OVERVIEW: The Libra Foundation is a social justice grantmaker in the areas of criminal justice reform, community safety, environmental and climate justice, racial justice and gender justice. Across giving areas, Libra prioritizes movement building, donor organizing, supporting community-based organizations, and strengthening democracy. Based in the Bay Area, Libra supports organizations in the U.S. and globally.
IP TAKE: The Libra Foundation has become an influential social justice funder in recent years, often working collaboratively with like-minded funders and nonprofits. Libra centers its funding strategies on BIPOC-led, grassroots, frontline organizations that are building justice movements. As such, this funder conducts all grantmaking through racial equity and justice lenses. In an interview with IP founder David Callahan, former Libra president Crystal Hayling reflected on Libra’s transformation, beginning in 2017, from a smaller Pritzker family operation to a fully-staffed social justice powerhouse. “We moved from an organization that was funding a lot of service work, as well as a lot of large national think tanks, lawyers and public policy organizations, to funding organizations that are led by and for people most impacted by the issues,” Hayling said. “We moved toward funding the vast majority of organizations led by Black, Indigenous and people of color.” Now under new leadership, Libra has welcomed Supriya Lopez Pillai.
Libra is not the most accessible funder; the foundation does not accept unsolicited submissions, and sometimes sources ideas for new grantees from its existing grantee network. It awards both multi-year and for general operating support grants. Libra conducts its grantmaking through a donor-advised fund (DAF) at the Alamgamated Foundation, and its grantmaking is thus somewhat opaque. However, Libra works closely with existing partners and grantees to “refine internal structures as a continual practice,” especially during times of crisis. In this light, Libra defines itself as “responsive” and “flexible” to the needs of grantees, working as active problem solvers alongside those it chooses to work with. A trust-based funder, the Libra Foundation asks itself and grantees to “do the homework.” To get a grant here, you will need to conduct equity-based work that is BIPOC-led and focuses deeply on local implementation as well as scalability. Network with similarly-minded community organizations that work in Libra’s orbit to get noticed.
PROFILE: The Libra Foundation was founded in 2002 by Nicholas and Susan Pritzker and their children. For many years Libra’s operations were quite low-key, as it conducted its progressive grantmaking through a consulting firm rather than full-time staff. In 2017 the foundation’s board—comprised entirely of Pritzker family members— decided to broaden the operation and move its base of operations from Chicago to the Bay Area.
In 2017, the board hired Crystal Hayling to lead the foundation in its expansion and its new dedication to supporting “frontline organizations building a world where communities of color thrive.” The Libra Foundation’s grantmaking approach is centered on a commitment to “supporting organizations led by those most impacted by systemic oppression – largely low-income communities of color” that work on the frontlines of the communities they serve. The foundation’s current three core program areas are: Community Safety and Justice; Environmental and Climate Justice; and Gender Justice.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform and Human Rights
The Libra Foundation’s Community Safety and Justice program supports reimagining “safety, community-defined restoration, and the end of mass incarceration and criminalization.”
Libra believes that supporting the strategies of healing justice and transformational justice bring us “closer to decarceration, the abolition of jails and policing, and closer to the liberation of those disproportionately oppressed by our current criminal injustice system, including Black, Brown, Indigenous, trans, and low income people.”
The vast majority of Libra’s criminal justice grantees are smaller, community-based grassroots organizations, although a small selection of larger, more established organizations like the ACLU and The Marshall Project are also supported.
Grantees have included the Essie Justice Group, Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, the Network on Women in Prison, Los Angeles’s Initiate Justice, the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People and Families Movement, and A New Way of Life.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
The Libra Foundation conducts its grantmaking through a racial justice and equity lens. As a result, it provides broad support for frontlines racial justice and indigenous rights organizations in the U.S. with grants across all three of its program areas.
- In 2020, The Libra Foundation, in partnership with eleven other philanthropic organizations, launched the Democracy Frontlines Fund, which to date has raised or given over $74 million to support BIPOC-led power building organizations. The fund’s priorities include “reimagining safety, amplifying the voices of disenfranchised voters, and prioritizing Black, LGBTQI+, youth, disabled, undocumented, and formerly incarcerated leadership.”
- The Libra Foundation’s grantmaking for racial justice and equity ultimately centers on a “learning journey to confront the legacy of racism and begin to transform philanthropy from the inside out.”
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
Through the foundation’s Environmental and Climate Justice program, Libra aims to support organizations “led by and for people and communities who are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, environmental harm, and systemic racism.”
This giving area prioritizes “community-powered organizations and formations working together to organize locally, trans-locally, and beyond.”
Grantmaking in this area overlaps significantly with the foundation’s racial and Indigenous justice work.
The foundation’s climate change funding is global in scope, but most grants support U.S.-based organizations.
Recent multi-year grants to global organizations have included the Global Greengrants Fund, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, EarthRights International and the Asian-Pacific Environmental Network.
In the U.S., recent grantees include the California Environmental Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Solutions Project, and Washington state’s Front and Centered.
Grants for Women and LGBTQ+ Causes
Libra supports women’s and girls’ causes through its Gender Justice program, which aims to dismantle gender-based oppression and violence.
The Libra Foundation seeks to include “women, girls, gender-expansive and non-conforming, queer, and trans people” through this area of funding.
Centered on racial justice, Libra’s Gender Justice program invests in strategies that “address the root causes of gender injustice by unpacking how patriarchy, racism, white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia and sexism affect the lives of all people.”
Grantmaking in this area has focused on reproductive health and justice, gender-based violence and coalition building among organizations in areas disproportionately affected by gender injustice.
Global grantees include the African Women’s Development Fund, the Global Fund for Women, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Women’s Link Worldwide, which works to advance the rights of women facing multiple forms of oppression.
U.S. grantees include New Mexico’s Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Network of Abortion Funds and the Chicago Foundation for Women.
LGBTQ+ funding tends to be global in scope and has supported several organizations involved in coalition building. Recent grants for LGBTQ+ causes include the Astraea Lesbian Fund for Justice, the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project, the Trans Justice Funding Project and Trans United.
Important Grant Details:
The Libra Foundation made about $35 million in grants in a recent year. Most of its grants fall in the $50,000 to $250,000 range, but some of the foundation’s multi-year commitments have reached the $2 million to $4 million range.
This funder does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding, but organizations may reach out with general inquiries via LinkedIn.
- Grant seekers may contact the Libra Foundation at info@thelibrafoundation.org.
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