Grants for Racial Equity & Justice
Learn about grants for racial justice and equity by browsing our curated list of top racial justice funders below. Members can also research funding opportunities by using the search tool for GrantFinder. Become a member.
Key Funders
- Akonadi Foundation
- The Asian American Foundation
- The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation
- The California Endowment
- The Chicago Community Trust
- Gates Foundation
- Ford Foundation
- Foundation for a Just Society
- Foundation to Promote Open Society
- Groundswell Fund
- The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
- Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- W. K. Kellogg Foundation
- Latino Community Foundation
- Libra Foundation
- Lilly Endowment
- MacArthur Foundation
- Mellon Foundation
- Microsoft
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation
- Tides Foundation
Funding trends for racial equity
Systemic racism impacts health, wealth, housing and every other aspect of American life. While there is a long history of funders who have attempted to ameliorate racial inequities, American philanthropy is fundamentally shaped by the structural racism that has determined how wealth is accumulated and by whom. Funders have variously upheld or attempted to shift this power dynamic.
The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) defines racial equity as a focus on “the prevention of harm and the redistribution of benefits within existing systems,” while racial justice focuses on “power-building and transformative goals, explicitly seeking to generate enough power among disenfranchised people to change the fundamental rules of society.”
By any measure, philanthropic giving for racial equity and racial justice is not commensurate with the impact of racism on U.S. society. In 2018, “only 6% of philanthropic dollars supported racial equity work and only 1% supported racial justice work,” reports PRE. That was after years of steady growth in philanthropy for racial equity, from 2011 through 2018, PRE found.
2020 saw a surge of giving in this area – though not quite as much as pledged. But the surge started declining in 2021 and even more so in 2022, per PRE. In a survey IP conducted in 2022, nearly two-thirds of respondents said, “recent efforts to prioritize and center racial justice issues in philanthropy” are “essential and need to go much further.”
Today, it remains to be seen what will happen to grantmaking for racial justice in the face of a conservative backlash that includes the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in college and university admissions; lawsuits challenging philanthropic attempts to address racial disparities; and the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, including a 2025 executive order that directly threatens the DEI programs of private foundations.
Even before Trump’s executive orders, there were “examples of grantmakers backing away from previously stated priorities, or even changing course on previously promised funding, whether because of fear of legal risk or political blowback,” wrote Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, in 2024. While some philanthropies are proceeding with racial justice and equity programs, others are already preemptively shuttering such programs.
Who is giving to racial equity and justice work?
Private foundation funding for racial justice work has been concentrated among a few leading funders. The top 10 funders from 2015 through 2018 accounted for 60% of all racial justice funding, according to PRE. Individual donors were a big part of the 2020 wave of donations. There are also numerous community foundations and intermediaries making grants for racial equity and justice.
In 2024, the Council for Effective Philanthropy reported that 77% of surveyed foundation leaders “are concerned that their peers will retreat on racial equity efforts in the near future.” We expect that foundations that have long made grants for racial justice and equity – such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation and Marguerite Casey Foundation – are likely to lead the way in continuing to fund this work and supporting others to do so.
Growing areas of racial equity funding to watch
Funding trends to watch include grantmaking that considers not only which grants are made, but also how grants are made. Progressive funders in this space see general operating support, participatory grantmaking, trust-based philanthropy and diversity within philanthropic organizations as essential components of antiracist grantmaking. Some go even further: The Decolonizing Wealth Project is working to build an Indigenous- and Black-led philanthropic infrastructure that approaches philanthropy through the lens of wealth redistribution and reparations.
Gaps in racial equity funding
“Funding for racial justice, grassroots organizing and movement-oriented work remains low,” reports the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity. Even when movements such as Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock have garnered national attention, grantmaking for the grassroots has not risen above 1 to 2% of giving for Black or Indigenous communities. Less than half of 1% of global giving went to Black feminist movements in 2018, the Black Feminist Fund found.
Meanwhile, Hispanics in Philanthropy reports that less than 1% of overall philanthropy goes to Latino communities. Similarly, the Center for Effective Philanthropy found that while in recent years “more than 40% of foundations report increasing their funding to nonprofits serving Black communities, and a little more than a quarter report doing so for nonprofits serving Latino communities … other communities affected by systemic inequities, including Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Native American communities … have not received much increased support from foundations during the same period.”
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Additional Resources
In addition to exploring funder profiles below, grant seekers may also find useful information from the following resources.
