Previously, Kaylyn led fundraising for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Care in Action and also served at the Fund for Global Human Rights, an intermediary grantmaker created to pool funding to invest in grassroots human rights activists around the world. 

“Although we have seen many donors pull back in the face of fear and anti-democratic attacks, we’re also seeing brave donors double down, asking how they can show up with greater courage and solidarity. That’s why we are so excited to have Kaylyn join WDN and WDA, where she will drive a bold fundraising and community development strategy rooted in justice,” said Leena Barakat, President & CEO of WDN and WDA.

“I’m coming into this role at a moment that feels both urgent and full of possibility. Our movements are pulled in so many directions all at once: simultaneously playing defense against the unraveling of hard-won gains for gender, racial, and climate justice; fighting to protect the most vulnerable, and still visioning and planting seeds for the just future we know is possible,” said Kvochak. “This community has consistently modeled that second path. I’m honored to be joining the powerful team at WDN and WDA and to build on the 30+ year legacy of this network. It’s clear that this is a network that always steps up—moving with clarity, grounded in values, and committed to collective action in the most challenging moments.”

Resourcing movements has been the driving force of Kaylyn’s career where she worked to engage donors as long-term partners in building power. With Kaylyn on the team, WDN and WDA are prepared to move more resources in alignment with evolving movement needs and to support the leadership of the network’s donor organizers who use their expertise, skills, and connections to protect and advance democracy. 

The group toured three of The Guild’s properties being developed in the Capitol View and West End neighborhoods. Once thriving predominantly Black communities, these neighborhoods have been impacted by rapid development and “buy and hold” real estate purchases. The Guild is working at a variety of intersections to keep community ownership at the center of community development. They shared about their key initiatives:

• Community Stewardship Trust (CST) – Gives local residents the opportunity to co-own community spaces like grocery stores and childcare centers, stabilizing resources in these neighborhoods and reducing displacement.
• People’s Community Land Trust (PCLT) – Removes homes from the speculative market to create permanently affordable housing for under-resourced Atlantans.
• Groundcover Fund – This is a solidarity investment fund that directs reparative capital into cooperative and community-ownership models.

Members toured a grocery store space that will be partially supported by local farms and gardens. This store will also include three fully-equipped spaces for independently-run food businesses. Finally, members visited The MURPH (Multi-Use Radical People’s Hall), a 10,000 square foot space in the West End designed as an affordable gathering and work hub for community organizing. 

Beth Levine, one of the leaders of Beyond Capitalism, said: “The most exciting part was seeing how Nikishka and her team have created innovative models that allow a solidarity economy project to survive within a capitalist framework. Every aspect of the design, economically and architecturally, is responsive to community needs because they include the community. It was beyond inspiring to see the outcomes of their efforts—affordable housing, community space, grocery store and restaurants in a food desert. I left the tour feeling hopeful and energized about the possibilities beyond capitalism.”

Importantly, this rebrand puts our two organizations on more equal footing. Women Donors Network remains the name of our 501(c)(3). But the name of our 501(c)(4) political and advocacy arm is shifting slightly to Women Donors Action, giving the two organizational names equal weight to reflect their equal importance.

Our new logos feature a shared monogram that reinforces the relationship between Women Donors Network and Women Donors Action. While each organization maintains its own identity through distinct colors, the new monogram visually reflects the synergy between them.

In our new visual identity, you’ll find woven patterns symbolizing connection, plus beautiful imagery that centers our members in action. Bold typography reflecting the weight and urgency of our work pairs with a more delicate font, symbolizing both strength and care. And our new color palettes are anchored in deep green for Women Donors Action and dark blue for Women Donors Network, with pop colors to add energy and emphasis.

Even the small touches have meaning. Constellation motifs reflect how individual points of light connect to form something larger and more powerful. Layered textures and a subtle grit in our photography ground the visuals in authenticity and action.

We hope you’ll spend some time checking out our new websites for both Women Donors Network and Women Donors Action—and share them with someone who might be looking for a place to belong.

At its core, participatory grantmaking (PGM) shifts decision-making power from traditional grantmakers to the communities most impacted by injustice. PGM promotes a more effective, transparent, and equitable grantmaking approach by ensuring that funding priorities align with the actual needs of communities. 

In many ways, PGM reflects the core values already in operation here at WDN, and it has the potential to transform our work even more. That’s why two of our member-involved grantmaking steering committees are adopting PGM models to fortify movements for the challenges—and celebrations—that lie ahead.

Members of the Jean Hardisty Initiative and the Safe & Sustainable Future for All Impact Collective Steering Committees spent the summer gathering input from grantee partners on the benefits and challenges of moving to a PGM model. Throughout our conversations, a central tension emerged: how to balance WDN’s accountability as a funder with a genuine commitment to community-led decision making. However, our partners urged us to own our power as donor activists, trusting that we are uniquely able to create a space for them to lead, grow, and lean into their experience. 

Members and grantees agree that PGM can create… 

• A dynamic where donors and community leaders meet in mutuality, dignity, and respect, with a shared understanding of power and what each party brings to the table. 
• An accountable, brave space where all can acknowledge and learn from past harms or negative experiences to build a better future. 
• The opportunity to prioritize deep accountability and lived experience over professional credentials. 

But participatory models aren’t without challenges… 

• It can be more labor-intensive, even though giving and processing feedback is critical to maintaining a more equitable power dynamic. 
• Donor activists need intentional structure, context, and political education to effectively engage in the work. 
• Parties need an established structure to manage conflict, inevitable in group dynamics, with clear boundaries and guardrails.

PGM works best when it’s grounded in clarity, trust, and collective accountability. By valuing all voices—from our members to movement partners—we are already defying traditional philanthropy by building power with, not power over. We are grateful to our steering committee members for their participation in the summer listening sessions and look forward to sharing additional updates. So much of this work is grounded in the philosophies the late Jean Hardisty brought to WDN. As she wrote in Mobilizing Resentment, “After decades of claiming to speak for oppressed people of all races and ethnicities, the progressive movement must now learn to look to the same people for leadership.”

The IMPACT Awards recognize philanthropy’s best actors who are boldly rising to meet the moment and serve the common good. This honor is an acknowledgment of WDN’s leadership within the philanthropic sector—particularly in our role as co-conveners of the Block & Build Funder Coalition—and in how we continue to boldly resource movements for justice. 

“The Committee chose Women Donors Network for their extraordinary work to help donors and foundations respond to this challenging environment, particularly their leadership, with Solidaire, of the Block and Build Funder Coalition,” said NCRP President & CEO Aaron Dorfman.

“We are deeply honored to receive this for Bold Peer Organizing,” said President and CEO Leena Barakat. “Moving in solidarity alongside movement is a core value of our work at WDN and WDN Action. It is especially necessary at a time when philanthropy must choose courage over comfort, to protect and advance the liberated future we all deserve.”

This award is a collective win in every way. All of the work we do—from the money we move to the influence we have with our peers in philanthropy—is part of our collective story and yet another example of what can happen when we channel our collective power and resources in solidarity with movements. 

In a recent webinar co-hosted by WDN, Diala Khalil of the Center for Constitutional Rights spotlighted the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist whose detention exemplifies how immigration enforcement is being weaponized to punish political dissent. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund called this an “emergency unlike anything in our lifetimes,” noting that democratic safeguards are being stripped away under the guise of combating antisemitism and ensuring public safety.

The concerning pattern of tactics used to stifle dissent looks like:

• Targeting non-citizen activists for deportation
• Fast-tracking relocations to jurisdictions favorable to the government
• Misusing immigration law to criminalize political speech
• Passing legislation to expand protest-related criminal charges

We also know that the work is outpacing resources. The message to philanthropy remains direct: this moment requires immediate, flexible, and sustained investment in legal defense, movement infrastructure, and long-term organizing. In the words of Rana Elmir of RISE Together Fund, “Philanthropy must expand, be uncomfortable, and stand in solidarity with those defending fundamental rights.”

2025 was more than a call to support one movement or one case. It’s a wake-up call to all who believe in democracy. The tools being used today to target Palestinian solidarity activists are poised to be used against racial justice organizers, environmental defenders, reproductive rights advocates, and more. The path forward demands collective action, strategic resistance, and unwavering solidarity. Philanthropy has a vital role to play—and the time to act is now.

The ABC Fund was designed for this moment of vulnerability and uncertainty. Our model—which moves money rapidly, and allows movement leaders to direct the flow of money—ensures that our grantmaking is risk-tolerant, consistently current, and adaptive to changing policies. Our work will not just continue, it will grow. 

To help make sense of the headlines, here’s how ABC Fund grantees are responding:

“Arrest warrant issued for New York doctor indicted in Louisiana for prescribing abortion pill”

Background: This case is a politically-motivated attack on New York provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter, who was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury for prescribing medication abortion to a teenager in Louisiana—despite practicing under the legal guidelines of the New York shield law. (Gov. Hochul has said repeatedly that New York’s shield law will stand and that she will not extradite Dr. Carpenter, providing an example for other blue-state governors trying to protect people and care providers through shield laws and other measures.

ABC Fund’s Role: Funding bold and innovative work is a key strategy for ABC Fund, and this includes efforts that expand, protect, and utilize shield laws. We are in solidarity with Dr. Carpenter, her fellow shield law providers, and our grantees in this space, and we extend our gratitude to them for their incredible commitment to abortion access and reproductive rights. 

“People are flocking out-of-state for abortion care. Clinics are fighting to keep up” 

Background: While most abortion seekers in banned states are treated via shield law telehealth provision, many still need in-clinic care. Thus, many clinics in states that still allow abortion have had to increase hours, staffing, and practical support for patients traveling across state lines. Likewise, abortion funds that help cover costs of seeking treatment have seen a tremendous increase as they need to not only cover the cost of an appointment, but also airplane fares, bus tickets, hotel rooms, and other expenses.

ABC Fund’s Role: The ABC Fund has always prioritized ensuring abortion clinics have the resources they need to care for their patients, and that patients have the sources they need to access care. In our grantmaking, our first question is always: will this help more people directly access the abortions they need? We’re committed to making sure patients can get to clinics, and that clinics can keep up.

“Trump administration drops lawsuit seeking to ensure abortion access in emergency rooms”

Background: In 2020, Idaho legislators passed a trigger law saying that abortion was not allowed, even in cases of medical emergency. In 2024, the Biden administration sued the state of Idaho, saying this was a violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, otherwise known as EMTALA, which became federal law in 1986. The Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Idaho law during the lawsuit, effectively allowing emergency abortions in Idaho (and other states with severe bans) to continue. The Trump administration dropped the lawsuit, effectively signaling that the federal government will no longer protect access to life-saving abortion care under EMTALA. 

ABC Fund’s Role: While this move leaves an enormous gap in our health care infrastructure, we know we need to ensure that abortion seekers, regardless of where they live, can continue to obtain safe, medically accurate, and proximate care. ABC Fund proudly supports grantees who are building alternative systems and resources on which people experiencing miscarriage or seeking abortion can rely—whether they need medication abortion, emergency care, medical information, miscarriage, or post-abortion support. With so much at stake, ABC Fund is committed to remaining vigilant, informed, and steady as we continue our work of supporting frontline organizations. 

We know that organizations will continue to need a committed and forward-thinking partner like the ABC Fund to support experimentation, risk-taking, and innovation. Learn more about the how to support our work at the ABC Fund.

We cannot repeat the same harmful patterns of the past and expect a different result. We must confront the necessary truth at this moment: there is no path to a future of safety and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians without accountability and an end to Israel’s occupation and apartheid system that is causing so much pain.

As decisions are being made in real-time by political leaders who are using this moment to cut off 2.2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza from food, water, fuel, and electricity, we cannot remain silent. Here in our own backyard, this relentless cycle of violence is fueling a sharp rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia, including most recently the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Chicago who was targeted for being Muslim.

At WDN, it is precisely in difficult times such as these that we transform our pain into collective action. We did so in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision in 2022. We did so in 2020 in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. We did so in 2016 in the aftermath of the U.S. election. And we do so now.

Violence only begets more violence. We are joining our leaders and partners who are calling for an immediate ceasefire and mobilizing resources to ensure they have the strength and capacity to lead the work ahead.

This is a moment that calls on our collective courage, moral consistency, and clarity. Our community is hurting, and must channel our collective voice, activism, and resources to advance freedom, safety and dignity for all people–beginning with the call for ceasefire. 

Together we are building a community rooted in love for justice and in a vision of a world where everyone can experience the safety, dignity, and freedom we all deserve.

Faced with this reality, and the inadequacy of existing strategy, the Reflective Democracy Campaign has been challenging itself to deeply examine its work and possible paths forward. Since the Campaign launched, it has produced first-of-its-kind data and analysis; changed the conventional wisdom about race, gender, and political power; established the concept of reflective democracy as a value and commonly-used framework; and incubated some of the most innovative recent democracy-building work through grants, fellowships, and projects that can fundamentally challenge the system.  

And while the team is continuing to build on the foundation they’ve built, simply continuing to do the same things they’ve done in the past is not sufficient. The only path forward is to dive into the hardest questions, in all their messiness and uncertainty.  

That’s why the Reflective Democracy team has embarked on a wide-ranging process of exploration, research, and discovery. To facilitate this process, they are centering their work around a vehicle for experimentation and growth: the Reflective Democracy Lab. The Lab is a new arm of the Campaign that continues the Campaign’s rich history of developing bold new insights and strategies and meets the profound challenges of our moment with approaches that are more explicitly experimental, assumption-challenging, and category-busting.

The work of the Lab—and the Campaign more broadly—is based on a set of foundational beliefs, including:

• We are at a remarkable historical juncture, in which the old institutions and norms are collapsing and new ones must be imagined and built.
• There is an urgent need for spaces of feminist analysis and action, especially in light of the powerful role of gender and sexuality in authoritarian movements.
• Ways of thinking and doing imbued with patriarchy and white supremacy got us here; those same forms, processes, and expectations are not our path to a different, liberated future.
• A truly multiracial democracy has never before been built; those of us engaged in that project are attempting something profoundly new.
• Something that has never before existed will not be brought into being with already-existing imaginative frameworks, methods, and tools.

We ask what we see differently if we:

• Understand that American democracy began in 1970, when women and people of color finally won a true right to vote, not in 1776 or 1789?
• Grapple with democracy as an emotional project – one of joy, grief, rage, belonging, fear, conflict –  as much as a technical, rational project of laws, positions, rules, and policies?
• Center creativity and creative process and look to other fields for methods, approaches, and wisdom to reimagine the work of democracy-building?
• View the challenge of building democracy in the U.S. not just as a national project, but an aspect of an international project?
• Think in terms of generations, centuries, and epochs, not years, election cycles, or even decades?

To quote Georgia O’Keeffe, “…to see takes time.” Without time, we see what we expect to see, and we do what is familiar and urgent, yet ultimately inadequate.

In order to understand what is meant by Landback, it is important to contextualize how Landback fits into a larger decolonization framework. Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explain, “When we write about decolonization, we are not offering it as a metaphor; it is not an approximation of other experiences of oppression. Decolonization is not a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools.” 

The same principle applies to Landback, in that the term is used literally to convey that physical land needs to be returned to Indigenous leaders.  

Below, WDN member Cynthia Beard shares her thoughts about philanthropy’s role in the landback movement:

When I have had conversations about Landback with others who benefit from the white supremacist system that we live in, I have found that the discussions occasionally get caught up in the logistical concerns of how we would go about transferring ownership of the land, who would manage the land, and what would happen to those who give up personal wealth and power. The good news is that we don’t have to—nor should we try to—figure this out ourselves. Movement leaders and legal experts are leading the way in navigating the “hows.” 

We also must remember that there is an internal aspect to this work. It involves healing ourselves by reconnecting with our own ancestors as well as supporting the Indigenous peoples in our communities and honoring matriarchal leadership.

There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to Landback. Rather than get immersed in the weeds, the role of funders should be focused on moving resources, listening, learning, and trusting that Indigenous communities are capable of managing the logistics in a way that will benefit us all. 

The Landback Movement is Multifaceted 

Krystal Two Bulls, has been involved in efforts to rematriate the sacred Black Hills in her role as Landback Program Director for the NDN Collective. These lands are sacred and have been desecrated by white supremacist projects, such as the carvings of Mount Rushmore, just west of the Pine Ridge Reservation that the Lakota tribe was forced onto after the broken Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. 

In 2021, Krystal Two Bulls was featured in a Teen Vogue article, where she explained, “Because once Indigenous peoples reclaim our land, once we reclaim language, once we reclaim our ability to manage the land in a way that is healthy, in a way that we understand and know, I think that is going to be the answer to a lot of these issues that we are running into.”

In other words, the goal of the Landback movement is not about ownership, but rather, about reclaiming a way of life that has been denied to Indigenous peoples through broken treaties, forced displacement, genocide, and assimilation efforts. The Ekvn-Yefolecv ecovillage is an example of how land and language are inextricably linked. The Maskoke people who live in the ecovillage in what is now called Alabama have returned to their traditional land after their ancestors were forcibly moved in the Trail of Tears, and they are now working to preserve the Maskoke language through traditional ceremonial and agricultural practices. 

On the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in eastern Montana, Krystal Two Bulls’ mother, Lynette Two Bulls, has focused her efforts on a food sovereignty program for tribal members. Her program provides educational materials for growing produce, foraging, and using Indigenous herbs and medicines for elixirs, salves, and other healing purposes. 

Meanwhile in the East Bay, Corrina Gould of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Tiny Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine are working with other Bay Area activists to build self-determined living spaces for Indigenous and Black community members who have struggled with housing insecurity due to rapidly rising rents caused in part by the tech boom. 

The Broader Context

Returning lands to Indigenous people is needed both to confront the worst impacts of catastrophic climate change and to address the wrongs of the past. This activism is having a measurable impact on tribes in North America, where government agencies have transferred management of parcels of land to tribal entities. Additionally, donors have played a role in supporting initiatives to purchase land that is now held by grassroots nonprofits and trusts. All of this is supporting the healing of those who have experienced multigenerational trauma on our collective journey to reconnect with land in a good way.

And while  WDN is focused on initiatives on Turtle Island, or North America, it is also important to recognize that rematriation is happening all over the world. Our work here at home is situated within this global context, as Indigenous peoples are advocating for dignity and self-determination everywhere.