The Forum grew out of the EFC's Grantmakers East Group (GEG), which was created in 1992 by a group of EFC members active in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union states. The group first met as a side event organised at the EFC Annual General Assembly (AGA) and Conference. However, as interest for the group grew in parallel with developments of grantmaking in the region, the GEG grew into an independent project with an Annual Meeting taking place in a different country each year. The first GEG Annual Meeting (AM) took place in Paris in 1996, and since then 13 AMs have been organised.

As the region and the philanthropic sector in various countries have developed rapidly during the 90s and into the new millennium, the Grantmakers East Group and its Steering Committee discussed how to develop the meetings to better respond to the various needs of organisations working throughout the region and engage participants in dialogue about issues and challenges facing the sector. An external evaluation was conducted in 2005, and continued discussions in the Steering Committee during 2006 and 2007 led to profound change in the format of the GEG AM, and in 2007 the first Grantmakers East Forum was launched under this new name.