Across the U.S., families face growing challenges in accessing consistent, dignified care. Despite being foundational to economic and social well-being, systems of care remain chronically underfunded, undervalued, and structurally fragmented. Care is also often sustained by underpaid and overburdened women of color and immigrant workers, whose labor is essential but too often rendered invisible. Reimagining the care system will require systemic shifts and policy change where children and families are a priority; this inherently requires a reshaping of the tax system. While the tax and care systems may seem separate, they are inextricably linked. At the root of the care crisis lies a tax system that has long prioritized wealth preservation over community wellbeing, systematically underinvesting in the public infrastructure needed to support care. Reshaping the tax system to center children and families will allow us to fund the caregiving infrastructure needed to ensure consistent and dignified care.
Reshaping the tax and care systems will require a sustained and well-resourced power-building movement that philanthropy must support. The current tax and care landscape is dominated at the federal level by the Republican-led “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which was passed by Congress in July 2025. The bill is a sweeping extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and would severely cut key social programs such as SNAP and Medicaid. In addition, the nation’s care infrastructure remains chronically underfunded, while increased anti-immigrant policies continue to destabilize the caregiving workforce. While the last several years have seen growing momentum across public opinion, state-level policy change, and a strengthened policy and advocacy infrastructure for advancing progressive tax and care systems, the lack of electoral power has significantly stymied efforts to advance long-term systemic change and push back against current proposals.
Funders must take a two-pronged approach to resourcing the field to fight back against the current harmful proposals. They must also take a long-term approach to building power in order to transform these systems. Funders play a unique role in resourcing and convening leaders across these systems and influencing policy conversations. By taking a long-term approach to power building, they can help shape a new social contract that centers children and families.
Defining Power Building
When we discuss building power, we often think of power along three dimensions, as defined by the grassroots power project:
◦ Power to Win Demands: Organizing people and resources for direct political action
◦ Power to Drive the Agenda: Building movement infrastructure
◦ Power to Shape Common Sense: Make Meaning on the Terrain of Ideology and Worldview
Building power requires organized people, resources, and ideas. For funders, it will require more attention and engagement in politics, convening organizations, partnering with other funders, and working to shift mindsets. Ultimately, power must be shifted to those most directly impacted to shape the systems that impact their lives.
Many philanthropic strategies have been missing an explicit focus on power. Using the Power-Building Ecosystem Framework developed by the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California (formerly PERE), Frontline Solutions analyzed the tax and care ecosystems to identify opportunities within the six domains:
◦ Advocacy & Policy: National campaigns like Care Can’t Wait and Tax the Rich have advanced bold federal proposals. With additional resources and support, these efforts can be better connected to underfunded state-level work, especially in the South and Midwest, where both care needs and regressive tax policies are most acute.
◦ Research & Legal: We need participatory, disaggregated data that reflects lived experience. Legal strategies such as enforcing labor protections or challenging unjust tax laws must be grounded in community-led priorities and connected to broader campaigns.
◦ Communications & Narrative Change: Dominant narratives portray taxes as burdens and caregiving as a private responsibility. Philanthropy can fund storytelling infrastructures that center caregivers and low-income families as civic leaders and frame taxes as investments in our collective well-being.
◦ Alliances & Coalitions: Too often, child care, elder care, disability, and paid leave movements are disconnected from each other—and from tax justice campaigns. Funders can support cross-issue coalitions and regional hubs that align care and tax reform strategies.
◦ Leadership Development: Grassroots leadership pipelines exist but are under-resourced. Investing in intergenerational, multilingual, and caregiver-led leadership programs can ensure the people most impacted by unjust systems are also the ones transforming them.
◦ Funders & Organizational Development: While many funders engage in the tax ecosystem, they lack an aligned strategy. Furthermore, care-focused funders don’t often engage in tax work, while tax-specific funders can lack deeper structural analysis.
Strategic Opportunities for Philanthropy to Build Power
Across both ecosystems, there is growing momentum and increasing alignment around power-building strategies. Yet, these strategies remain underfunded and siloed. Philanthropy can play a catalytic role by resourcing the movement and seeding the ground for long-term systems change.
There is a strong appetite in the philanthropic field to advance tax and care priorities. Several philanthropic networks exist; for example, the Care for All with Respect and Equity (CARE) Fund has committed over $50 million to care infrastructure, and networks like the Economic Opportunity Funders are aligning philanthropic strategies on tax and budget justice. But more is needed to build connective tissue across these ecosystems.
While it remains crucial for funders to move beyond project-based grants and provide flexible, multi-year support to organizations, strategic grantmaking and partnerships can support power-building. Strategies that can support building power include:
◦ Invest in seeding ideas at the state and local level, particularly in battleground states. While the federal tax and budget proposals dominate the national narrative, there are significant opportunities at the state and local levels to advance equitable tax and care policies. However, there will likely be a need for substantial defensive work at the state and local levels as legislators begin to introduce proposals that mirror federal cuts.
Investing in targeted state and local campaigns can help seed ideas and practical examples that federal policymakers can draw from. Additionally, advancing family-centered tax and care policies in battleground states can lead to the electoral shifts necessary for advancing policies at the federal level.
◦ Fund the ecosystem, not just the moment. Funders must invest in the full infrastructure of movements, including by supporting coalitions and intermediaries and by partnering with social justice and other pooled funds. Several organizations and funds have been supporting movements for years and have deep connections with grassroots organizations and movement leaders. These organizations, such as Borealis Philanthropy and the North Star Fund, have a sense of where additional funding can be catalytic for movements. There is a need for consistent funding from intermediaries and social justice funds to emerging grassroots and base-building organizations that are winning big national campaigns.
◦ Build philanthropy’s capacity to support movements. While values-aligned funders are interested in supporting power-building, an organizing body needs to be established for funders to learn and be held accountable. Funders can come together to develop political education and organizing training for philanthropic practitioners.
◦ Resource a storytelling infrastructure. The conservative media apparatus has been widely successful in driving messaging that frames taxes as negative and caregiving as an individual responsibility. While progressive narrative change campaigns exist, there is not the same infrastructure and funding to combat the dominating narratives. Funders can invest in building a well-resourced media infrastructure that advances family-centered policies.
A Power-Building Vision for Care
One concrete strategy for advancing power-building in the care space is investing in a place-based approach by developing a “Regional Care Power-Building Hub” pilot that integrates grassroots leadership, research, narrative, and civic power-building to transform the care ecosystem in place-based settings.
Key Components:
◦ Led by a caregiver-led coalition, particularly one grounded in BIPOC, immigrant, and/or low-income caregiving communities.
◦ Partnered with local universities or research centers to generate community-owned data, participatory research, and policy analysis that reflects the lived experiences of caregivers.
◦ Connected to cultural organizations, storytellers, and media-makers to elevate authentic care narratives and shift public understanding of care as a collective responsibility.
◦ Structured to receive flexible, multi-year funding from aligned funders, including both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) resources.
It also offers a scalable model for other funders interested in long-term power-building in the care economy.
Conclusion
Philanthropy must reckon with its own power and responsibility in this moment. Building a country that centers family wellbeing will require bold investments that ultimately shift power to those who will transform the system. Funders also must be held accountable to the movement, which will require trust, transparency, and a shared strategy.