What is the Racial Justice Collaborative?

The Funders' Collaborative for Racial Justice Innovation (Racial Justice Collaborative - RJC) is a partnership of private and corporate foundations, family foundations and individual donors that share a commitment to support and learn from communities seeking racial justice. The Collaborative will provide grants to partnerships involving lawyers and community organizations that are using legal and non-legal tools (such as organizing, advocacy, public policy etc.) to achieve equity and fairer policies for communities marginalized by race, ethnicity, and immigrant or citizenship status.

What is the fund's total endowment?

At this point, the Collaborative (both the National and State funds) expects to provide about $2 million to the field per year for the next three years. We are seeking additional partners, which could increase the grant amounts nationally and in certain states and regions.

Whom do you expect to provide grants to?

We expect to fund innovative partnerships between community organizations and legal advocates like those cited in the report, Louder Than Words. Grantees will likely work on a range of issues, including education, voting rights, environmental and land use policies, immigrant access to welfare benefits and labor rights for immigrants and low-wage workers.

What are some examples of the work that will be funded through this initiative?

The primary goal of the RJC is to fund innovative partnerships between community organizations and legal advocates like those cited in the report, Louder Than Words. For example, in Greensboro, North Carolina, African American and white Kmart employees joined forces with a diverse group of community organizations, congregations and UNITE, to fight against the outright discrimination African American workers were experiencing. Through organizing and community-focused lawyering, the result was a union contract guaranteeing more equitable terms for Kmart workers and lead Greensboro to demand greater accountability from corporations locating their facilities there.

In the Mississippi Delta, a partnership of grassroots activists and community-focused lawyers mounted a highly successful redistricting campaign on the local, state, and congressional level. The campaign resulted in the election of record numbers of African-Americans to office and a greater accountability by elected officials.

In Los Angeles, working class and low-income residents organized with the Bus Rider's Union and other grassroots organizations and mounted a multi-strategy campaign against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority when it announced that it was cutting service and raising fares. The campaign resulted in a settlement with the city that brought up to $1 billion in improvements in Los Angeles bus service.

Why is this collaborative needed?

A three-year examination of the civil rights field - culminating in a report entitled Louder Than Words - found that despite civil rights laws, structural barriers to opportunities, resources and policymaking - particularly for minorities - remain embedded in political and economic systems.

While many foundations and institutions support the important work of national civil rights organizations and local institutions, broader support is needed at all levels.

How does the collaborative work?

The collaborative has two grantmaking components - a National Fund that will support the work of institutions throughout the country - and state or regional funds that will support work in specific states and regions.

To date, the national funding partners include the Ford, JEHT, Levi Strauss and Rockefeller Foundations, the Maurice Falk Fund, the Open Society Institute and the Philanthropic Collaborative via an anonymous donor. State funds will support innovative work in California (with support from Akonadi, Ford and the James Irvine Foundations, the California Endowment and Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund), Massachusetts-Rhode Island (with support from the Boston, Hyams, the Foley Hoag, the Rhode Island and Theodore Edson Parker Foundations and Schott Center for Public and Early Education and North Carolina (with support from Triangle Community, Warner and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundations and the Fenwick Fund).