OVERVIEW: The Fund for Nonviolence is committed to criminal justice and foreign policy reform in the United States. It is particularly concerned with abolishing the death penalty, reducing the national rate of incarceration, and limiting the U.S. military interventions overseas.
IP TAKE: The Fund for Nonviolence leads in progressive rights and security philanthropy and expects the same out of its grantees. Despite its responsiveness and extended support, this is not an accessible funder. It prefers to research its own grantees to fund rather than accept letters of inquiry or proposals at large since it is laser-focused on funding interest areas. Contact its officers to learn more about how its grantmaking is evolving. To get on this funder’s radar, your organization must conduct excellent work that has gauged success via impact reports and may have a media presence, as well as deep connections to the community you wish to serve.
PROFILE: The Fund For Nonviolence (FNV) awards grants for global security and human rights. The FNV believes that “universal justice and peace are essential conditions for realizing individual and collective human potential. Violence is a dehumanizing obstacle to human potential.” FNV prioritizes projects that support social justice for “[m]arginalized communities and, in particular, on elevating the voices and leadership of people from those communities.” The fund focuses its grantmaking on organizations that address injustices in marginalized communities, as well as those fighting against the “root causes of race, class, and gender injustice.” It conducts grantmaking through three programs: Reimagining Public Safety, Legacy Fund and Reparations, Accountability and Healing.
According to its website, the fund encourages proposals that “pursue structural changes to root causes of race, class, and gender injustice,” “value the active involvement of members of the communities most impacted,” “understand and articulate the impact of their work on women and promote the leadership of women within the organization,” “work through networks, coalitions and alliances,” and “demonstrate the capacity to reflect on their experience and adapt to lessons and insights.”
Grants for Global Security, Human Rights and Violence Prevention
Grants that support global security, human rights and violence prevention are made through the FNV’s, Legacy Fund, previously Lifting Voices of Resistance, and Reimagining Public Safety programs.
- The fund’s previous Lifting Voices of Resistance giving continues through the Legacy Fund, which supports efforts to “redirect our national focus and resources away from the politics of war and the demonization of marginalized communities” and towards “the development of institutions and economies that promote healthy communities, justice, and peace.” Its main goals are to end direct and indirect military interventions in foreign countries, defend the rule of law, reduce the size and influence of the U.S. military, and support grassroots organizing while promoting nonviolent resistance. It is particularly interested in work that promotes collaboration between diverse organizations, advocates for “adherence to international agreements and human rights norms,” challenges the legitimacy of U.S. military policies, and builds the capacity and leadership of local, grassroots organizers and advocates.
- The newer Reimagining Public Safety program works toward “safety, healing and accountability.” This program prioritizes “community-driven solutions and replacing punitive responses to violence with healing and transformation.” Recent areas of specific grantmaking interest have included violence prevention, accessible victims services, restorative and transformative justice programs and changes within the legal system regarding prosecution, sentencing and the death penalty. One recent grant went to the national organization Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, through which survivors of violent crimes work together “to create healing communities and shape public safety policy.” Another recent grant supported Equal Justice USA, which aims to “build a healing justice system that centers racial equity and the needs of communities most impacted by violence and mass incarceration.”
Grants for Racial Equity and Criminal Justice Reform
- A significant portion of the fund’s Reimagining Public Safety grantmaking addresses criminal justice reform in the U.S. with grants supporting organizations involved in reforms regarding incarceration, re-entry and the abolition of the death penalty nationally. Grantmaking in these areas focuses on racial equity and community-led initiatives for reimagined justice.
- Grantees supporting initiatives for incarceration reform and reentry include California’s A New Way of Life Reentry Project, Advancing Real Change’s expansion to the state of Florida and the Essie Justice Group, through which women in California work together to address “rampant injustices created by mass incarceration.”
- Grantmaking to eliminate the death penalty and limit capital punishment has included support for North Carolina’s Center for Death Penalty Litigation, Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the Death Penalty Information Center, which used funding for its Racial Justice Communications Project.
- The fund’s Reparations, Accountability and Healing program aims to increase and expand public awareness of “historical and ongoing structural racism and state violence experienced by Black and Indigenous communities in the United States.” This program’s grantmaking focuses on “narrative shifts” and “truth-telling” as important means of healing and repairing structural racism. Early grantmaking from this program has supported the Truth, Justice and Reconcilliation Commission at the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro, North Carolina and Project Truth, a national program.
- Lastly, the Death Penalty Abolition program works to build new systems that can achieve well-being and accountability by “replacing punitive responses to violence with healing and transformation.” These grants are considered in coordination with with the 8th Amendment Project.
Grants for Women and Girls
While not one of its main program areas, the Fund for Nonviolence often prioritizes organizations that “understand and articulate the impact of their work on women and promote the leadership of women within the organization” through both its Reparations, Accountability and Healing program, which funds organizations working to abolish the death penalty, reduce incarceration and expose human rights abuses of those who are currently incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, and its Legacy Fund program, which seeks to reduce the scope of the U.S. military, end unnecessary military interventions overseas, and resist civil and human rights abuses. Past grantees include the Women’s Foundation of California, which received funding for the Criminal Justice Cohort of the Women’s Policy Institute; and Essie Justice Group, which received a grant for its work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.
Important Grant Details:
The Fund For Nonviolence awards grants to organizations both large and small, and most grants range from $10,000 to $100,000. The fund does not award many grants each year, so grantmaking is competitive. To gain a better idea of what kinds of organizations FNV supports, see the fund’s grants list page.
FNV does not accept unsolicited grant applications, and proposals are by invitation only. General inquiries may be addressed to the foundation’s staff via email at mail@fundfornonviolence.org or telephone at (831) 460-9321.
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