Grantee partner Dalan Fund’s report introduced the first-ever analysis for funding in intersectional organizing across Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central and North Asia (CEECCNA), titled “Growing Against All Odds: Mapping Funding for Intersectional Organizing in the CEECCNA Regions”.  

Activists created Dalan Fund in 2023 to mobilize resources for grassroots organizers across the CEECCNA regions, where movements have been historically overlooked and underfunded from a global perspective.  

Published in July 2025, the report gave a crucial reflection on the state of social justice funding, findings relevant to funders not only locally but also across the globe. 

Gathering data from 257 organizers across 16 countries in CEECCNA, the report tracks the trends, opportunities, and challenges of funding from 2019 to 2023 for feminist, indigenous, LGBTQIA+ and other intersectional movements. 

 The report revealed the following key findings: 

• LGBTQIA+ rights, economic justice, sex workers’ rights, and Roma rights remain among the most underfunded issues.  
• The average budget for organizations was consistently between $11,000 and $30,000 from 2019 to 2023. Over the past five years, organizers in Central Asia have shown the most dramatic decline as a percentage of their budgets. 
• As of 2023, 63% of initiatives will last less than 6 months without additional funding. The funding for 2023 was barely or absolutely not enough for 70% of organisers.  
• 19% of respondents were voluntarily doing fully unpaid work, 30% could only pay 25% of their team, and only 26% had half of their work financially covered. 
• Findings show a need to uplift alternative forms of resourcing and support infrastructure, which can have add-on effects when mobilized for mutual aid or self-generated resourcing. 

With “Growing Against All Odds”, Dalan Fund aims to “demystify” the regional movements and place them into the context of global funding.   

Activists’ voices in the report gave invaluable insight into how movements adapt and resist, stated ASTRA, the Central and Eastern European Network for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (who Channel has supported previously through its Ukraine support grant to Fos Feminista). 

“Their experiences reflect the resilience and determination of civil society across the region,” ASTRA wrote. 

Funders across the world can “take lessons from the CEECCNA regions, which stand out as a roadmap of right-wing tactics and, at the same time, a case of longstanding organized resistance,” Dalan Fund states.