Democracy and Power Innovation Fund

Rockefeller Family Fund

Deadline: Rolling

Grant amount: Unspecified amount

Funding uses: Education / Outreach, Project / Program

Location of project: United States

Location of residency: United States

Overview:

Grant-Making Programs

The Rockefeller Family Fund makes grants in three program areas. The guidelines for these program areas and sample lists of grants are available on each program home page.

RFF provides support within these program areas for advocacy efforts that are action-oriented and likely to lead to tangible public policy results.

Grants are rarely made to organizations that traditionally enjoy popular support, such as museums, hospitals, or endowed institutions. Seldom are grants made for academic or scholarly research.

Democracy and Power Innovation Fund

The Democracy program (formerly called the Institutional Accountability and Individual Liberty program) encourages the active participation of citizens in government, seeks to make government and private institutions more accountable and responsive, and supports efforts to ensure that individuals’ rights and liberties under the Constitution are protected. Past grants have included support for work to overcome roadblocks to registration and voting; efforts to expand access to government information; advocacy to promote electronic disclosure of campaign contributions; and a broad range of program initiatives aimed at holding government agencies and public officials accountable for their actions.

Initiatives

The Democracy and Power Innovation Fund is a vehicle for collaborative grantmaking in support of research and innovation at the intersection of organizing, civic engagement, and power. While many people recognize the value of community organizing to the work of building durable movements, little has been done to understand and evaluate the impact of base-building, narrative, and structural democracy reform on voting and other forms of civic engagement, particularly in communities of color. We want to learn more about these civic engagement strategies to improve practice and increase impact. Our theory is that policy change is rooted in the ability of community-based organizations to build authentic constituencies that they can move to action. At the DPI Fund, we are building a community made up of leaders from organizing, political science, and philanthropy to act together to support work to build a multi-racial democracy that works for everyone.

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website.

Eligibility:

• Within its program guidelines, RFF supports tax-exempt organizations engaged in activities of national significance.
• Thus, we do not ordinarily consider projects which pertain to a single community, except in the rare instance where a project is unique, strategically placed to advance a national issue, or is likely to serve as a national model.
• With limited exception, the Rockefeller Family Fund does not make grants to international programs or domestic programs dealing with international issues.

Preferences:

• Because RFF has limited resources, priority is often given to organizations working as partners on RFF initiatives. 

Ineligibility:

• The RFF does not make grants for direct service providers, or for social services or human services programs, and we do not fund local or community-specific projects.
• We do not fund film or video projects.
• We do not fund profit-making businesses, construction or restoration projects, or projects to reduce an organization's debt.
• We do not offer scholarships, fellowships, tuition assistance, internships, student loans, or any other form of personal financial aid.
• With limited exception, the Rockefeller Family Fund does not make grants to international programs or domestic programs dealing with international issues.