Global philanthropic support for efforts to prevent, mitigate, and resolve conflicts totalled $328.2 million in 2016, a study by the Peace and Security Funders Group and Candid finds.

According to the 2019 edition of the Peace & Security Funding Index: An Analysis of Global Foundation Grantmaking (12 pages, PDF), 326 foundations awarded more than twenty-six hundred grants in 2016 in support of a range of peace and security efforts. The report notes that while the total is down $23 million from 2015 levels, the decline can be attributed in part to the fact that Nationale Postcode Loterij and Cordaid, two of the largest grantmakers that shared grants data in 2015, did not do so in 2016. Funding for peace and security remains paltry relative to foundation funding overall, accounting for just 0.7 percent of the $32 billion given by foundations in Candid’s 2016 FC 1000 data set.

The study analyzed grants in support of twenty-four issue areas in three categories — preventing and mitigating conflict, resolving conflict and building peace, and supporting stable, resilient societies — and found that the largest share of grant dollars in 2016 went to general support for stable, resilient societies ($78.8 million), followed by nuclear issues ($36.4 million) and gender equality ($28.2 million). Among strategies, policy, advocacy, and systems reform received 38 percent of grant dollars, while public education and research and evaluation received 18 percent and 16 percent, respectively. According to the report, about 70 percent of peace and security grant making includes a population focus, and funding for children/youth and women/girls each accounted for 14 percent of grant dollars, while migrants and refugees accounted for 8 percent, up from 5 percent in 2015.

The report also found that while the top ten funders of peace and security in 2016 accounted for 61 percent of total funding, 38 percent of funders awarded only a single grant. While 14 percent of the foundations in the study awarded a total of $1 million or more in peace and security grants, 33 percent awarded $49,999 or less; grant amounts ranged from $100 to $15 million, with a median of $40,000. As in 2015, the Carnegie Corporation of New York topped the list with 101 grants totalling $48.5 million; followed in 2016 by the National Endowment for Democracy ($38.2 million), Foundation to Promote Open Society (Open Society Foundations, $26.2 million), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($24.2 million), and the Skoll Foundation ($17.4 million).