• Assets: $30,681,204 (2005)
• Grants Received: $3,286,565 (2005)
• Grants Awarded: $4,443,731 (2005)

Funding Exchange (FEX) was established in 1979 by six foundations in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland/Eugene, Oregon. Dedicated to the concept of philanthropy as a vehicle for social change, FEX has since grown into a national membership organization of 16 publicly supported, community-based, social justice foundations claiming a commitment to "Change, Not Charity." These member foundations include the Appalachian Community Fund, the Bread and Roses Community Fund, the Chinook Fund, the Crossroads Fund, the Fund for Santa Barbara, the Fund for Southern Communities, Hawai'i People's Fund, the Haymarket People's Fund, the Headwaters Foundation for Justice, the Liberty Hill Foundation, the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, the North Star Fund, the San Diego Foundation for Change, Three Rivers Community Foundation, the Vanguard Public Foundation, and the Wisconsin Community Fund.

The FEX network pairs leftist donors and foundations with likeminded groups and activists who are dedicated to bringing about their own version of "progressive" change and social justice. Many of these grantees assume that American society is rife with racism, discrimination, exploitation, and inequity and needs to be overhauled via sustained education, activism, and social agitation. 

FEX proudly states that over the years, its grantees have "propelled the gay and lesbian liberation movement"; "organized against economic globalization before it was recognized as a world-wide problem"; and "supported the first living wage campaigns." Additional current priorities include "the rights of low-wage workers"; "civil rights protections" that endorse racial and ethnic preferences; and "the intersection of environmental protection, native rights and environmental racism." The Funding Exchange worldview is contained in the book Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change. 

FEX's Executive Director is lesbian activist Ellen Gurzinsky. Among the FEX's grantmaking programs are the following: (a) the Out Fund for Gay and Lesbian Liberation, which supports "radical organizing projects working to build community among lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transexuals, and transgender and intersex people"; (b) the Saguaro Fund, which supports "organizing projects that primarily serve and are led by communities of color"; (c) the Grantmaking Docket, which supports programs professing a commitment to "economic equity, environmental justice, social justice, anti-oppression, media and cultural activism, movement building, and international solidarity with progressive movements abroad"; (d) the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, which funds social-issues media productions … aimed at "media activism and grassroots organizing"; (e) the Media Justice Fund, which "promotes projects that manifest strong collaborations between social justice and media justice activists and their agendas"; and (f) the Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights, which supports "groups or projects that work on mental health and human rights and are organized to support survivors of state-sponsored violence, including torture, war and displacement, and political, social and economic oppression." 

FEX is a member organization of the Peace and Security Funders Group, an unincorporated association of foundations and individual philanthropists that give money to leftwing anti-war and environmentalist causes. To view a comprehensive list of all current PSFG members, click here.

The grantees and donors in the Funding Exchange network include, among many others, the following: the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center; the American Friends Service Committee; United for Peace and Justice; the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanista; Sister Outsider - Criminal Justice Initiative; Southerners on New Ground - OUT Fund for Lesbian and Gay Liberation Fund; the Mexico Solidarity Network; MADRE; Justice Now; Incite - Women of Color Against Violence; IndyMedia; Free Speech TV; the Inner City Muslim Action Network; the Institute for Policy Studies; the Institute for Public Accuracy; Free Speech Radio News; Forest Family Forever! (c/o Rainforest Action Network); the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts; the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights; the Coalition for Social Justice; the Coalition for the Homeless; the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation; Biowars (Environmental Justice Series); Black Workers for Justice; the Arab American Family Support Center; Ancient Forest Rescue; Americans for Peace Now; A Rainbow Place - OUT Fund for Lesbian and Gay Liberation; the Abortion Access Project; the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Research Institute; the Sustainable Ecosystems Institute; the U'wa Defense Project (Rainforest Foundation); the Urban Justice Center; the Women's Foundation; the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition; Women's Voices for the Earth; and the Youth Gender Project.

From 2003 to 2006, the Ford Foundation made six separate grants to FEX, totaling $2.6 million.