Funding the Future of Care: How Donor Collaboratives Can Support The Care Movement

Forbes

15-05-2025

As the population of older Americans rapidly increases, so too does the demand for reliable and accessible in-home care. Meanwhile, home care workers and family caregivers experience physical, mental, and financial challenges associated with care, leading to workforce shortages and burnout. In response, a robust care movement has emerged over the past three decades, led by NGO's, grass roots organizations, public agencies, and more, working to build and strengthen care infrastructure. With federal funding for social services in flux, philanthropy plays a crucial role in supporting and advancing the efforts of the care movement. Philanthropists can deepen their commitment to care by forming or participating in donor collaboratives—an approach that helps maximize their collective impact across the continuum of care.
The growing demand for caregivers in the United States places even greater strain on an already overburdened care system. Contributing factors including low wages, limited benefits, and unsafe working conditions have led to a nationwide shortage of direct care workers and rising employee turnover, further widening gaps in care. At the same time, family caregivers spend an average 26 hours a week providing unpaid care, and collectively forgo an estimated $522 billion in wages each year due to their caregiving responsibilities.
Furthermore, caregivers and care workers are more likely to experience negative mental and physical health outcomes than non-caregivers. Direct care workers face some of the highest rates of occupational injury, based on data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Family caregivers disproportionately experience chronic health conditions and mental health challenges including depression, anxiety, and burnout, Guardian Life reports. These challenges don't just affect the caregivers themselves, they also impact the people they care for. For example, studies show that high caregiver burden, caused by stress and exhaustion, can contribute to lower quality of life and worse symptoms for care recipients with dementia or heart failure.
These outcomes, while troubling, could serve as a catalyst for building a stronger coalition between care workers and care consumers. During the 2024 election cycle, care became a part of the national conversation for the first time in decades, due in part to the work of non-profit organizations and community leaders in the care movement. 'Decades of deep narrative and culture change, and long-term power and coalition building across race and geography, brought us to this moment,' shares Anna Wadia, Executive Director of the Care for All with Respect and Equity (CARE) Fund. 'While we know that policy advancements can be reversed, the care movement is stronger than ever.'
To meet the growing needs of caregivers, care workers, and those who receive care, a coalition of major grant makers, including Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Fondation CHANEL, and more, came together in 2021 to form the CARE Fund, with the goal of investing $50 million over five years to improve care infrastructure. 'The CARE Fund has brought diverse actors in philanthropy together to build the cohesion, capacity, and power of the care movement to win the care supports families need across the lifecycle,' Wadia explains. Today, the CARE Fund has raised more than 44 million from 17 partners.
The CARE Fund provides a model for individual donors and foundations to maximize their impact and deepen their commitment to the care movement. Donor collaboratives allow funders to diversify their investments across the care spectrum. For example, through the CARE Fund, philanthropists can invest in strategies and solutions that they would not otherwise be able to support directly on their own. Many pooled grant-making funds invest in multi-stakeholder initiatives; a survey conducted by the Bridgespan group found that 63% of respondents support a variety of organizations and initiatives that share a common goal.
Donor collaboratives are more likely to involve grantees in the grant-making process than independent foundations, Bridgespan reports. This allows collaboratives like the CARE Fund to bring funders and grantees together to assess needs and develop strategy. For example, Fondation CHANEL joined the CARE Fund because it wanted to learn from and grow with the care movement, while also broadening its scope of influence. "Pooling resources with other funders multiplies our impact," explains Adeline Azrack, Managing Director, Fondation CHANEL Americas. "It gives us the opportunity to learn about on-the-ground strategies, hear directly from grantees about their needs, and fund both state-based initiatives and emerging organizations that we couldn't reach alone."
Pooled grantmaking funds are just one of many ways philanthropists can invest in care at this pivotal moment. As Wadia concludes, 'By deepening their commitment to both the care movement and solidarity across movements now, philanthropists can catalyze a transformation that will strengthen families and entire communities. This is an investment in the future—a future where care is recognized as the foundation of a vibrant economy.'
To learn more about how philanthropy can support the care movement, visit https://carefund.org/
The Well Beings Blog supports the critical health and wellbeing of all individuals, to raise awareness, reduce stigma and discrimination, and change the public discourse. The Well Beings campaign was launched in 2020 by WETA, the flagship PBS station in Washington, D.C., beginning with the Youth Mental Health Project, followed by the 2022 documentary series Ken Burns Presents Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness, a film by Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers (Now streaming on the PBS App). WETA is continuing its award-winning Well Beings campaign with the upcoming documentary film Caregiving, executive produced by Bradley Cooper and Lea Pictures, premiering in 2025 on PBS.
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