Who Gets Left Out When Funding Systems Aren’t Designed for Inclusion?

That’s the question the Caribbean Culture Fund (CCF) was asked to respond to at the recent Latin America and Caribbean Regional Funder Meeting during the WINGS Philanthropy Forum in Montreal.

CCF joined the Haiti Development Institute, the Jamaica Network of Corporate Foundations and AFS Intercultura from the Dominican Republic in representing the Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance, bringing a Caribbean perspective to a global conversation about transforming philanthropy.

For CCF, the question goes to the heart of our work. Our research on arts and culture funding in the Caribbean is showing that when financing systems are not intentionally inclusive, they tend to fund the people and organizations that are easiest to see—not necessarily everyone creating value.

This matters particularly in the Caribbean. Across more than 30 countries and territories, the region is extraordinarily diverse in language, geography, political status, culture and creative practice. Yet funding systems often rely on categories that do not reflect that complexity: larger countries over smaller ones, formal institutions over individuals and informal collectives, nonprofits over creative businesses, and established organizations over emerging ones.

The result is that significant parts of the creative ecosystem can remain invisible. A collective preserving an endangered tradition may not have the institutional structure required by a conventional grant application. A creative enterprise may be excluded because it is commercial, even while generating livelihoods and sustaining cultural practice. Work at the intersection of culture and climate action, gender equality, democracy, community resilience or cultural preservation may fall between funding categories.

The challenge, therefore, is not only how much funding is available. It is also how funding systems define value, eligibility and impact in the first place.

Inclusivity has been part of CCF’s mandate since its inception. We intentionally support individuals, collectives, nonprofits, commercial entities and public institutions across the Caribbean, including territories that can be overlooked when funding is organized around sovereign states. We fund across disciplines, from film, literature and music to dance, ceramics, culinary traditions and digital archives.

The demand demonstrates the opportunity. CCF has now supported 100 projects across 32 countries and territories, following more than 900 applications across five calls for proposals.

Our experience has also shown us both the benefits of inclusion, and the work required to make inclusive policies effective.

Inclusive funding can surface priorities that funders did not prescribe. With no requirement to fit a predetermined theme, more than half of CCF-supported projects address climate action, more than 30% address democracy and human rights, and more than 20% focus on youth inclusion. Sixty of our first 100 projects have a strong heritage or preservation focus—from recording and archiving cultural knowledge to passing skills and practices to younger generations and documenting the history of buildings and places.

But eligibility alone does not guarantee access. How a grant is promoted, the language and format of an application, and the support available to applicants all influence who participates. An open call is not necessarily an accessible call.

And an inclusive mechanism can still reflect existing patterns of visibility. Who knows about funding, who applies and who has the capacity to navigate the process all shape the results. CCF is still learning from these patterns, including the concentration of projects in some creative disciplines and the relatively small number of applications from commercial entities.

This points to a larger lesson for philanthropy: individual funders cannot solve visibility and access problems on their own. The infrastructure around philanthropy matters.

Better data can show where resources are flowing and where they are not. Regional mapping can make organizations, disciplines and places visible beyond established funder networks. Intermediaries can build relationships and trust with local actors and connect them to capital. And funders working together can share knowledge and develop approaches that no single institution could create alone.

This is an opportunity for collective action. Caribbean arts and culture funders can invest in better regional data and local knowledge and design application and reporting processes around applicants’ realities. International funders can support local and regional intermediaries that can reach beyond established networks. Together, funders can create more flexible mechanisms that recognize different organizational forms, geographies, disciplines and kinds of impact.

For potential partners, this is where CCF can add value: regional knowledge, relationships, funding experience and direct connections to creatives and cultural organizations across the Caribbean. We can help funders see beyond the organizations and places already visible within established networks and help move resources toward work and people they might otherwise miss.

The Caribbean does not simply need more philanthropy. It needs stronger connections between funding, knowledge, institutions and local actors.

Because the question is not only how much money is available. It is who can see it, who can access it, and who gets missed when funding systems determine what and who gets funded.