To our fellow funders:
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated sex worker communities across the globe. The Sex Work Donor Collaborative would like to share what we’re hearing from frontline sex worker communities and what we as funders can do to continue to show our solidarity during this time.
Many sex workers struggle to pay for rent or food, access healthcare, or live free from violence, discrimination, and criminalization. The pandemic means that many sex workers now have to make terrible choices between the risk of contracting COVID-19 while working or not being able to pay for basic needs, and many have no alternative options for paid work. These risks become even more elevated for sex workers who are HIV-positive or chronically ill, trans or gender non-conforming, using drugs, migrants, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and/or street-based.
Furthermore, humanitarian and governmental aid does not reach most sex workers because it requires recipients to be citizens, have documented forms of income or be part of nuclear families, reinforcing normative ideas of who is deserving. And, authoritarian and right-wing governments are using this moment to increase securitization and surveillance, limit who is in public space, and attack social justice organizing and human rights.
The good news is that sex worker movements have the creativity and wisdom to weather this storm - if we show up to resource their work. Sex workers are experts in harm reduction and prevention. They set up some of the very first mutual aid funds during the pandemic, building on a history of sharing resources for social change.
Here are some recommendations for how we can shift our grantmaking to follow their lead:
● Wherever possible, award multi-year unrestricted/general operating funds to sex worker organizations so that they can respond flexibly to the crisis.
● Provide rapid response or emergency funding to sex worker organizations to cover basic material needs, particularly in regions where government aid is inadequate.
● Offer additional funds to existing grantees with minimal new application requirements.
● Make renewals ahead of schedule and with fewer application requirements.
● Relax reporting requirements and proactively work with grantees to shift timelines and deliverables to reflect the reality of this moment.
● Provide grantees with optional opportunities to connect with each other and share strategies via webinars, calls, and/or listservs.
● Understand that past and present traumas may be impacting grantees’ well-being, capacity, and interpersonal interactions - use a trauma-informed approach to show up with as much care and compassion as possible.
● Love these ideas, but not able to implement them? Support intermediary funders by contributing to their flexible funding, crisis and rapid response grantmaking initiatives.
For more ideas on how to be responsive to community needs, check out this Hack List developed by participatory grantmakers Red Umbrella Fund, the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund, and UHAI-EASHRI.
At the Sex Work Donor Collaborative, we have been hosting weekly meetings for our members to share best practices, coordinating with each other to support common grantees, and working with sex worker movements to plan upcoming opportunities for funder education. Please reach out to us if you’d like to stay in the loop.
We know that the “normal” world before COVID-19 was already dangerous and unjust to sex workers. In the midst of global devastation due to this pandemic, we are following the lead of sex worker movements. We commit to doing whatever we can in this moment to transform our grantmaking - not just now, but for a more resilient, just, and compassionate new world - for sex workers and for us all.
In solidarity and care,
The Steering Committee of the Sex Work Donor Collaborative:
Sienna Baskin, Anti-Trafficking Fund, NEO-Philanthropy
Christian Giraldo, Third Wave Fund (Coordinator)
Julia Lukomnik, Open Society Foundations
Mukami Marete, UHAI-EASHRI
Maryse Mitchell-Brody, Third Wave Fund
Ivens Reis-Reyner, Aidsfonds
Nadia van der Linde, Red Umbrella Fund
