The Chinook Fund seeds community-led, systemic change by mobilizing resources for and trusting in grassroots social justice organizations across Colorado.
Donor Name: Chinook Fund
State: Colorado
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/15/2025
Size of the Grant: $1000 to $10,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Types of Funding
- Start-Up Grants are available to groups that are younger than 4 years old. Groups must demonstrate a vision and plan for meeting Chinook Fund criteria, but do not need a proven track record of success. Groups can apply multiple times in this category, as long as they are younger than 4 years old. The maximum grant award is $4,000.
- Established Grants are available to any group, but the competition for grants is tougher, as it includes organizations that have been working successfully on social justice issues for a number of years. The maximum grant award is $10,000.
- Multi-Year Grants are sometimes considered, depending on funding available, for organizations who apply in the Established category and have been funded at least twice during the last 3 years.
Priority is given to organizations that are:
- Engaging in Community Organizing Work
- Collaborative or working in alliance with other progressive groups as a way to build multiple strategies for bringing social change;
- Risk-taking by doing work that may be controversial, marginalized, and/or new and emerging;
- Strategic and working with a long-term vision which clearly links to current plans; and
- Achieving concrete success which has positively impacted the community.
Funding Criteria
Chinook funds organizations working to challenge the root causes of oppression, rather than treating the symptoms. Chinook believes the root causes of the most serious social problems include systemic racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, ableism and ageism. They identify effective social change as efforts that strive to include these key elements:
- Constituent-Led: The work is led by the people most impacted by injustice. Unlike a traditional charity model, they believe that those most affected by the issue have the vision and solutions for their own liberation – and that the development of their leadership, skills, and power should be prioritized. (How does the organization demonstrate their work is driven by the people it affects?
- Does leadership make-up reflect the people most affected by an issue or oppression holding roles where they can shape the strategies and terms of their own liberation?
- For Youth Organizing: How is youth voice being incorporated into leadership? Is there a youth advisory board or other decision-making body?
- Community-Wide: The work reflects all members of the constituency, especially those who experience multiple forms of oppression. This ensures that change for the community leaves no one behind, especially for those who have less privilege within the community.
- Does the organization work towards change that will affect all members of a constituency that are exploited, oppressed, or marginalized – taking into account those that face multiple oppressions?
- Is the organization working to build a multi-racial, multi-class, multi-gendered social justice movement?
- Lasting Effect: The work makes change not just for one individual today, but for the community as a whole, and for future generations. Generally this means organizing collective action to change systems and institutions.
- Will the proposed work help build concrete and lasting political power to address the underlying causes of the problems that it addresses?
- How does this organization define the root cause of the issue they are working to change?)
Eligibility Criteria
- Your organization must be a 501c3 non-profit organization or have a fiscal sponsor, or be a worker-owned cooperative.
- Your organization must have an annual budget of $350,000 or less.
- Your organization must be based and located in Colorado, or be a regional indigenous group with boundaries that overlap with those of the state of Colorado.
- We prioritize proposals with leadership and constituency from historically marginalized communities and work that engages in Community Organizing (the process of bringing affected people together to use their collective power to win improvements in their community and change the power structure to advance social justice).
For more information, visit Chinook Fund.
