Deadline: 19-Nov-21
The Seattle Foundation has launched its Fund for Inclusive Recovery Phase 1 for Community Power and Base Building Investments.
The Fund for Inclusive Recovery will deploy $50 million over five years through phases of investment timed with emerging opportunities for action. In partnership with public sector decision-makers and philanthropic supporters, organizations rooted in communities of color are most effectively positioned to help transform racist systems and design innovative solutions.
In this first phase of investment, the Fund for Inclusive Recovery will support Community Power and Base Building approaches that create the necessary foundation for meaningful systems and policy change. They seek to fund BIPOC-led and rooted strategies for transforming racist systems that perpetuate inequities. Building on past learnings and leadership from community partners, they trust organizations to focus on areas of greatest importance and relevance to their communities in their approach.
This could include a focus on housing and homelessness, education, mental health, food security, or criminal justice as examples. Fund for Inclusive Recovery resources are flexible to support the necessary time, organizing, and staffing needed for base building efforts. They recognize the success of this work requires assessing the landscape, building partnerships, as well as engaging community and systems decision makers.
Approaches
To provide context on what an organization, movement, and/or coalition’s work could focus on as they build their power and base, please consider the following approaches. These approaches are not onetime events nor are they necessarily linear. An applicant may engage in more than one, over the course of the next three to five years:
- Preparing for Transformation: No one organization or sector (private, public, or nonprofit) has all the answers to, or ownership of, systemic problems. Coordination and collaboration are essential to achieving impact. They will consider support for efforts that are uplifting diverse voices, assessing where the system is headed, analyzing what has been tried before to help build on past success, or retrying ideas that were launched before their time.
- Building Knowledge and Public Will: Well informed dialogues that educate and build public will are critical to advancing racial and economic equity.
- Advancing Policy and Systems Change: Community members most impacted by inequitable policies and systems are closest to the solutions required to rectify them.
Funding Information
- The Fund seeks to support 20 organizations, movements and/or coalitions for the next 3-5 years with grants of $200,000 a year. Funds can be used to support project, program, or general operating costs necessary to support the applicant’s community power and base building efforts.
- They see these resources as critical investments in building capacity and infrastructure for Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color (BIPOC)-led and rooted organizations, movements, and coalitions to take on future policy work.
Eligibility Criteria
Please carefully consider eligibility before applying. Organizations, movements, or coalitions should apply if they:
- Are Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color led, rooted, and serving.
- Maintain strong relationships, trust, and an ability to mobilize their community.
- Seek to and/or have experience in advancing policy and/or systems change at the neighborhood, city, county, or state level.
- Have experience and comfort in convening, engaging in partnerships, and community organizing.
- Can demonstrate the community-defined impact of their work geographically in King County.
- Have operating budgets that are approximately between $250,000 and $5,000,000 annually.
- Have 501(c)(3) nonprofit status or have a fiscal sponsor that qualifies as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
For more information, visit https://www.seattlefoundation.org/nonprofits/nonprofitgrantopportunities