Updates

Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe

In April, the Alliance for Gender Equality published its annual Impact Report, proudly highlighting our impact, lessons learned and the work of our grantee partners. The report outlines how we chose ambition in a year of unprecedented pressures by increasing our philanthropic advocacy for more and better gender funding; adopting trust-based practices to meet the moment; supporting the resilience of grassroots organisations; and expanding access to rights and opportunities for marginalised communities when it mattered most.

Their organisations address urgent challenges like the climate crisis, homelessness and peacebuilding through participatory and co-creative arts approaches deeply anchored in their local communities. Over the next 18 months, the Fellows will embark on a collaborative learning journey rooted in action learning and peer exchange. The programme will provide leaders with tailored resources, capacity-building and cross-border connections to strengthen their organisational models and collectively drive advocacy efforts to scale the impact and recognition of this field across Europe.

On 30 June, the Alliance launched its Movement Strengthening Fund, with a call for proposals for €2.7 million. The fund will foster collaboration and solidarity within European intersectional and grassroots movements, so that they can collectively advance gender equality in Europe in the long-term.

Finally, the Alliance published the first-ever mapping of movements for gender equality across Europe. It pinpoints how civil society networks and movements make change and what kind of resourcing enables them to thrive.

Civitates

Civitates hosted its inaugural Forum in Bruges in March. Over the course of three days, the 150+ participants (grantee and foundation partners) held strategic conversations, built new partnerships and engaged in a foresight exercise that explored how democracy in Europe might evolve over the next 15 years, including more challenging and fragmented futures. The message was clear: civil society and philanthropy must become more agile, more collaborative, and more willing to rethink existing models. This includes investing in grassroots organising, strengthening transnational solidarity, and preparing for scenarios where traditional structures and funding mechanisms may no longer hold.

Meanwhile, we are renewing 25 grantees across our three sub funds (civic power; tech and democracy; media) with a total of €3.5M this year. As a highlight, our special grant making programme "The Future of Europe" continues to support 7 organisations advocating for an increase in the AgoraEU budget (MFF) for the next 7 years, with a view of securing at least €8 billion for civic space, independent journalism and culture in the EU.

Our 2025 Annual Report reflects on a year marked by growing urgency, but also by collective action and renewed solidarity.

European AI & Society Fund

In January, the European AI & Society Fund launched its new five-year strategy to break the stranglehold of tech corporations and reclaim the direction of AI so that it serves people, society and planet. We are exploring how to operationalise the strategy with a focus on two opportunities. First supporting the community of grantees focused on accountability to adapt to the changed political context; and second, addressing the narrative power that the tech industry wields.

The Fund’s 2025 annual report celebrates our grantees work holding governments and Big Tech to account for AI harms, in an increasingly hostile geopolitical context as US tech corporations lobby the EU to weaken its AI legislation.

We continue our regular funders’ briefings. Firstly looking at how public interest organisations are resisting European tech legislation rollbacks, and most recently exploring AI’s climate impacts with a focus on data centres. The next funders’ briefing will be on children's rights and tech regulation.

The Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts

Earlier this year, the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts launched its inaugural Annual Report, capturing the momentum of its first year since its founding in 2025.

Alongside this, the Alliance published its Stories of Impact series, spotlighting its first cohort of Fellows and showcasing how socially engaged arts organisations across Europe are addressing pressing challenges, from climate change and migration to inequality and social division, through collaborative, community-driven approaches.

As EU priorities evolve and discussions around the next Multiannual Financial Framework shape future investment, the Alliance has strengthened its advocacy efforts by partnering with Culture Action Europe, engaging at EU level, and supporting six BEYOND Satellite events held across key regions earlier this spring.

On 9 July, the Alliance will host a free webinar to launch Constellations of Change, one of the most comprehensive mappings of socially engaged arts to date. The report explores how organisations across Europe operate, the impact they create, and the pathways towards more connected and resilient futures.

EPIM

In April, EPIM and Migration Matters kicked off a new Community of Practice (CoP) on Narrative Change in Labour Mobility. This brought together 18 actors across Europe to explore why existing migration narratives are failing and how labour mobility reopens a stalled conversation across Europe.

In May, EPIM and MigAct co-organised the fourth CEE Network for Migration and Inclusion meeting in Prague, bringing together 40 practitioners to ask how civil society builds resilience when the political ground keeps shifting.

Later in May, EPIM and Philea organised two sessions at the Philea Forum in Copenhagen through the Migration and Belonging Network. The first explored how funders can move beyond seeing labour mobility as simply filling labour gaps to recognising migrants’ contributions to climate, healthcare and food system change. The second session examined why migrant workers are rarely seen as active drivers of a just food transition.

Read EPIM’s Annual Report 2025 [here]

Jafowa

JAFOWA now supports twelve projects led by farmers’ organisations committed to the agroecological transition, six in Burkina Faso and six in Senegal. These projects directly involve about thirty local partner organisations and institutions, including NGOs, other farmers’ organisations, vocational schools, decentralized state services, and local authorities.

Drawing on the rich experience of this community, the programme has organised four workshops during the first half of 2026 on the contribution of farmers’ organisations to Sustainable Food Systems.

These exchanges, held in both countries and subsequently online, led to the development of an innovative method for characterizing the contribution of farmers’ organisations to Sustainable Food Systems. The resulting will be further refined in the coming months for regular use by partner organizations and for integration within the programme's monitoring and evaluation systems.