OVERVIEW: The Surdna Foundation is a racial and social justice-focused funder with a history going back to the early twentieth century. Surdna’s grantmaking centers on economic development and justice, environmental giving, climate justice, criminal justice reform, the arts and culture.
IP TAKE: The Surdna Foundation is an influential social justice grantmaker that works closely with its grantees to advance the foundation’s mission. Grantmaking is conducted through a racial justice lens and seeks to involve front-line and most-affected communities in decision making and action for equitable development. Along with its traditional grantmaking programs, Surdna is a proponent of impact investing, cross-sector collaboration, leadership development and other unique strategies to achieve its goals. In an interview with Inside Philanthropy, Surdna president Don Chen said the foundation has a reputation for “punching above its weight, for being a first mover, for really making bets on promising individuals, promising leaders who are just starting out.” Surdna also hosts a unique program to incubate next-generation philanthropists who are descendants of (or spouses of descendants of) John Emory Andrus, the founder of Surdna.
Surdna does not accept unsolicited letters of inquiry. Interested grantseekers may consider networking with past grantees or staff members to gain Surdna’s attention. This is a transparent funder with a detailed grants database available at its website. Most grants support large- to medium-sized national and regional organizations and regranters. Surdna gives for both project grants and general operating support.
PROFILE: The Surdna Foundation was established in 1917 by John Emory Andrus. Andrus was a businessman who founded the Arlington Chemical Company, which manufactured and distributed popular medications in the late 19th century. He later became the mayor of Yonkers, New York and served in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Surdna Foundation is steered by his descendants.
The Surdna Foundation’s mission is “to foster sustainable communities in the United States — communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, inclusive economies, and thriving cultures.” Its main grantmaking programs are Inclusive Economies, Sustainable Environments and Thriving Cultures, each of which conducts grantmaking through a social justice lens.
In addition to the foundation’s three grantmaking programs, Surdna engages in criminal justice reform grantmaking through the Andrus Family Fund, which is legally a fund of the Surdna Foundation but “manages its own grant making program and processes.” According to its website, the Andrus Family Fund “supports the self-determination, power and liberation of Black, Brown, AAPI and Indigenous youth impacted by the youth justice, child welfare and other disruptive systems.”
The Andrus Family Fund is one piece of the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program, a unique Surdna project launched in 2000 to engage and involve the larger Andrus family, “particularly its younger generations, in philanthropy and public service.” Separately from the Surdna Foundation, Andrus descendants helm other foundations and nonprofits, including the Helen Andrus Benedict Foundation, the Andrus on Hudson eldercare facility, and Andrus, which provides human services to vulnerable families in Westchester County, New York .
Grants for Work and Opportunity
Surdna’s Inclusive Economies program “fosters the creation of an inclusive and equitable economy in which people of color can maximize their potential as leaders, creators, and innovators across sectors.” Giving stems from two subprograms.
Business Start-up and Growth focuses on business development in communities of color, including programs that provide equitable access to capital, accelerators and support networks for entrepreneurs of color. Past grantees of this subprogram include California’s Greenlining Institute, MORTAR Cincinnati, the Washington Area Community Investment Fund and Miami’s Center for Black Innovation.
Equitable Economic Development grantmaking supports the inclusion of “community voice” in economic policy and decision making, as well as efforts to increase the number of “quality jobs” in communities of color. Grantees of this subprogram include the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University, the Partnership for Southern Equity, Activest and the Aspen Institute, which received funding for its Economic Opportunities and Latinos and Society Programs.
Grants for Environmental and Climate Justice
Surdna’s Sustainable Environments program also emphasizes BIPOC and “low-wealth communities” in policy and interventions to combat climate inequity and mitigation.
A subprogram for Environmental and Climate Justice supports a just and equitable transition to clean energy in “communities most impacted” and emphasizes grassroots organizing, problem solving and power building. Surdna also works to increase funding from other sources to “frontline and grassroots organizations and movements with a racial equity lens.” Grantees include Community Labor United, the Just Transition Fund, the Ironbound Community Corporation and the Indigenous Environmental Network, among others.
- A second subprogram, Land Use Through Community Power, invests in efforts to “increase community control, ownership and stewardship of land and infrastructure.” Grants from this focus area tend to support advocacy, civic participation and programs that inform, educate and involve communities in decision making about energy and infrastructure alternatives. Past grantees include the Detroit People’s Platform, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, the Neighborhoods First Fund and Public Advocates, Inc.
Grants for Arts and Culture
The Surdna Foundation’s Thriving Cultures initiative places artists of color at the center of a movement to “cultivate a racially just society.” This program names three “interconnected” approaches to its giving: create, clarify and connect.
- Create grants mainly support regranters that, in turn, support artists of color whose work engages communities as they build “racially just systems and structures at local scale.”
- Clarify grants support “researchers and cultural critics of color” who produce and share knowledge about the work of artists of color and its role in the pursuit of social justice.
- Connect refers to the efforts of artists and their communities to shape policy, social narrative and philanthropic practice toward racial justice.
- Grantees of the Thriving Cultures program include Radical Imagination for Racial Justice of Massachusetts, the María Fund, a social justice regranter in Puerto Rico, and Brooklyn’s Laundromat Project, which “advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities.”
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
The Andrus Family also conducts philanthropy through a collection of Andrus Family Programs:
- The Andrus Family Fund supports social justice organizations that involve vulnerable and underserved youth.
- The Andrus Family Philanthropy Program works to engage younger members of the growing Andrus family in philanthropy and service.
- The Helen Andrus Benedict Foundation makes grants to support the elderly of Westchester County, New York.
- Andrus on Hudson is a nursing home in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, that receives ongoing support from the family.
- Andrus, also based in Westchester County, is a “private non-profit community agency” that offers children’s and family services for “healthy, stable lives.”
Important Grant Details:
Surdna’s recent grants have ranged from about $3,000 to $1.5 million, though grants have been larger in some cases.
- Giving is national in scope, but prioritizes organizations serving BIPOC and underserved communities.
- This funder conducts all of its giving through a racial justice lens, and a significant portion of its grants go to advocacy, policy and organizing efforts.
- The Surdna Foundation is not currently accepting unsolicited letters of inquiry.
- For information about its past grantmaking, see the foundation’s grantee database.
This funder does not provide an email address for general inquiries, but its phone number is (212) 557-0010. Social media accounts are linked to the bottom of the website, and the team page offers bios of its staff members.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS: