Grassroots Social Justice Efforts – Dec 29

Posted by Peace Development Fund on November 23, 2021

Peace Development Fund Invites Applications for Grassroots Social Justice Efforts

The Peace Development Fund was founded in 1981 on the belief that lasting change will come only when a large amount of people are well informed and empowered to make change.

To that end, the fund invites applications for its Community Organizing Grants program, which will award grants typically ranging from between $2,500 and $7,500 to grassroots organizations working for social justice. The organization’s four pillars of grantmaking include:

Organizing to Shift Power: Includes groups that are creating a power base that can hold leaders accountable to the people who are affected by their decisions; that allow their membership or constituents to take the lead in collective action-planning and decision-making; and whose leadership comes directly from the people who are most affected by the issues you are organizing around.

Working to Build a Movement: Includes groups that organize in the local community but make connections between local issues and a broader need for systemic change; that provide a space for members to develop their political analyses while taking action for change; that break down barriers within the progressive movement by building strategic alliances between groups of different cultural or class backgrounds or different issue areas; and that explore the root causes of injustice and have a long-term vision for the kind of social change they are working to achieve.

Dismantling Oppression: Includes groups and projects that are proactively engaged in a process of dismantling oppression, confronting privilege, and challenging institutional structures that perpetuate oppression (both internal and external to the organization); and groups that are proactively making connections between different forms of oppression (racism, heterosexism, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, etc.), and with injustice.

Creating New Structures: Includes groups that have alternative organizational structures that allow power to flow “from the bottom up”; and efforts to create new, community-based alternative systems and structures (economic, political, cultural, religious, etc.) that are liberating, democratic, and environmentally sustainable and that promote healthy, sustainable communities.

The foundation notes that most competitive applications will deeply embody all of these funding priorities.

Applications may be submitted via the PDF website starting on December 1, 2021.

Applicants must have budgets no larger than $250,000 and be located in the United States, a U.S. territory, Haiti, or Mexico.

For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the Peace Development Fund website.

Deadline: December 29, 2021 5:00 PM EST

Community Organizing Grants Program