The Activist Collaboration & Care Fund seeks to correct the often difficult experiences of women and nonbinary people of color-led organizations in accessing philanthropic funds that more mainstream, well-resourced, and white-led organizations often obtain.
Donor Name: Ms. Foundation for Women
State: All States
County: All Counties
Territory: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/25/2023
Size of the Grant: $15,000 to $25,000
Details:
The mission of the Ms. Foundation for Women is to build women’s collective power in the U.S. to advance equity and justice for all. The Foundation achieves the mission by investing in, and strengthening, the capacity of women-led movements to advance meaningful social, cultural and economic change in the lives of women. Ms. has six grantmaking initiatives, one of which is the Activist Collaboration & Care Fund. Launched in 2020, the Activist Collaboration & Care Fund (ACF) seeks to deepen collaboration within and across movement building organizations, affirm organizations’ need for healing and rest, and catalyze increased investment in social justice movements across the country.
Funding Areas
This funding opportunity comes in direct response to what they continue to hear from movement leaders: greater resources are needed for fostering collaboration, responding to alarming and/or unexpected shifts in the environment, and healing. Areas of funding they will consider for this round of ACF funding include:
- Collaboration: Efforts to deepen relationships, build trust, or strategize across organizations; including activities focused on building shared understanding, repairing relationships, working through challenges that stall collaboration, and developing plans for acting collectively
- Healing, rest, and restoration: Efforts to heal from intergenerational trauma and/or violence (as well as from movement- and organizing-related trauma and violence) or invest in the restoration and rest of staff. This might include (but is not limited to) investments in training, convenings, or spaces that enable individuals or organizations to heal, rest, and restore; as well as investments in meditation, mindfulness, somatic practices, conflict resolution support, and/or child and elder care
- Rapid response: Efforts to respond to immediate threats, such as an unexpected/evolving policy change that place community members in harm’s way, or responding to unanticipated opportunities that emerge to set new legal or policy precedents
- Digital infrastructure and digital safety: Efforts to improve an organization’s digital infrastructure and/or increase digital or physical safety.
Funding Information
This summer, ACF will invest approximately $1,000,000 in organizations and networks of, by, and for trans and cis women and girls of color and nonbinary people of color. Grants will range from $15,000 to $25,000.
Eligibility Criteria
To be considered for funding, applicants must meet all of the following eligibility criteria:
- At least 50% of your organization’s leadership must include trans women, cis women, and non-binary people who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). An organization’s leadership includes people with significant influence or decision-making power (i.e. the executive director, management staff, and advisory committee members or governing boards).
- A majority of the organization’s work should focus on issues impacting trans women, cis women, and non-binary people, with a strong emphasis on those who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).
- Organizations must have 501(c)(3) status or be a project of a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor. Ms. Foundation cannot fund 501(c)(4) organizations through this fund.
- Organizations that have an annual budget of $2M or less.
- Organizations that are operating in the U.S. or U.S. territories, with a particular emphasis on state and local movements and campaigns.
Ineligibility
- Organizations with a 501(c)(4) legal status
- Individuals
- Ongoing general operating expenses (such as staff salaries or office rent)
- Organizations that do not have a gender analysis as part of their work (they define “gender analysis” as the ability to understand the relationship between gender and access resources, safety, and rights)
- Organizations whose leadership is not comprised by a majority (>50%) of trans women, cis women, and non-binary people who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).
For more information, visit Ms. Foundation for Women.
