Co-Impact brought gender into hard public finance, celebrating 419 million Naira dedicated to gender-responsive education in Kaduna State.
What this means for you
If your work centres gender, the most resonant framing this year is not gender as a separate issue, but gender as the foundation of democratic and climate resilience. Name the connection explicitly. And if you have budget figures, public commitments or policy wins, as Co-Impact does, lead with them. In a contracting space, evidence of structural change speaks loudest.
Democracy and rights
Defending what exists is no longer enough
Rights and democracy has grown into the second largest theme of the year, rising from about thirteen to over sixteen percent. The tone is urgent. The Fund for Global Human Rights stood in solidarity with Guatemalan defenders after the assassination of an anti-corruption lawyer. Open Society has been documenting rising repression in the Sahel against lawyers, journalists and activists.
“Protecting marginalized communities depends on strong democratic values.”
What I find most interesting is the turn from defence to building. Packard quoted Sherrilyn Ifill, who believes advancing justice requires more than defending what exists. MacArthur called for resources to help build and retain a flourishing information ecosystem as newsrooms close. And legal empowerment, the idea that people themselves can use the law, has doubled in use. The Skoll Foundation celebrated community paralegals who help neighbours protect common lands and secure basic rights. Open Society highlighted its long history of strategic litigation.
What this means for you
Rights funders are looking for work that builds power, not only work that protects it. If you do legal, media or civic work, frame it as infrastructure for the future. Lawyers, paralegals, local newsrooms and civic spaces are being described as the foundations of democracy. Your work belongs in that sentence.
Technology
From responsible AI to who gets to decide
Technology and data is still one of the biggest themes, but its share has dipped, and the language has moved. Responsible AI, a favourite phrase of early 2026, is falling. AI governance, the question of who sets the rules, is now spoken by eight funders, from Gates to Mozilla.
“AI’s future cannot be written by a handful of companies and handed down to everyone else.”
The Gates Foundation noted that some of the people building the most powerful AI systems are asking whether we should slow down. Open Society named AI as a pretext for mass layoffs. Ford, through Humanity AI, opened a call for groups ensuring communities can shape how AI affects labour, education and culture. And the McGovern Foundation asked the most human question of all, whether AI will actually improve the lives of the people we know.
A new phrase also emerged in this space, feminist tech activism. Numun Fund describes itself as a feminist tech fund led by the movements it serves, and Global Fund for Women amplified its open call for multi-year, core, flexible grants across the Larger Majority World.
What this means for you
If your organisation works with technology, even only as a tool, the conversation has moved from building good technology to deciding who governs it. Communities shaping AI is now a fundable idea. Position your work as part of that shift.
Rising quietly
Five phrases to watch
These are the words that barely existed in funder language in early 2026 and are now gaining ground. Each is still small, which is exactly why they are worth noticing early.
Indigenous leadership. Used by Moore, Ford, Skoll and Synchronicity Earth, almost entirely since June.
Collective action. Eight funders now use it, from IKEA Foundation on food systems to Mama Cash on solidarity.
Community-led conservation. Spoken by five funders including the Fund for Global Human Rights, which calls grassroots activists urgent protectors of ecosystems.
Food is medicine. Rockefeller’s growing frame connecting nutrition and health.
Legal empowerment. Doubled since June, carried by Ford, Open Society, Skoll and the Fund for Global Human Rights.
And one phrase going quiet
Participatory grantmaking appeared in the first half of the year, through the Fund for Global Human Rights describing youth-led disability justice in Uganda and Mama Cash on moving grantmaking decisions back to communities. Since June, it has not appeared once in the atlas. That does not mean the practice has stopped. It does mean it is not being talked about publicly, and stories we stop telling are often the first to lose their funding.
The narrative arc
What 2026 is telling us so far
Step back and a story emerges. Philanthropy in 2026 is becoming more practical and more defensive at the same time. Practical in climate and health, where the language has moved toward adaptation, transition, systems and delivery. Defensive in rights and democracy, where the language is urgent and the stakes are named directly. In between, gender and justice frames are being folded into larger stories rather than standing alone.
Through all of it, one thread holds. Funders across every sector are saying that the people closest to the challenge should lead. IKEA Foundation put it as fighting global warming with and for the many people. The Fund for Global Human Rights wrote about how interconnected communities’ struggles for justice are.
The opportunity for movements is to hold funders to that word. They have said local. They have said leadership. They have said long-term. Our proposals and reports can quote them back, gently and precisely, and ask what it would look like to fund it fully.
Until next month
Next month I will look closer at one of these shifts, and I would love your help choosing which. Reply to this email and tell me what you are writing toward right now. Every reply reaches Team LOAM, and every letter is shaped by what you share.
With you in the work,
Suman