NOTE: NCF accepts letters of inquiry year-round, and conducts three rounds of grantmaking each year. There are no deadlines for Letters of Inquiry — LOIs are accepted on a rolling basis and are reviewed by NCF staff within 60 days.

The Nathan Cummings Foundation is a multigenerational family foundation, rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice, working to create a more just, vibrant, sustainable, and democratic society. We partner with social movements, organizations and individuals who have creative and catalytic solutions to climate change and inequality.

Our Focus

Pursuing Justice. For People + Planet. The Nathan Cummings Foundation is a multigenerational family foundation, rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice, working to create a more just, vibrant, sustainable and democratic society through our grantmaking in the United States and Israel.

We focus on finding solutions to the two most challenging problems of our time – the climate crisis and growing inequality – and aim to transform the systems and mindsets that hinder progress toward a more sustainable and equitable future for all people, particularly women and people of color.

Climate Change + Inequality

Climate Change

From the Paris climate agreement to Puerto Rico, the world has declared the climate crisis one of the greatest challenges in our history. It will take all of our ingenuity and resolve to build an inclusive clean economy that lifts people out of poverty and moves everyone, especially those on the front lines, out of the devastating path we now face. We will address the climate crisis from an equity perspective and hold accountable the entrenched interests that have left our nation’s infrastructure and communities vulnerable and have stalled the energy and economic transformation we need. We’ll invest in solutions at the local, state and national level and join forces with diverse, enlightened leaders to chart a new course for a sustainable future.

Inequality

Millions of Americans face overwhelming obstacles shaped by social hierarchies of race, ethnicity, gender, income, education level or zip code, which restrict their opportunities. In order to address inequality, we will invest in work that reduces implicit bias and discrimination in our public policy, systems and markets. We are particularly concerned about the effects of criminal justice policies and practices on the economic security of hard-working families. With our partners, we seek new and effective pathways to improve quality of life for people and level the playing fields of opportunity. We challenge ideas, policies, practices and systems that perpetuate racial and ethnic stereotypes, criminalize people in poverty, and make it possible for a few to hold a vastly disproportionate share of the nation’s income, wealth and assets.

Our Approach

From our voice, to our grants and our investments, we are using all of our resources to achieve our mission. We are in the business of changemaking, not just grantmaking.

• Investing in Bold Leaders
• Our grantees and Fellows are courageous leaders willing to work in new ways, forge unusual and powerful alliances, and push breakthrough ideas that make the ‘impossible’ possible.
• Using All of Our Assets
• We are committed to leveraging 100% of our assets toward our mission through impact investing and active ownership strategies.
• Raising Our Voice
• How we do our philanthropy is as important as what we do with our philanthropy. We are using our voice, strengthening fields and expanding our networks to increase our impact.

The Foundation’s four focus areas together form an integrated framework to advance a healthy planet and democracy.

Racial + Economic Justice

We work to reverse generations of concentrated wealth and racialized power and patriarchy to get to the root causes of inequality and inequity. To advance racial and economic justice, we stand with groups like Color of Change, who speak out for and with those who are marginalized and criminalized. We’re building power, income and wealth for working people through our partnership with organizations like the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Workers Defense Project.

Funding Overview

NCF supports strategies that challenge policies that criminalize low-income people and people of color, stripping families and communities of their humanity and stability. We invest in leaders, organizations and coalitions working to expand economic opportunity and racial justice by eradicating institutional practices steeped in racial hierarchy, discrimination and implicit bias. We partner with those building pathways to greater economic security, inclusion and mobility for all people by promoting business ownership, wealth and asset-building for people in socially and economically excluded communities. Advancing a truly just society requires creative problem solving along with a diverse set of approaches. Strategies that center and elevate the voices, stories and leadership of directly impacted people, along with the use of art, religious or ethical traditions, are critical to fostering positive cultural shifts toward inclusion and pluralism.

Funding Focus

Specifically, we support innovative ideas, strategies, and programs that:

• Increase Income: Improve working conditions for the most vulnerable communities — people of color, women, immigrants and persons with justice-involved backgrounds – to ensure that all work is fair, safe and equitable.
• Build Wealth: Build assets and wealth that lead families to greater economic security and mobility, advancing racial, gender, ethnic and economic justice.
• Disrupt Mass Incarceration: Support critical interventions that reimagine our criminal justice system and overturn policies that disproportionately target low-income people, women and communities of color.
• Reduce Debt: Support necessary interventions at the intersection of increasing income, building wealth and disrupting mass incarceration — recognizing that the issue of debt (who is burdened and who pays) is central to efforts working to achieve greater economic and racial justice.

Inclusive Clean Economy

We support a just transition to an inclusive clean economy where prosperity and a healthy environment go hand in hand. Partners like the Climate Justice Alliance, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Jobs to Move America and the NAACP Environment and Climate Justice Program are advocating for solutions that bring the environmental and economic benefits of addressing climate disruption and energy use to frontline communities first, not last.

Funding Overview

We support bold leaders who strive to create an inclusive clean economy, sparking an energy and economic transformation that reduces harmful carbon emissions in replicable, scalable and equitable ways. Achieving this requires nurturing a more diverse and inclusive movement that both builds power for frontline communities, and shifts narratives from ones that undermine a clean inclusive economy to ones that feature more voices and hold those in charge accountable. We support investments and multi-sector collaborations that spur sustainable development, inclusive wealth building and job creation. Philanthropic capital is critical, and we work to direct it to underfunded parts of the movement.

Funding Focus

Specifically, we will support innovative ideas, policies and programs that:

• Build Power: Engage broad and diverse constituencies, mobilize resources and strengthen the movement by supporting frontline leaders advocating for a just and inclusive clean energy economy.
• Shift Narratives: Amplify religious, cultural, business and community stories and demonstrate that resolving the climate crisis and a sustainable economy go hand in hand.
• Demonstrate Solutions and Change Market Behavior: Support models that deliver replicable and scalable climate and clean energy sector benefits concurrently with living wage jobs and inclusive wealth building opportunities.

Corporate + Political Accountability

We activate investors and businesses as allies, advocates and leaders on climate and social justice and work to decrease concentrated corporate power and limit corporate influence in our political system. We support partners like Ceres, Open MIC and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and use our standing as an investor to strengthen corporate and political accountability.

Funding Overview

NCF focuses our corporate and political accountability work on efforts to hold corporations accountable for the ways in which they impact progress on racial and economic justice and the creation of an inclusive clean economy. We use our standing as both a grantmaker and an investor to spur greater transparency, drive changes in philanthropic, corporate and government behavior, decrease concentrated corporate power and wealth, and challenge problematic narratives underpinning our economy and markets.

Funding Focus

Specifically, NCF will support organizations working to:

• Activate Investors: Address inequality and climate change by activating investors to press for increased transparency and drive changes to corporate behavior while challenging the notion that corporations’ primary duty is to their shareholders;
• Decrease Concentrated Corporate Power: Decrease concentrated corporate power through a focus on antitrust law and competition policy, challenging the dominance of the consumer welfare theory and ensuring that the role of concentrated corporate power in driving inequality is widely recognized;
• Leverage Corporations as Allies: Leverage businesses as allies and advocates for progress on important social and environmental issues; and
• Counter Corporate Influence on Government: Highlight and counter undue corporate influence on politicians and regulatory agencies and counter attempts to suppress the role of science and the truth in decision making.

Voice, Creativity + Culture

We aim to shift dominant narratives about race, class, gender and ethnicity and build radical solidarity and empathy through voice, creativity and culture. We support art, media, and cultural criticism that challenge injustice like Firelight Media and the Critical Minded Initiative. We invest in visionaries like the Poor People’s Campaign and Bend the Arc who use faith, spiritual, and cultural practices to seed social transformation and spiritually rooted movements for change.

Funding Overview

We recognize the power of storytelling and the arts to reflect and sustain traditions, languages, history, hopes, dreams and truths across generations. By raising the voices of poets and prophets, artists, spiritual leaders and culture shapers to shift the dominant narratives about race, class, gender and ethnicity, we can expand our collective capacity for radical empathy. We encourage voices and values that challenge imbalanced power dynamics and expand racial and economic justice.

Funding Focus

Through the Voice, Creativity, and Culture portfolio, NCF supports innovative ideas and portfolios that:

• Artistic Practice: Support arts organizations with a deep commitment to social justice and shift perspectives by supporting new narratives that nurture empathy, understanding and a culture of shared responsibility.
• Storytelling Strategies: Support different modes of storytelling — journalistic, critical and strategic — that contribute to social justice, hold the powerful accountable, and envision a world with respect and empathy at its core.
• Moral Action: Support religious and spiritually grounded activists and organizations who advocate for social justice and democratic values and shift perspectives by advancing new narratives of radical empathy and shared responsibility.
• Spiritual Practices: Support spiritual, cultural, artistic, and contemplative practices that nurture the creativity, resilience, empathy, and healing of activists, organizations, and leaders advancing social change.

Advancing a New Vision of Justice

For over seventy years, Public Welfare Foundation has supported efforts to advance justice and opportunity for people in need. Today, our efforts focus on catalyzing a transformative approach to justice that is community-led, restorative, and racially just through investments in criminal justice and youth justice reforms.

Issue Areas: Adult Criminal Justice

Reforms at the edges are no longer enough. PWF is committed to funding new alternatives to the justice system in our targeted jurisdictions.

The scale and severity of America’s criminal justice system is a unique problem unmatched by any other developed nation. This crisis disproportionately impacts people of color, and costs the nation $80 billion annually in law enforcement spending and between $55 and $60 billion in lost annual Gross Domestic Product.

Our country’s over-reliance on mass incarceration is a failed experiment that adversely impacts communities and families, and has no positive effect on public safety. It’s a problem that can, and must, urgently be addressed with effective community alternatives. Community-based programs encourage innovative solutions that meet local priorities, foster collective action, and support new leaders who can spearhead efforts to make their own neighborhoods safer and stronger.

It is time to boldly reimagine our nation’s justice system.

Public Welfare Foundation makes grants primarily to groups that are working in its targeted jurisdictions to:

• Advance the redirection and prioritization of state and local resources toward targeted investments that support system-involved individuals in their communities, through research and strategic thought leadership.
• Reduce state incarceration levels and racial disparities through reforms in sentencing, charging, and supervision policies and procedures.

Sentencing Reform

Addressing our nation’s over incarceration crisis begins with advancing sentencing reforms that decrease state incarceration and reduce racial disparities.

Developing Policies & Procedures that Restore Dignity

Public Welfare Foundation aims to decrease state incarceration and reduce racial disparities through reforms in sentencing, charging, and supervision policies and procedures. We envision a future where unjust, racially-charged sentencing policies and procedures are replaced with effective measures that promote fairness, redemption and restoration.

Community Reinvestment

It’s time to shift power and resources from systems to communities.

Investing in Effective Community-Based Solutions

It is time to move from investing billions of dollars in failed prison models to investing in proven, effective community-based solutions. Research shows there is virtually no relationship between incarceration and crime rates – and that spending time in prison may actually increase the likelihood of a person’s return. By contrast, studies reinforce that local interventions have positive impacts on people and improve community safety.

The solutions to over incarceration lie with those who are most proximate to the issues. Heroes exist in the very neighborhoods that are most often relegated for being riddled with crime and violence. These models need to be resourced and replicated around the country.

Issue Area: Youth Justice

Prison is no place for kids. Investing in effective community-based visions of justice is good for kids, for families, for communities, and for public safety.

Today across the United States, thousands of children – disproportionately youth of color – languish in locked facilities. It is a sober reminder that our nation continues to choose to warehouse our most valuable asset: our children.

Children are too often referred to a punitive criminal justice system for misbehaviors that would more appropriately be handled within families, schools and communities. Despite research showing that incarceration leads to high youth recidivism rates, as well as poor education, employment, and health outcomes, prosecutors and the courts often fail to use alternatives to incarceration that have been shown to be more effective at rehabilitating young people. Youth of color are disproportionately likely to suffer the harms of these failed policies and practices.

There is a better way.

Public Welfare Foundation supports organizations working in its targeted jurisdictions to advance a fair and effective community-based vision of youth justice, with a focus on ending the criminalization and incarceration of youth of color. In particular, the Foundation makes grants to groups working to:

• Advance state policy reforms that dramatically restrict youth incarceration, abandon the youth prison model, and adopt community-based approaches for youth in the juvenile justice system;
• End the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth in the adult criminal justice system; and
• Support innovative strategies to counter structural racism in the youth justice system, with a particular focus on front-end reforms.

Closing Youth Prisons

• Shifting resources from warehousing youth to investing in effective, community-based solutions.

Shifting Funds to Effective Community-Based Models

Given the grave damage incarceration does to youth and families, as well as its abysmal public safety outcomes, communities are calling for an end to the youth prison model. A national movement is advancing to shift resources away from simply warehousing kids and instead investing in communities to provide youth with the tools they need to succeed.

Public Welfare Foundation supports programs that advance state policy reforms to dramatically restrict youth incarceration, abandon the prison model, and adopt community-based approaches for youth in the juvenile justice system.

We don’t need more youth prisons, and we certainly don’t need to put more taxpayer dollars into a failed model. Working with our partners, Public Welfare Foundation is forging a new path forward that empowers communities to provide proven and effective supports for its young people

Racial Disparities

• Investing in innovative strategies to countering structural racism in the juvenile justice system.

Developing Racially-Just Youth Systems

Pervading our nation’s youth justice systems are gross racial and ethnic inequities that cannot be ignored. Despite similar offense rates across demographic groups, youth of color are more likely than their white peers to be referred to and incarcerated in the juvenile justice system, and to be tried and sentenced as adults.

Public Welfare Foundation supports innovative strategies to counter structural racism in the juvenile justice system, with a particular focus on front-end reforms.

Raising the Age

• Working to end the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth in the adult criminal justice system.

Working to Treat Kids Like Kids

Public Welfare Foundation makes grants to groups who are working to end the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth in the adult criminal justice system.

In the last two decades we have vastly increased scientific knowledge about adolescent brain development. However, in that same time we have accelerated the incarceration of children in direct contravention to what we have learned from the scientific community. Public Welfare Foundation is committed to ensuring that all adolescents and emerging adults are treated in ways that maximize their growth and development to help keep our communities just and safe.

Grants Overview

Public Welfare Foundation awards grants to nonprofits that honor the Foundation’s core values of racial equity, economic well-being, and fundamental fairness for all. The Foundation looks for strategic points where its funds can make a significant difference and improve lives through policy and system reform that results in transformative change.

Current focus areas include:

• Organizations developing innovative, transformative approaches to youth and adult criminal justice reform.
• Black-led movement building focused on dismantling the structures that have caused generations of harm to Black people, building power amongst local Black community members and advancing efforts to reinvest in communities.
• Organizations and projects focused on investing in community-based solutions that reduce the over-reliance on mass incarceration
• Reframing the narrative and fostering greater transparency and urgency around the U.S. criminal justice system through storytelling, journalism and other targeted efforts

Grant Types: How We Fund the Work

General Support Grants

General support grants are for day-to-day operating costs or to further the work of your organization. These grants are not earmarked for a particular program or project.

Program or Project Support Grants

Program or project support grants support a specific program or activity of the organization. These are restricted grants and must be used for that program or project.

Special Opportunities Grants

The Special Opportunities Program supports projects reflecting the Foundation’s mission and underlying values. These are one-time only grants that are especially timely and compelling. At times, this kind of grant serves as a laboratory for new ideas.

The Impact Fund

Our mission is to provide grants, advocacy and education to support impact litigation on behalf of marginalized communities 

Grants

The Impact Fund awards recoverable grants to legal services nonprofits, private attorneys, and/or small law firms who seek to advance justice in the areas of civil and human rights, environmental justice, and/or poverty law. 

Since being founded in 1992, the Impact Fund has granted more than $8 million in recoverable grants. We award grants four times per year, most within the range of US$10,000 to US$50,000.

Funding Sectors

Social Justice

The Impact Fund provides grants and legal support to assist in human and civil rights cases. We have helped to change dozens of laws and win cases to improve the rights of thousands.

The cases we are funding allege that:

• In California, police used excessive force against #BlackLivesMatter protesters.
• In Colorado, female police officers face losing their careers because they can’t do enough push-ups and sit-ups.
• In Ohio and New York, a gun manufacturer knowingly sells to dealers that arm criminals.
• In Massachusetts, prisoners with Hepatitis C are going untreated.
• In North Dakota, Native Americans can’t vote because of a recent voter suppression law.
• In Florida, prisoners who request mental health services are abused and, when they complain, the abuse gets worse.

Environmental Justice

The Impact Fund provides grants to support local litigation for environmental justice, with a focus on marginalized comunities. These are often cases no one else will support. 

The cases we are funding are to stop:

• Proposed mining in the Superior National Forest that would contaminate groundwater, damage wetlands, and destroy the local Native American wild-rice economy.
• Unwanted development, after a community garden in New York was bulldozed in the middle of the night.
• Pollution from a lighter fluid factory in New Jersey that is causing illness to residents in a low-income neighborhood.
• Clear-cut logging that is threatening the health and livelihood of the local indigenous community in Ontario.
• Spraying pesticides at will in California.
• A new highway bridge that is the latest in a long history of environmental hazards heaped upon an African American and Latino neighborhood in Corpus Christi, severing it from the rest of the city.

Economic Justice

The Impact Fund provides financial and other forms of support to cases fighting for economic justice. From workers' rights to consumer protection for vulnerable populations, impact litigation is a powerful tool to hold corporations accountable. 

The cases we are funding allege that:

• In Texas, people with unpaid tickets are sent to “debtors’ prison.”
• In California, landlords lose their insurance when they accept Section 8 vouchers from low-income tenants.
• In Idaho, homeless people are jailed for sleeping outdoors, even when there are no shelters to take them in.

Additional Considerations

Is your case set up for success?

No one can guarantee a victory. That's why we look for a coherent strategy and a legal team with sufficient experience and resources to give the case the best chance of success.

Have you collaborated with anyone else?

Legal work can be all-encompassing. But taking the time to talk with others who have argued (or are currently arguing) similar cases can make a huge difference in the long run.

Do you need the money?

You probably wouldn't be reading this if you didn't need financial support, but just in case: We prioritize requests from applicants who need funding to keep their case moving forward.

Have the expenses already been paid?

Our grants can only be used for expenses that have not yet been paid. Raising funds for litigation costs can feel like a juggling act, we know. We’re available to talk by phone if you need help determining when to apply.

Have you estimated what your case will cost?

Litigation costs can be hard to predict, but we’ve found there is value in planning. Once you run the numbers, you might move securing co-counsel to the top of your list. (We can help.)

Have we funded your case before?

Occasionally we will fund a case more than once. In these situations, the case has lasted several years and has a new set of challenges and expenses.

About the Innovation Prize

The J.M.K. Innovation Prize seeks out innovators who are spearheading transformative early-stage projects in the fields of the environment, heritage conservation, and social justice.

The J.M.K. Innovation Prize is open to non-profit and mission-driven for-profit organizations that are tackling America’s most pressing challenges through social innovation. In 2019, we will award up to ten Prizes, each including a cash award of $150,000 over three years, plus $25,000 for project expenses, for a total award of $175,000. Awardees also receive guidance through the Fund and its resource network, providing tools and training for ascendant change agents.

For more than three generations, The J.M. Kaplan Fund has provided catalytic funding for projects in their early stages of development. Whether a pilot project, a new organization, or a nascent initiative, work supported by the Fund has involved a certain measured risk that ultimately led to large-scale, transformative results. We launched the J.M.K. Innovation Prize in 2015 to leverage this legacy of catalytic grant-making in the field of social innovation. Currently on a biennial schedule, the Prize has to date funded twenty wildly creative solutions to social and environmental challenges, ranging from high-tech efforts to restore imperiled coral reefs, to the nation’s first farm labor trust. Each awardee takes a visionary approach to a societal need, working within one or more of the Fund’s three program areas:

• The Environment: Protecting natural resources and reducing the impacts of climate change.
• Heritage Conservation: Conserving the places that communities care about most.
• Social Justice: Supporting just alternatives and reforms to the criminal justice and immigration systems.

Tailored for Early-Stage Social Entrepreneurs

We know there is a scarcity of funding for untested ideas being piloted in the social innovation field. The Prize is designed to fill this gap in innovation philanthropy, supporting ideas that other funders may deem too risky or too small. We also know that early-stage innovators need the freedom to seize opportunities when and where they arise. The Prize’s unrestricted funding offers this flexibility, letting awardees deploy resources where they are most needed, whether investing in core projects, hiring staff, or just keeping the lights on.

We know each organization must follow its own path to achieving a change-making vision. With its three-year period, the Prize gives awardees room to evolve at their own pace, with an infrastructure of support tailored to their specific needs as early-stage innovators.

An Innovation Community

Beyond the cash award, the Innovation Prize provides tools to help turn ideas into action. Over the three-year Prize term, we bring awardees together for two convenings each year. Each of these meetings, spotlighting a different awardee’s organization, offers opportunities for peer learning and mentoring from experts in organizational development, board cultivation, media coaching, leadership training, and more. From West Virginia coal country to Monterey, California, our awardees have shared powerful learning moments, embedded in one another’s work and reflecting on their role as change agents.

Background 

The H. C. Gemmer Family Christian Foundation was created in 1956 by the philanthropy and vision of Hiram C. and Edith Gemmer, and their son, H. Robert Gemmer. The founders’ convictions and charitable interests focuses on peace, justice, sobriety, and racial harmony. They were also strong supporters of ecumenical and inter-organizations. By the generosity and estate planning of H. Robert Gemmer, the value of the Foundation’s assets grew fourfold following his death in 1992. The Foundation board meets semi-annually, normally the weekend after Memorial Day and the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Primary Areas of Funding

Peace with Justice

• Alternative to Violence, militarism and War
• Conflict Resolution
• Reconciliation and Healing
• Peace Education
• Criminal Justice

Human Rights

• Anti-Discrimination and Protection
• Immigrants’ rights
• Diversity and Intergroup Relations
• Social Justice
• Economic Justice

The Foundation for Improvement of Justice, Inc. is a private, not-for-profit organization that was founded for the purpose of improving local, state and federal systems of justice. Our mission is to recognize innovative and effective works and/or programs whose efforts have made positive influential differences in the United States criminal and civil judicial arenas.

Our intent is to encourage further improvement in the various systems of justice in the United States through both recognition and reward.

Awards Program

The Foundation encourages improvement by recognizing and rewarding accomplishment in the following categories:

• Legal Reform
• Crime Prevention
• Child Protection
• Speeding the Process
• Crime Victims’ Rights
• Alternative Sentencing
• Lowering the Cost
• Effecting Restitution
• Other Significant Efforts

The Foundation recognizes and awards up to seven nominees on an annual basis with an award package which includes: the Paul H. Chapman Gold Medal, a check for $10,000, a commendation bar pin, a certificate of appreciation, and an invitation to an awards banquet in Atlanta, Georgia.

Please note that these are awards for successful accomplishments inclusive of innovative programs which have proven effective and can serve as models for others. Recipients are not required to render any further services as a condition of receiving an award.

Roddenberry Fellowship

The Roddenberry Fellowship is about community. It’s about bringing extraordinary people together to learn, share, and grow in the pursuit of meaningful, long-term change.

To date, there are close to 100 Roddenberry Fellows from across the country, working on a range of critical issues from immigrant detention and voting rights to healthcare and domestic abuse. Together, their collective efforts make the U.S. a more inclusive and equitable place to live.

The 12-month program is designed to support Founders, Executive Directors, and CEOs who are approaching some of our most entrenched problems in new and impactful ways. The tailored support, trainings, and connections that are at the core of the Fellowship are designed to be responsive to the needs of each Fellow and each cohort. By creating space for amazing individuals to connect, the community can collectively support the revolutionary movements that are needed to reshape this country into one that meets the needs of all, not just the few.

Action, A Way Forward

Launched in 2016, the Roddenberry Fellowship is a U.S.-based fellowship awarded to extraordinary leaders and advocates who use new and innovative strategies to safeguard human rights and ensure an equal and just society for all.

The Roddenberry Fellowship is a 12-month program that offers Fellows $50,000 to take an existing initiative (e.g. campaign, organization) to the next level and amplify its impact OR to launch a new initiative.

A New Reality

COVID-19 has and will continue to severely exacerbate existing and long-standing social inequities affecting vulnerable and underserved communities in disproportionate ways. Individuals and families already experiencing housing instability, unemployment, limited healthcare, and food insecurity have felt the burden far more acutely than others. For these communities, COVID-19 has amplified and compounded economic, health, and racial inequities and revealed in stark and terrible terms the consequences of the historic disparities in which we live. While many efforts around COVID-19 are seeking a return to "normal”, for many communities "normal" was never equal or equitable.

Rather than return to the old normal, we must now focus on building more equitable, resilient, and sustainable communities.

Issue Areas

Up to 20 applicants working in one of five issue areas will be selected as 2022 Fellows:

Civil Rights

Fellows will work toward equity for all, including in our public schools, criminal justice system, and places of work.

Environmental Protection

Fellows will work to mitigate the human impact on our natural resources, neighborhoods, and communities.

Immigration & Refugee Rights

Fellows will work to ensure the rights of all newcomers to the US regardless of where they come from or why.

LGBTQIA & Women’s Rights

Fellows will work to secure rights and opportunities for everyone, irrespective of gender or sexual orientation.

Health & Wellness

Fellows will work to overcome the barriers that prevent underserved communities from accessing the healthcare they need and deserve.

Alkermes Inspiration Grants®

Alkermes is currently accepting applications for its Alkermes Inspiration Grants® program. This competitive grants program will provide up to a total of $500,000 in grants to assist nonprofit organizations in their work to address the needs of people living with addiction, serious mental illness or cancer. This program will prioritize funding for proposals that are designed to address the needs of historically under-resourced or underrepresented communities. 

The program will support innovative and impactful initiatives designed to address acute and long-term challenges for people living with the diseases in our therapeutic areas of focus. As in previous years, proposals that are designed to address the needs of historically under-resourced or underrepresented communities will be prioritized for funding.

Areas of Interest

Alkermes is interested in funding programs that are designed to address challenges for people living with alcohol dependence, opioid dependence, schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder, melanoma or ovarian cancer and which promote health equity for diverse communities.

Applicants are encouraged to be creative and innovative in proposing new programs that will make a difference for patient communities. The committee will also consider significant expansions and improvements to existing programs, and/or the resumption of truly innovative programming with a proven track record that was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The following examples describe some, but not all, areas of interest:

• New and innovative programs to address the needs of people affected by alcohol dependence, opioid dependence, schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder, melanoma or ovarian cancer
• Substantially reworking, improving or enhancing support or resources (e.g., helplines, mobile outreach)
• Addressing the unique needs of caregivers in one or more of the disease areas listed above
• Innovative efforts to meet educational needs of patients, their families and caregivers in historically under-resourced or underrepresented communities to help advance health equity
• Education and/or support to help people living with addiction and/or serious mental illness return to work and/or transition out of criminal justice settings 

NOTE: Applicants must first submit a Letter of Inquiry. Select applicants may be invited to submit a full proposal in the summer.

Sky Ranch Foundation

People never stand so tall as when they stoop to help a child.

Formed in 1961 and building on more than 60 years of tradition, Sky Ranch Foundation ℠ is a tax-exempt charitable organization committed to giving at-risk youth a second chance by identifying and offering grants to efficient and effective programs focused on improving the quality of help available to these youth.

Funding Interests

Preference will be given to organizations that:

• Serve troubled youth between the ages of 11-18, with a priority for programs that focus on youth between the ages of 11-15
• Focus on preventing youth involvement in the criminal justice system, or provide long-term rehabilitation in a residential or alternative setting.
• Provide comprehensive support services to youth that may include education, job training, enrichment activities, counseling and case management.

Proposals that fall outside of the Foundation’s guidelines will be considered at the discretion of the Directors.

Geographic Focus

The Foundation funds programs and organizations that work with at-risk youth within the United States, its possessions, and territories, or operated within Native American tribal lands. Requests for programs outside those geographies will not be considered.

Type of Support

General operating, capital and capacity-building.

Award

The typical grant size will be between $5,000 and $40,000. Grants outside of this range will be considered at the discretion of the Directors.