The Scherman Foundation awards grants to support the arts and organizations that use community organizing and advocacy to build a more just, sustainable, and equitable New York, as well as those that strengthen democracy and advance environmental and reproductive justice nationwide.
Donor Name: The Scherman Foundation
State: New York
City: New York City
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: Ongoing
Size of the Grant:
- Arts Program: $30,000
- Democracy Program: $75,000 to $150,000
- Environmental and Climate Justice Program: $50,000
- Reproductive Justice Program: $45,000
- Strengthening New York Communities Program: $45,000
Grant Duration: 2 years
Details:
The Foundation prioritizes movement-building, long-term general operating grants, and funding groups led by and serving Black, Indigenous, and People of Color whose work addresses and dismantles systemic racism. The Foundation has a special commitment to New York City, focusing its Arts and Strengthening New York Communities programs exclusively there.
The Scherman Foundation focuses on five issue areas: Arts, Environmental and Climate Justice, Democracy, Reproductive Justice, and Strengthening New York Communities.
Types of Program
- Arts Program: New York City’s world leading arts sector plays a critical role in the city’s life, enriching its spirit, creating sustainable communities by impacting social wellbeing and cohesion, serving as economic engine, and attracting emerging and established artists, as well as art lovers, from around the world. The Foundation funds a broad variety of professional performing arts organizations, as well as a limited number of visual arts groups. Its primary criteria are excellence and innovation. Within those criteria, it values creative diversity without cultural boundaries and increasingly prioritizes groups led by and serving BIPOC constituencies
- Democracy Program: The Foundation’s current Democracy program is driven by the belief that a vibrant democracy requires consistent and meaningful political and civic participation by the vast majority of the population, including communities that have long been excluded from power. To this end, they must protect and expand access to the right to vote, build strong civic engagement infrastructure and practices, strengthen democratic institutions, promote policy reforms that make systems fairer and more accountable to a broader constituency of diverse communities, and decrease polarization to create a more unified understanding of the common good. Throughout all of this, they recognize that racial, gender, economic, and social inequality prevent many from participating in a wide array of decisions about their daily lives, from the local to the national level. Communities of color in particular have historically lacked political power, a “seat at the table”, and a sense that their participation can make a difference. Therefore, a core tenet of their grantmaking and the majority of grants in this area will be to build the political power of lower-income BIPOC communities.
- To achieve their vision of a truly inclusive and accountable democracy—one that lives up to their Constitution’s opening words, They the People—the Foundation provides funding to nonprofit organizations, especially those working in and for BIPOC, gender-inclusive, and LGBTQ+ communities, that are addressing the following issues with the aim of achieving social, gender, economic, and racial justice:
- Protecting, increasing access to, and expanding the right to vote, and ensuring secure and peaceful elections
- Advancing Institutional Reforms
- Building Community Power
- Environmental and Climate Justice Program: To help build a more just and sustainable world, the Foundation has supported a variety of organizing, policy, litigation, and public education groups focused on the existential threat of climate change. Increasingly, and in line with its racial justice lens, the Foundation has focused its renamed Environmental and Climate Justice program on the movement-building work and leadership of BIPOC community-based and led grassroots groups. These frontline communities have suffered the most from climate change and other environmental harms, from pollution spewing fossil fuel and other industrial facilities to the devastation of climate-exacerbated heat waves, droughts, and hurricanes. They have also been the leaders across the country in robustly, comprehensively, and intersectionally fighting for policy change that builds sustainability, as well as racial and economic justice
- Reproductive Justice Program: The Foundation acknowledges a critical and historically less-recognized battle—that of women of color and low-income women who have suffered terribly under deeply racialized reproductive politics. Through this intersectional framework of Reproductive Justice, created by Black women activists in 1994, the Foundation’s grantmaking includes a mix of innovative national and state-based organizations using a wide range of strategies, such as base building, leadership development, public education, policy advocacy, voter engagement, and culture change to secure reproductive justice for all people. The Foundation will also support organizations utilizing legal advocacy and litigation to protect the dignity and human and civil rights of all women, especially the most marginalized and including trans people.
- Strengthening New York Communities Program: Since then, the Foundation has funded a mix of single and multi-issue organizations using various strategies to create long-term social justice outcomes. The Foundation prioritizes the support of groups pursuing community organizing and advocacy strategies, through which limited Foundation dollars can leverage significant results. Community organizing brings people together to identify issues, shape an agenda, and take joint action. Organizing groups develop and train leaders, work to promote accountability, and bring about both personal transformation and systemic change. Advocacy provides significant leverage as it rallies public attention and action, bringing issues into the realm of public concern and affecting policy and systematic change. These efforts can address changes on multiple levels, from local and citywide to state and federal. While the Foundation’s primary focus is New York City, the SNYC program is open to a limited number of organizations in Long Island and Upstate New York working on critical campaigns with statewide impact.
Funding Information
- Arts Program: Grants average $30,000 over two-years
- Democracy Program: Grants will generally range between $75,000 to $150,000 over two-years
- Environmental and Climate Justice Program: Grants average $50,000 over two-years
- Reproductive Justice Program: Grants average $45,000 over two-years
- Strengthening New York Communities Program: Grants average $45,000 over two-years.
For more information, visit The Scherman Foundation.
