$12.4 million in grants supporting social justice organizations

Announcement

San Francisco (CA) – The Libra Foundation has approved $12.4 million in grants to social justice organizations during the first half of 2019. The foundation’s latest docket includes $8.1 million to 31 existing grantee partners and $3.4 million to 23 organizations new to the Foundation. 

This slate of grants also includes two sets of responsive grants: $550,000 to support the work of 8 organizations fighting the recent abortion bans in the South and $475,000 to 6 pooled funds working on Census 2020 outreach in hard to count communities statewide and nationally. 

In addition to responding to urgent needs, The Libra Foundation prioritizes providing support to organizations that build power through grassroots community organizing, coalition building, and advocacy. The Foundation also focuses on organizations led by and for those most impacted by systemic injustice, largely low-income people and communities of color, who are best suited to build their own solutions. The new organizations in this set of grants also center approaches that take into account the myriad challenges marginalized people face across issue areas and identities. 

“The link is clearer than ever—when we dehumanize our neighbors, we destroy the basic fabric of our society,” said Crystal Hayling, Executive Director of The Libra Foundation. “Attacks on reproductive care, the denial of rights of LGBTQ folks, attempts to suppress the Census count of Black and Brown communities—these actions diminish us all.”

The Foundation continues to believe in the importance of tapping into the wisdom of trust-based networks by funding organizations that are in deep partnership with one another. This docket was shaped by conversations with existing grantee partners, other social justice funders, and movement leaders.

Grants to fight Abortion Bans

  • ARC-Southeast
  • Groundswell Fund
  • National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
  • National Network of Abortion Funds
  • Southerners on New Ground
  • Spark Reproductive Justice!
  • URGE United for Reproductive and Gender Equity
  • Yellowhammer Fund

Census pooled funds

  • Census Bay Area Regional Pooled Fund
  • Census Equity Fund
  • Census Pooled Fund for Sacramento Region
  • Census Pooled Fund for Riverside and San Bernardino Counties
  • Los Angeles County Census Pooled Fund
  • San Joaquin Valley Health Fund Census Cluster Project

New Organizations

  • African Womens Development Fund
  • APEN (Asian Pacific Environmental Network)
  • Baltimore Corps
  • CA Gender Justice Funder Network and Culture Change Collaborative
  • CBE (Communities for a Better Environment)
  • CEJA (California Environmental Justice Alliance)
  • Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund
  • Coalition of Communities of Color
  • Front and Centered
  • Groundswell Fund
  • Initiate Justice
  • Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability
  • Mirror Memoirs
  • Momentum Community
  • Movement Law Lab
  • National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
  • New Universal Gathering
  • Right To The City Alliance
  • SCOPE (Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education)
  • The Ahimsa Collective
  • The Maria Fund
  • Third Wave Fund
  • Visión y Compromiso

Renewing Organizations

  • Center for Constitutional Rights
  • Center for Investigative Reporting
  • Center for Media Justice
  • Center for Reproductive Rights
  • Columbia University Law School Human Rights Institute
  • Democracy Now!
  • Detroit Justice Center
  • Drug Policy Alliance
  • Emergent Fund
  • Fund for Global Human Rights
  • CLIMA Fund
  • Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
  • Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center
  • Highlander Research and Education Center
  • Human Rights First
  • Immigrant Defense Project
  • Ipas
  • It Takes Roots
  • Let’s Breakthrough
  • Mother Jones
  • Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
  • Planned Parenthood of Illinois
  • Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
  • Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
  • Students for Sensible Drug Policy
  • The Center for Cultural Power
  • The Futuro Media Group
  • The Restorative Justice Fund
  • UltraViolet
  • Western States Center
  • Women’s Link Worldwide

The Libra Foundation is a family foundation with an endowment of $480 million invested for impact. The Foundation is committed to social justice work in the United States in the areas of criminal justice and drug policy reform, environmental justice, and gender justice. Over the past decade, The Libra Foundation has granted more than $60 million to 192 grantee partners.

Contact: Laurie Kappe, i.e. communications.

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