The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced today that it will award $15 million to a range of nonprofit organizations working against systemic racism, part of a larger set of commitments that the foundation pledged this summer.
The 15 recipient organizations include charities working across a broad swath of issues—from health to education to human rights—to advance the cause of racial justice, fight against anti-Black racism and amplify the values, aspirations, and power of Black communities.
“We are honored to support the work of these organizations, and committed to doing more to learn as we build our knowledge and ability to sustain organizations working to advance racial justice,” said Hewlett Foundation president Larry Kramer. “We see these first grants as a kind of downpayment on a broader commitment the foundation has made to address systemic racism in our work going forward.”
Recipient organizations are:
- Black Futures Lab works with Black people to transform communities, building Black political power and changing the way that power operates—locally, statewide, and nationally.
- The Black Teacher Project at the National Equity Project believes every child deserves a Black teacher. The Black Teacher Project’s mission is to sustain and develop Black teachers to lead and reimagine schools as communities of liberated learning. The project’s vision is that every student will benefit from the diversity, excellence, and leadership of an empowered Black teaching force.
- Black Women’s Health Imperative targets the most pressing health issues that affect Black women and girls in the U.S. through investments in evidence-based strategies, bold programs and advocacy outreach on health policies.
- Common Future is a network of leaders (re)building an economy that includes everyone. Common Future’s work unites wealth-holders and wealth-builders across the U.S. and Canada to advance a more equitable economy. As a key intermediary reimagining a shared future alongside a network of local leaders, Common Future us a platform for bold ideas, an aggregator of community capital, and a strategic advisor for leading national players.
- Data 4 Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people.
- East Bay Community Foundation is committed to advancing a just East Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area. It partners with donors, social movements, and the community to eliminate structural barriers, advance racial equity, and transform political, social and economic outcome for all who call the East Bay home. Among its many programs is the ASCEND-BLO initiative, which supports Black-led organizations that serve as the backbone for communities of color throughout the Bay Area.
- Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, named after the brilliant, Black hero of the civil rights movement, organizes with Black, Brown, and low-income people to shift resources away from prisons and punishment, and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong.
- The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, America’s Black think tank, provides compelling and actionable policy solutions to eradicate persistent and evolving barriers to the full freedom of Black people in America. The center is a trusted forum for leading experts and scholars to participate in major public policy debates and promote ideas that advance Black communities. It uses evidence-based research, analysis, convenings and strategic communications to support Black communities and a network of allies.
- Liberation in a Generation is a national movement support organization building the power of people of color to totally transform the economy—who controls it, how it works, and most importantly, for whom. It brings together economists, advocates, community organizers, and other proven and emerging leaders of color across the country to build a Liberation Economy, within one generation.
- The Marsha P. Johnson Institute protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people by organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting collective power.
- Partnerships for Trauma Recovery focuses on healing trauma among international survivors of human rights abuses including war, torture, forced displacement, human trafficking, gender-based violence and persecution due to identity, sexual orientation, and beliefs.
- Race Forward catalyzes movement building for racial justice. It brings systemic analysis and an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity, working in partnership with communities, organizations, and sectors to build strategies to advance racial justice in policies, institutions, and culture.
- Repaired Nations is a pan-African network of support and resources that catalyzes the growth of cooperative ventures for a thriving and resilient future. Repaired Nations provides the network, training, funding, and supportive-infrastructure to cultivate a successful pan-African cooperative ecosystem.
- SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, comprising 80 local, regional and national grassroots organizations in the United States, aims to amplify and strengthen the collective voices of indigenous women and women of color to ensure reproductive justice through securing human rights.
- Souls Grown Deep is dedicated to promoting the work of African American artists from the South, and supporting their communities by fostering economic empowerment, racial and social justice, and educational advancement.
These organizations were chosen through a collaborative nomination and selection process that involved all Hewlett Foundation staff and focused on charitable organizations that address anti-Black racism. A volunteer Advisory Council of staff who identify as Black or of African descent guided the selection process and elevated nominated organizations that were catalytic in their approaches to racial equity and antiracist ideas and policy.
“In particular, our advisory council was inspired by each organization’s approach to building inclusive, antiracist power that centers Black communities and helps people find their own antiracist power,” said Jasmine Sudarkasa, Program Fellow in the foundation’s Effective Philanthropy Group, which facilitated the selection process.
To provide streamlined support, with minimal burden on the recipients, these donations have been exempted from Hewlett’s usual reporting and application requirements, beyond what is legally required.
These awards follow an earlier grant provided this summer to the Democracy Frontlines Fund, in partnership with the Libra Foundation and 10 other funders, to support grassroots organizations advocating for racial justice in free, fair elections and criminal justice. They are part of a larger effort at the foundation, created in response to the racial reckoning of 2020 that challenged all institutions—but especially ones like Hewlett that have not confronted systemic racism—to step up and do more.
The Hewlett Foundation’s commitments include the pledge to create a new 10-year, $150 million initiative focused on racial justice, which will provide sustained and strategic support to racial justice organizations, and more fully incorporating racial equity in our ongoing programs, grantmaking strategies, and operations.
The Hewlett Foundation’s Advisory Council included: May Aguiar, Program Associate, Global Development & Population; Althea Anderson, Program Officer, Global Development & Population; Joseph Asunka, Program Officer, Global Development & Population; Kathryn Bradley, Program Fellow, Education; Angela DeBarger, Program Officer, Education; Spergon Hunt, Associate Accountant, Finance; Kent McGuire, Program Director, Education; Charmaine Mercer, Program Officer, Education; Morgan Reams, Program Associate, Effective Philanthropy Group; and Marilyn Waite, Program Officer, Environment; as well as non-voting members Jasmine Sudarkasa, Program Fellow, Effective Philanthropy Group, and Kristy Tsadick, Deputy General Counsel. The nomination and selection process was facilitated by members of the foundation’s Effective Philanthropy Group: Amy Arbreton, Evaluation Officer; Jasmine Sudarkasa, Program Fellow; and Fay Twersky, Vice President.