2023 Annual Report
New Moon Network logo with swooping orange and blue accents
We’re thrilled to be releasing our inaugural annual report! This report highlights some of our major accomplishments and insights gained in 2023. We’re proud to have hit the ground running in philanthropy, brokering investments of $1,200,00+ into the movement for sex workers rights. Given that less than 1% of foundation funding is allocated to supporting sex workers rights globally, we know that our work in unlocking critical resources for one of the most deeply intersectional issues of our time.
Read the 2023 Annual Report
New Moon maintains a list of 230+ US-based sex worker rights organizations and strives to understand their goals and needs through relationship cultivation and providing meaningful support. As an emerging intermediary fund, our strategy is to connect with sex worker rights organizations through regranting, technical assistance and capacity building programs such as Spokes Hub and AAIR-Directory. By connecting with grassroots organizations and supporting their work, New Moon is able to fuel a powerful emerging social justice movement and illustrate it’s relevance to foundations and philanthropists.
To better understand the makeup of the organizations New Moon serves, we ran a survey and garnered responses from 20 of our funding recipients. The data confirms our belief that the movement for sex workers rights is deeply intersectional and drastically underfunded. Leadership identified as 85% BIPOC and 75% trans, with 40% of organizations operating with less than $20,000 budget annually. More importantly, we found that 95% of leadership within the sex trade identified as sex workers and 80% identified as survivors, indicating that sex workers and survivors are working together or that leaders hold both experiences of agency and exploitation within the sex trade. New Moon intends to delve deeper in future surveys to get a clearer picture of who is leading the movement for sex workers rights.
In order to channel critical resources into the movement for sex workers rights, New Moon engages philanthropic networks and connects the dots between issues of social justice, civil liberties, and human rights. In 2023 New Moon attended 16 philanthropic conferences where we offered 5 original presentations on the topic of sex work and spoke on 3 panels. Not bad for our first full year! We find that funders are curious about the issue of sex work, particularly when they realize it’s relevant to their portfolios.
This work wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Matching Program to Unlock Giving to Expand Women's Power & Influence, as well as from donations from Mama Cash, the Abortion Bridge Collaborative Fund at Women Donors Network, Vital Projects, and Sex Work Rights. We are thankful also to the many individual donors who have chosen to join us in the journey to advance human rights for people in the sex trade. Without you, none of this work would be possible. Thank you!
