Sex Worker Giving Circle

In 2026, the SWGC plans to make a total of at least $350,000 in new two-year grants of $35,000 per year.

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.
• Budget Size: Grantee applicants must have a budget of less than $500,000
• Tax Status: 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.

• 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. ‍
• Sex Worker Movement Strategies: Applicants’ proposed work contributes to a range of strategies to build sex workers’ community power to achieve structural change.

SWGC grants fund general operating support, meaning the grants are unrestricted and given to organizations to support their general mission and day-to-day operations.

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:

• Advocacy 
• Art & Cultural Work
• Capacity Building
• Coalition Building
• Community Organizing
• Harm Reduction & Healing Justice
• Leadership Development
• Legal Support & Rights Education
• Mutual Aid
• Research & Data Collection

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.

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.

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!

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.

You can send your questions to swgivingcircle@thirdwavefund.org.