Social Justice Fund Grants from our Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 Cycles
A Vision of Genuine Security and a Culture of Life: Connecting and Demilitarizing Domestic and Foreign Policy
Organization: Women for Genuine Security
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
We seek to create and implement a locally-grounded a campaign that 1. connects conceptually and practically domestic policy and foreign policy. The means providing a framework for demonstrating the interlinkages between the two and 2. offers a vision of genuine security that offers a visionary and practical model for communities. We will partner with local environmental justice, abolition, and anti-violence organizations applying community-rooted approaches to creating change. We also will partner with high schools, colleges, and senior citizen centers to work intergenerational.
Conscientious Objector (CO) Peer Support Circle
Organization: Center on Conscience & War
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
The CO Peer Support Circle (Uncompromisingly Conscientious, UC) is a social, emotional, experiential, cathartic, and moral peer community-based group that will promote the rights of conscience and support COs in navigating the process of conscientious objection in the US military. UC will serve as the interpersonal bridge to connect COs to war – both past and current - and provide a compassionate, nonjudgmental, cooperative sanctuary for healthy exchanges, socio-emotional peer support, and empathic human connection.
Direct action at the UN General Assembly
Organization: Climate Defiance
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
We plan to organize a mass-turnout, nonviolent direct action at the UN General Assembly meeting in NYC in September of 2023. This is a great opportunity to highlight President Biden's fossil fuel hypocrisy in front of world leaders.
Historians-On-Call
Organization: Historians for Peace and Democracy
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD) is working with the Zinn Education Project to mobilize professional historians to oppose the right-wing’s lies and distortions about what is and what is not being taught in schools and to stand up for educational freedom. Toward that end, we have created the “Historians-on-Call” network to identify when and where the historians can support local efforts.
Mobilizing Fans to Fight for Queer Rights
Organization: Fandom Forward
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
Fandom Forward is a leader in fan activism, an organizing strategy that draws parallels between beloved pop culture and real world issues of inequity to mobilize fans for social good. During “Our Flag Means Queer Rights!”, we are training thousands of fans of HBO Max’s Our Flag Means Death to pressure their representatives to vote no on bills that hurt the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as support organizations that are protecting LGBTQIA+ rights.
NET Cohort Training
Organization: New Endeavor Texas
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
Organizers from across the issue spectrum are always able to accomplish more. That’s why the county cohort training program is so critical. New Endeavor Texas training programs build connections among organizers from different backgrounds and issue spaces, all within the same county. Well-trained and well-supported organizers are needed to make lasting change in Texas, and at the end of our cohort training programs, organizers have built up a county-wide organization that can support ongoing work at all levels of local and state government.
Peace and Justice in the Philippines: A National Speaking Tour
Organization: International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines - US Chapter (ICHRP-US)
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
We aim to oppose US-backed human rights violations and war crimes by the Philippine government against human rights defenders, poor and impoverished people, and civilians in the Philippines and abroad. People who have faced this repression will travel across the US, sharing their personal stories and education on the worsening political and economic crises in the Philippines. We aim to build a movement to oppose US military aid to the Philippines, defend the rights of activists against political repression, and build long-lasting international solidarity to fight for a just and lasting peace!
Trans Prisoner Leadership Development
Organization: Beyond These Walls
Grant Cycle: 2023, April
Beyond These Walls will be facilitating several leadership development programs for transgender women who are currently incarcerated. Our movements and organizations need leadership from transgender people who are justice-involved. We believe in developing these leaders before they are released and empowering them to organize in their prisons and communities.
Beyond the Bill - Drivers Licenses For All
Organization: Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance - AMOR
Grant Cycle: 2022, October
After years of organizing and advocacy by AMOR and our coalitions, Rhode Island passed a bill that legalizes drivers’ licenses for undocumented community members. This bill undermines one way that immigrants are often captured by law enforcement — on the road — and empowers them to move through daily life without fear of punishment. In preparation for the law’s rollout, we will coordinate outreach and public education, assist people seeking to obtain a license, and build our base by connecting community members with efforts to organize against state violence and for community empowerment.
Koa Futures Initiative: Stop the Leases Campaign
Organization: Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice
Grant Cycle: 2022, October
The State of Hawai’i leased more than 40,000 acres to the Army in 1965, for just $1 for 65 years, which are set to expire in 2029. As a result, the Army is trying to retain these lands beyond the lease. HPJ in coalition with Kanaka Maoli organizations, are building a grassroots campaign with the communities directly harmed by the military presence and who have been denied access to their ancestral lands to demand that the State refuse to renew the Army leases because in the midst of the climate crisis military pollution and violence is causing irreversible environmental harm to Hawaiʻi.
National Network of Organizing Hubs for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
Organization: Back from the Brink
Grant Cycle: 2022, October
Back from the Brink (BftB) is a grassroots coalition managing a national campaign to mobilize the public and build the political will needed to prevent nuclear war and fundamentally change nuclear weapons policy in the United States. By growing our national network of community-based organizing hubs in support of nuclear weapons abolition, BftB is building and mobiziling a powerful constituency around a call for the US to initiate negotiations with the other nuclear weapons states for a verifiable, enforceable time-bound agreement to eliminate their arsenals.
Reimagining National Security
Organization: Community Alliance of Lane County (CALC)
Grant Cycle: 2022, October
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decried the “giant triplets” of racism, militarism, and materialism. Inspired by King, “Reimagining National Security” engages people, including youth, in making connections between climate catastrophe, racism and militarism. While many groups address militarism, or the climate crisis, or racism, very few make the connections between these critical issues. We believe that without addressing the impact of militarism, it is impossible to effectively address climate chaos.We will research local impacts, initiate discussions about true security, and mobilize actions.
SASS - Special Assets Safety & Security
Organization: Movement Training Network
Grant Cycle: 2022, October
SASS, a project of Movement Training Network, has created and is working to implement a series of training designed specifically for the LGBTQIA2S+ community for the purpose of self-defense, street medicine, and healthy dialogue.
UTIMCO Divest
Organization: Women for Weapons Trade Transparency
Grant Cycle: 2022, October
UTIMCO Divest mobilizes students, faculty and staff, and alumni of the University of Texas and Texas A&M Systems to lobby the University of Texas and Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) to divest from its at least $63 million worth of holdings in weapons manufacturing companies. Further, UTIMCO Divest encourages the growth of similar divestment campaigns at the university, government, and corporate level. The campaign promotes public knowledge of how weapons manufacturers profit from destruction, and offers a vision of a future without institutional investment in war.