Native American

Mission/Giving Statement: The Foundation is devoted to serving Indian nations and Indian people in the recovery and control of their rightful homelands. 

Grantmaking Program Areas: Cultural Awareness; Economic Opportunity; Education; Legal Reform

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:

Cultural Awareness: Use Indian land to help Indian people discover and maintain their culture.

Economic Opportunity: Increase economic assets of Indian landowners by gaining control of Indian lands and by creating financial models that convert land into leverage for Indian landowners.

Education: Educate every Indian landowner about Indian land management, ownership and transference issues so that knowledge becomes power when decisions about land assets are made.

Legal Reform: Reform the legal mechanisms related to recapturing physical, cultural, and economic assets for Indian people and strengthening sovereignty of Indian land.

Types of Funding/Funding Restrictions: See website for list of funding restrictions.

Application Instructions: See the specific RFP for information on how to apply.

Mission/Giving Statement: Third Wave Foundation is a feminist, activist foundation that works nationally to support young women and transgender youth ages 15 to 30. Through strategic grantmaking, leadership development, and philanthropic advocacy, it supports groups and individuals working towards gender, racial, economic, and social justice.

Grantmaking Program Areas: Reproductive Health & Justice

Types of Funding/Funding Restrictions: The Foundation funds projects which benefit, target, are devised by, and led by young women, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth activists, between the ages of 15 and 30. It especially looks for programs or organizations that focus on the needs of low-income communities, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, and people of color. The Foundation does not fund national organizations, intermediaries or subsidiaries. Additional restrictions listed online.

Application Instructions: Email LOIs to program[at]thirdwavefoundation[dot]org.

Mission/Giving Statement: The Foundation's mission is to reduce the incidences of obesity and type 2 diabetes and advance the lives of Native American youth. To this end, the Foundation supports the development of evidence-based sports and wellness programming primarily in the forms of soccer and golf, which can serve as a vehicle to both improve the health of Native American youth as well as foster leadership and community development.

Grantmaking Program Areas: Sports; Health & Wellness

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions: 

Sports: Supports the development of sustainable sports programming for Native American youth. The Foundation's goals is to help promote the development of quality sports programming designed to increase opportunities and access for physical activity and to competitive sports in schools and tribal communities.

Health & Wellness: Supports strategic initiatives and sustainable programming designed by Native Americans to address grave issues such as obesity and diabetes impacting Native American youth. The goal is to support advocacy, education and capacity-building within tribal programs that can make a profound and lasting difference in the health and wellbeing of Native American youth. 

Types of Funding/Funding Restrictions: The Foundation will not consider proposals in which it would serve as the sole source of funding. It will not fund individual scholarships.

Application Instructions: Submit a proposal including an application narrative (not to exceed two pages), proposal summary report, and supporting documents. See website for more information and deadlines. 

Mission/Giving Statement: The Christensen Fund believes in the power of biological and cultural diversity to sustain and enrich a world faced with great change and uncertainty. Its mission is to buttress the efforts of people and institutions who believe in a biodiverse world infused with artistic expression and work to secure ways of life and landscapes that are beautiful, bountiful and resilient.  

Grantmaking Program Areas: Landscapes, Livelihood & Foodways; Cultural Expression & Land; Education/Leadership/Networking

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:

Landscapes, Livelihood & Foodways: The persistence and adaptation of indigenous systems for managing landscapes that sustain cultural and biological value and diversity; and maintaining the diverse agricultural, hunting, gathering and cooking traditions that sustain community foodways, diets, livelihoods and wellbeing; including the traditional varieties of crops first domesticated in our geographic regions essential for the future of agriculture globally.

Cultural Expression & Land: Artistic and cultural expression--both traditional and contemporary--to maintain continuities of relationship with place and the experience of the natural world, including music, dance and associated expression.

Education/Leadership/Networking: "Bothways" education in indigenous societies that better enables people to access and value both heritage and innovation within their own societies, as well as engage richly with the rest of the world.

Application Instructions: Submit a pre-proposal via online form.

Notes: The Fund's Greater American Southwest founding covers the US Four Corners region and Northwest Mexico covering the Colorado Plateau and Delta, the Pueblo and Hispanic communities of the Rio Arriba/Rio Grande, the Sonoran Desert on both sides of the Mexican-US border (east of the Colorado River), and the Sierra Tarahumara.

Mission/Giving Statement:  The Seventh Generation Fund is an Indigenous non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and maintaining the uniqueness of Native peoples throughout the Americas.  The Fund focuses on supporting grassroots development through Native community empowerment and action.

Grantmaking Program Areas:  Arts and Cultural Expression; Environmental Health & Justice; Human Rights; Intergenerational Leadership; Sustainable Communities; Women’s Leadership

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:  

Arts and Cultural Expression: Provides support to cultural arts organizations. The Fund encourages holistic community health and cultural renewal efforts by using traditional and contemporary art forms to express cultural diversity.

Environmental Health & Justice: Provides small grants and technical assistance to Indigenous peoples involved in frontline grassroots action, advocacy for environmental and social justice and community organizing.

Human Rights:  Supports the creation and continuation of strategic alliances between Indigenous Peoples to empower them to participate in all forms and levels of human rights advocacy.

Intergenerational Leadership Initiative:  Supports Native youth, elders and cultural leaders engaged in community organizing work for cultural health, environmental justice and social equity. The Fund promotes training in leadership and pride in cultural heritage for generations yet to come.

Sustainable Communities:  Provides seed money, organizational support and technical training to Native grassroots community-based projects striving for holistic community health and renewal.  The Fund supports traditional agricultural methods, renewable forms of energy and sustainable strategies for development that preserve or restore traditional life-ways for future generations.

Women’s Leadership: Advocates and protects the sacred role of women as leaders in Native communities.

Type of Funding/Funding Restrictions: Seventh Generation Fund does not fund Non-Indigenous organizations.  Funds can be used to assist with establishing a grassroots Native organization, covering general operating costs, helping a Native community-based organization accomplish its work, for organizational capacity building or group participation in regional or national workshops, forums or special conferences.  There are a list of program criteria an applicant must meet, listed online.  These criteria include but are not limited to: Leadership authority and decision-making activities are clearly vested in the people impacted by the project; Project promotes and enhances the language, culture, traditional institutions, values and way of life of its constituents, Etc.

Mini Grants - $50-$500.  1-2 page LOI may be submitted at any time during the year.

Application Instructions:  Review their How to Apply for a Grant page which desribes their specific criteria, certifications, including specific mailing instructions.  Describe in your proposal how your goals and objectives align with our criteria and how your project will accomplish these goals within your community.

Mission/Giving Statement:  Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation promotes a sustainable and just social and natural system by supporting grassroots organizations and movements committed to this goal.

Grantmaking Program Areas:  Protect the Health and Environment of Communities Threatened by Toxics; Advance Environmental Justice; Promote a Sustainable Agricultural and Food System; Ensure Quality Reproductive Health Care as a Human Right

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:  

Protect the Health and Environment of Communities Threatened by Toxics:  Supporting organizations, primarily at the state and regional levels that: Bring together activists to work on toxics exposure and contamination; and Promote initiatives and public policies that reduce the use of toxins and hold corporations accountable for their impact on the environment.

Advance Environmental Justice:  Supporting organizations, led by people most heavily affected, that: Work to counter environmental degradation in low-income communities and communities of color.

Promote a Sustainable Agricultural and Food System:  Supporting rural and urban organizations that:  Work with farmers and consumers on issues involving sustainable agriculture and community food security; Advocate for governmental policies and funding allocations that advance sustainable agriculture and community food security; and Counter the actions of public and private sector institutions and corporations that further the concentration of food production and the industrialization of agriculature.

Ensure Quality Reproductive Health Care As A Human Right:  Supporting organizations that: Broaden the base and agenda of the reproductive rights movement through the involvement of new constituencies, primarily at the state level and in communities of color; and Advocate for legal and policy initiatives to safeguard reproductive freedom.

Type of Funding/Funding Restrictions:  The Foundation makes general support grants and does not limit the number of renewal grants.  It seeks organizations led by people of color and/or working in low income communities and requests that address multiple priorities as well as those that bring together organizations and activists from diverse movements.

Application Instructions:  Eligibility Quiz and Internet Application Form/LOI instructions available online.

Mission/Giving Statement:  First Nations believes that when armed with appropriate resources, Native peoples hold the capacity and ingenuity to ensure the sustainable economic, spiritual and cultural well-being of their communities.

Grantmaking Program Areas:  Little Eagle Staff Fund; Native Youth & Culture Fund; Native Nonprofit Capacity Building Initiative; Native Agriculture & Food Systems Initiative

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:

Little Eagle Staff Fund (ESF):  First Nations' flagship grantmaking program provides grants and technical assistance to models of culturally appropriate economic development that use asset-based strategies.  ESF offers three different types of general grants: Seed, Start-Up, and Working Capital, as well as special initiatives.

Native Youth & Culture Fund:  First Nations believes that Native youth represent the future of Native communities and that their health and well-being determines the future health and well-being of their communities overall.  By investing in youth and giving them a sense of place and tradition in the community, a community ensures that it will have bright and capable future leaders.

Native Nonprofit Capacity Building Initiative:  When funding is available, First Nations offers grants to nonprofit organizations for organizational capacity building and sustainability projects.

Native Agriculture & Food Systems Initiative: First Nations Developmental Institute recognizes that accessing healthy food is a chanllenge for many Native American children and famillies. Without access to healthy food, a nutritious diet and good health are out of reach. To increase access to healthy food, we support tribes and Native communities as they build sustainable food systems that improve health, strengthen food security and increase the control over Native agriculture and food systems. First Nations provides this assistance in the form of financial and technical support, including training materials, to projects that address agriculture and food sectors in Native communities. 

Type of Funding/Funding Restrictions:  To qualify for funding, all projects must be located on, or linked through the provision of a service or product to, a reservation or rural Native community.

Application Instructions:   LOI instructions online.  Sign up for grantmaking email list online.

Mission/Giving Statement:  The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research, and improving the quality of life for people with paralysis through grants, information and advocacy.

Grantmaking Program Areas:  Quality of Life Grants

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:

Quality of Life Grants:  This program was conceived by the late Dana Reeve to address the myriad needs of children and adults with paralysis and other mobility impairments and their families. Grants are awarded twice yearly to nonprofit organizations that provide critical life-enhancing and life-changing programs and services that improve physical and emotional health and increase independence. Funded projects offer a diversity of services and approaches: improving access; providing education and job training; sponsoring organized sporting opportunities; and much more. Quality of Life grants are funded through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Award Number 1U59DD000838-01).

Type of Funding/Funding Restrictions:  Funding is awarded twice yearly.  Multiple year grants are not awarded.  The Foundation gives special consideration to organizations that serve returning wounded military and their families, and to those that provide targeted services to diverse cultural communities.  The Foundation does not make grants to individuals.

Application Instructions:  Online grant application and instructions available online.  1st Cycle application submission period:  January 2 - March 1; decisions in June.  2nd Cycle application submission period July 1 - September 1; decisions in late December/early January.  Please visit www.ChristopherReeve.org/qol for detailed information, and feel free to contact prior to applying.

Mission/Giving Statement: The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice works for social, racial and economic justice in the U.S. and interantionally. Its grantmaking and philanthropic advocacy programs help lesbians and allied communities challenge oppression and claim their human rights.

Grantmaking Program Areas: Emergency Fund; Movement Resource Fund

Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:

Emergency Fund: Astraea’s Emergency Fund is a rapid-response grantmaking mechanism, providing timely support for organizations to address urgent and strategic political opportunities and crises affecting LGBTI communities.

Movement Resource Fund: Astraea’s Movement Resource Fund provides grants to enhance the capacity and effectiveness of LGBTI organizations to engage in movement building work. Grants are generally provided in three areas: Technical Assistance, Travel/Peer-to-Peer Learning and Historic Convenings.

Type of Funding/Funding Restrictions: Astraea makes US and International grants to both organizations and individuals. Although any organization that fits the funding criteria may apply, Astraea prioritizes its current grantee partners.

Application Instructions: Send one one page inquiries via email.