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Stored deadline is March 27, 2026 but the page shows April 2, 2026 as the application deadline for the 2026 cycle.
The Sex Worker Giving Circle is a grant from Third Wave Fund that funds grassroots organizations led by and for people with current or previous sex work or sex trade experience in the United States and its territories. The program addresses the critical underfunding of sex worker-led movements and supports organizations confronting political attacks and advocating for sex worker rights and safety.
Awards total $35,000 per year for two years ($70,000 total). Eligible organizations must have annual budgets under $500,000 and hold 501(c)(3) status or have fiscal sponsorship. The most recent application deadline was April 2, 2026.
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Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund About Us Gender Justice Grantmaking Programs Grantees History Staff Advisory Council Job Opportunities Mobilize Power Fund Sex Worker Giving Circle Own Our Power Fund Disability Frontlines Fund Grow Power Fund Accountable Futures Fund Get Involved Sign the Pledge The Sex Worker Giving Circle (SWGC) launched in the spring of 2018.
The SWGC was created because sex workers are best positioned to confront and transform the oppressive conditions of their own lives. However, movements led by sex workers and people with experience in the sex trade are critically under-resourced despite increasing political attacks. The SWGC is a giving circle made up of individuals with current or past experience in the sex trade.
The Fellows participate in grantmaking trainings and make all high-level funding decisions and grantmaking recommendations.
Meet Our Grantees Learn about SWGC fellowship Prospective Grantee Interviews Decisions and Notifications Approvals and Grant Disbursements 2025 SWGC Grantee Announcement In 2018, Third Wave Fund launched the SWGC, the first sex worker-led fund housed at a U.S. foundation, with the dual goal of funding a diverse range of sex worker-led groups throughout the country and bringing current and former sex workers to the philanthropic decision-making table.
More than twenty years of funding sex worker-led organizing has taught us that sex workers are best positioned to transform the oppressive conditions impacting their lives but their movements remain critically under-resourced even as political attacks have continued to mount.
We were inspired by community-led grantmaking at other funds as well as the long history of sex worker communities taking care of each other, especially sex workers of color and trans and gender non-conforming sex workers. In 2018, the inaugural cohort of Fellows of the SWGC awarded $200,000 to eleven organizations across the United States.
In 2019, the Sex Worker Giving Circle hired a Sex Work Funding Officer and awarded $370,000 (with an additional $30,000 allocated by fellows for early 2020) to over 20 groups including our first renewal and multi-year grants. We made $200,000 in renewal grants to ten 2018 grantees. We also awarded our first two-year grants, with a total of $400,000, committed to thirteen new grantees over 2019-2020.
In 2020, because of the impacts of COVID-19 on the capacity of our grantees, Fellows, and Third Wave staff, we pivoted to a closed application process. We invited previous grantees to reapply for funding, and recruited several new applications from a pool of nominations gathered from across the networks of SWGC Advisors, Fellows, grantees, and movement activists.
In 2021, we welcomed our first national cohort of Fellows who participated in virtual trainings, workshops, and decision-making meetings. The Fellows awarded $555,000 to 24 groups, a new record for our program at the time. In 2022, we continued to facilitate the cohort nationally and we distributed a total of $585,000 to 25 new and returning grantees from across the United States.
Pati Morales, SWGC Fellow from 2021, joined the fund as Program Associate. In 2023, we welcomed Pati Morales as the new Program Officer for the fund, and CJ Bell, as the new Program Associate. With the program now being fully former Fellow-staffed, distributed $700,000 to new & returning grantees from across the United States.
In 2024, we welcomed our first fully former-Fellow staffed advisory board and increased our grants to up to $35,000 per year or $70,000 over two years. How much are the Sex Worker Giving Circle grants? In 2025, the SWGC plans to make a total of at least $385,000 in new two-year grants of $35,000 per year.
Is my organization eligible for this grant? 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. Grantee applicants must have a budget of less than $500,000 Applicants must be a 501(c)(3) organization, a fiscally sponsored project, or be willing to become fiscally sponsored prior to receiving this grant.
For more information on fiscal sponsorship, see this article from Non-Profit Quarterly . What other criteria should my organization have to be eligible for this grant? Sex Worker Movement Strategies: Applicants’ proposed work contributes to a range of strategies to build sex workers’ community power to achieve structural change.
Youth Leadership & Gender Justice Focus: Applicants specifically work toward gender justice that address 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. Applicants are led by and accountable to the communities they work with and work to develop youth leadership within those communities.
What can my organization use these funds for? 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. What strategies does the SWGC support?
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 a diverse range of strategies including: Harm Reduction & Healing Justice Legal Support & Rights Education Research & Data Collection What is this fund not for?
This project will not fund lobbying, 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.
Why a Sex Worker Giving Circle? 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. Can I donate to the SWGC? 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!
I'm a funder/donor and I want to resource the sex worker movement in the U.S. How can I learn more about how the SWGC got started? 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.
The success of the SWGC is all thanks to the tremendous collective wisdom of its many contributors. At the top of this long list are the five cohorts of Fellows who have shown up and shared their brilliance, humor, and kindness with us and each other to break new paths for resourcing sex worker movements over the past five years. We are forever grateful to you.
Our advisors and allies, including Shira Hassan of Young Women’s Empowerment Project, Cecilia Gentili, and Tamika Spellman, have offered powerful information and advice into the movement strategies and funding needs of sex workers most impacted by oppression.
We also benefited from the models and insights of many funders and organizers, including Allison Johnson Heist, Headwaters Foundation; Ana Conner, Third Wave Fund, Miss Major/Jay Toole Giving Circle, and formerly Borealis Philanthropy; Cara Page, Miss Major/Jay Toole Giving Circle and formerly Astraea Foundation; Cathy Kapua, Gabriel Foster, & Marin Watts, Trans Justice Funding Project; Crystal Middlestadt, Chinook Fund and formerly Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training; Eugenia Lee, Solidaire Network; Helen Stillman, North Star Fund; Jes Kelley, Resource Generation; Julia Lukomnik, Open Society Foundations; Kacey Byczek, Harm Reduction Coalition; Nadia van der Linde & Vera Rodriguez, Red Umbrella Fund; Melinda Chateauvert; Naomi Sobel, Giving Queerly and formerly Astraea Foundation; Nigel Charles, Bread & Roses Community Fund; Ruth Morgan Thomas, Network of Sex Work Projects; Ryan Li Dahlstrom, Borealis Philanthropy; Dr. Stellah Wairimu Bosire, UHAI-EASHRI; and Zeke Spier, Giving Project Learning Community and formerly Social Justice Fund Northwest.
We have benefited from guest facilitation from Ajani Walden, Kim Soriano, Nadia Kim, Savannah Sly, Meejin Richert, Nico Acosta, Benjamin Francisco Maulbeck, Glo Ross, Nico Amador, Cheyenne Davis, Brandi Collins-Calhoun, Sawyer Eason, CJ Bell, Chanel Lopez, Evelyn Quintana, Alex Corona, Leila Raven, and Wit López as well as interpretation and translation services from Caracol Language Coop and Cenzontle Language Justice Coop.
The SWGC was co-founded by Maryse Mitchell-Brody, Development Officer, and Nicole Myles, Donor Organizing Officer with support from the entire Third Wave Fund team. Since then, Christian Giraldo held the role of SWGC Program Associate and then of SWGC Program Officer from 2020-2022. Pati Morales, SWGC 2021 Fellow, joined as our SWGC Program Associate in 2022 and is the new and current SWGC Program Officer.
cj Bell, SWGC 2021 Fellow joined as our SWGC Program Associate in 2023. We could not have had such success without the many funders and over one thousand community members who have donated, spread the word, and took a chance on this work: thank you for making it happen.
Best Practices Policy Project Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo Empowering Transgender Services, Inc. Oregon Sex Worker Committee Red Light District by TW! O Rio Grande Valley Harm Reduction Trans Women of Color Collective Portland Sex Worker Resource Project Unspoken Treasure Society Whose Corner Is It Anyway?
Best Practices Policy Project Black Sex Workers of Colorado Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade OLTT (Organización Latina Trans in Texas) Support Ho(s)e Collective BIPOC Adult Industry Collective Black & Pink National (Sex Worker Liberation Project) Black Sex Worker Collective Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo Kua'ana Project at Hawai'i Health & Harm Reduction Center Trans Sistas of Color Project Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade Collective Action for Safe Spaces OLTT (Organización Latina Trans in Texas) Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaP Co) Support Ho(s)e Collective Bay Area Worker Support (BAWS) Best Practices Policy Project Black Sex Worker Collective Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance Trans Sistas of Color Project Whose Corner Is It Anyway?
Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade Collective Action for Safe Spaces Support Ho(s)e Collective Trans Women of Color Collective Resourcing the Fight for Sex Worker Liberation: Our 2024 Grantees Apply to Join the 2024 Sex Worker Giving Circle Fellowship Announcing our 2022 Sex Worker Giving Circle Grantees Announcing our 2021 Sex Worker Giving Circle Grantees New Report: Creating Community is a Threat to Power Want to join the groundswell of donors that make our grantmaking possible?
Make a donation today so we can continue to fund the critical work of youth-led gender justice movements.
About Gender Justice Grantmaking Programs Grantees History Job Opportunities Mobilize Power Fund Sex Worker Giving Circle Own Our Power Fund Disability Frontlines Fund Grow Power Fund Accountable Futures Fund Get Involved Sign the Pledge Blog Reports Podcasts Donate Contact Us Instagram Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Third Wave Fund is fiscally sponsored by Proteus Fund.
Based on current listing details, eligibility includes: Organizations led by and for people with current or previous sex work or sex trade experience in the US or territories, with annual budget under $500,000 and 501(c)(3) status or fiscal sponsorship. Applicants should confirm final requirements in the official notice before submission.
Current published award information indicates $35,000 per year for two years Always verify allowable costs, matching requirements, and funding caps directly in the sponsor documentation.
The current target date is April 2, 2026. Build your timeline backwards from this date to cover registrations, approvals, attachments, and final submission checks.
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