Sex Worker Giving Circle

In 2024, the SWGC plans to make a total of at least $410,000 in new two-year grants of up to $35,000 per year.

All applicants must meet the following criteria to be eligible for funding:

Location: Applicants must be based in the United States and/or U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Leadership: Your work must be led by the communities you work with; only work led by and for people with current or previous sex work or sex trade experience is eligible for funding.

Budget Size:

• Grantee applicants must have a budget of less than $400,000

Tax Status:

• Applicants must be a 501(c)(3) organization, a fiscally sponsored project, or be willing to become fiscally sponsored before receiving this grant. Fiscal sponsorship is a legal arrangement where an organization that does have a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status (the “fiscal sponsor”) sponsors a project that does not (the “fiscally sponsored project”). This arrangement allows your group or project to seek grants and tax-deductible donations using your fiscal sponsor's exempt status.
• Third Wave Fund will work to support groups we recommend for funding to become fiscally sponsored as a condition of grant eligibility. For more information on fiscal sponsorship, see this article from Non-Profit Quarterly. This process takes at least 2-3 months to complete, so please be prepared to put some time and energy into finding a fiscal sponsor that is the right fit for your group.
• Projects that are entirely dedicated to political lobbying must be designated as a 501(c)(4).

• Gender Justice Focus: Applicants specifically work toward gender justice that addresses patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, gender inequity, and/or gender-based violence as well as the ways that gender oppression intersects with racism, ableism, classism, and criminalization. Information on Third Wave’s gender justice framework can be found here.
• Vision & Strategies: Applicants have a strong vision for themselves and the future and operate with a root cause analysis of oppression that goes beyond the achievement of legal rights and legislative policies. A range of strategies are used to build community power to achieve structural change.
• Leadership: Applicants are led by and accountable to the communities they work with and work to develop leadership within those communities. We will prioritize groups led by people most impacted by oppression with the least access to funding.‍
• Potential for Impact & Growth: Applicants demonstrate a vision for long-term growth and impact and demonstrate how they stand to significantly benefit from funding.

The SWGC supports a diverse range of types of groups and projects as well as programmatic strategies and capacity-building efforts such as training, coaching, or other professional development.

This fund is interested in supporting work done by and for sex worker communities most impacted by oppression and who have the least access to funding. We will prioritize diverse strategies led by and for undocumented people, refugees, migrants, self-identified trafficking survivors, transgender women of color, Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color, young people, elders, disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent people, and people with mental health issues, outdoor/street-based sex workers and people in the sex trade, currently or formerly incarcerated people, people living with HIV/AIDS, survivors of coercion and abuse, substance users and people who use substances, especially criminalized substance users, and houseless and housing insecure people.

This project will not fund capital campaigns or direct services such as case management or traditional healthcare services. In addition, we will not fund any organizational work that views all sex work or sex trade involvement as coercion or trafficking. We will not fund any work that contributes to the criminalization of sex workers or people in the sex trade.

Over twenty years of funding sex worker-led organizing has taught us that sex workers are best positioned to transform the oppressive conditions that affect their own lives. However, sex worker-led movements remain critically under-resourced. At a time of mounting political attacks against sex workers, we created the SWGC as a space for sex workers to strengthen their relationships, engage in grantmaking, and bring their voices and leadership into philanthropy.

A giving circle is a group of people that come together to pool and raise money in support of a cause. Under the leadership of current and former sex workers, we launched a cross-class, multi-racial, intergenerational giving circle for women, queer, and trans folks with current or past experience in the sex trade.

The 2024 Fellowship application cycle is now closed. Please check back in early 2025 for information on the next Fellowship cycle.

​The 2024 grant application cycle opens Monday, March 11, 2024. Stay tuned for our Informational Webinar, Thursday, March 14th to learn more about the grant application process.

Yes! We count on community support to make this work happen. You can donate here and ​please contact us at fundraising@thirdwavefund.org with any questions!

Great! We created this report, Creating Community is a Threat to Power: Three Years of Resourcing Revolution and Liberation at the Sex Worker Giving Circle to share some of the brilliance of our SWGC, and to document the SWGC’s model of participatory sex worker grantmaking along the way.