Advancement Project
OVERVIEW: The Advancement Project runs a national organization and a separate chapter for its work in the state of California. Nationally, the project supports grassroots organizations involved in voting rights, criminal justice, immigrant justice and education, with a strong focus on racial equity. The California organization maintains initiatives for education equity, equity in community investments and political voice. This funder mainly works through strategic collaborations consisting of legal, organizational and communications support for its partner organizations.
IP TAKE: The Advancement Project’s national work consists mainly of strategic support to grassroots organizations working toward criminal justice reform, immigrants’ rights and educational equity. This project partners with organizations working in policy development, community organizing and civic engagement. At this writing, grantmaking is not a significant part of the project’s operations. In California, a separate chapter of the Advancement Project works with community organizations to effect educational equity, equitable community investment and to develop a comprehensive learning system for dual language learners.
The Advancement Project is not accessible and does not provide a direct way of getting in touch. Prospective partners should reach out to staff via social media and sign up for the project’s email updates.
The Advancement Project is not a traditional grantmaker; it works through collaborative partnerships with grassroots organizations, providing “direct, hands-on support for organized communities in their struggles for racial and social justice.” Types of support include legal work, communications, campaign organizing and capacity building; only a small portion of this organization’s work consists of monetary grants. The organization also runs its own media and activism campaigns in its areas of interest, including #FreeBlackWomxn, “a photo and storytelling project that elevates the voices of Black Michigan mothers who have experienced incarceration,” and We Came to Learn, an informational project that documents the history of school policing, statistics revealing racial biases in school discipline and recommendations for school security reform.
PROFILE: The Advancement Project was established by a group of civil rights lawyers in 1999 with funding from organizations including the Ford, MacArthur, Rockefeller and Open Society Foundations. The organization runs a national program out of its Washington D.C. headquarters and a separate program for the state of California out of its Los Angeles office. The national program is currently headed by Judith Brown Dianis, who previously served as Managing Attorney at the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. The California Project is headed by John Kim, the former leader of RACE COUNTS.
The Advancement Project’s national program aims to “fulfill America’s promise of a caring, inclusive and just democracy” by using “tools and strategies to strengthen social movements and achieve high impact policy change.” The project’s current focus areas include voting rights, the school-to-prison pipeline, immigrant justice, policing and criminalization and education justice.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The Advancement Project supports civic engagement and democracy through its voting rights initiative. While the project does not support organizations involved in the defense of voting rights with grants, it partners with organizations that are “in the forefront of battles to restore voting rights to populations who were overly criminalized and remove barriers to the ballot before Election Day.” Specific areas of focus include “uplifting the right to vote” in communities of color, restoring the voting rights of formerly incarcerated people and voter protection. In Georgia, the Advancement project has partnered with organizations including Concerned Black Clergy, Mijente and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights to push back against the state’s passage of SB 202, a law that makes it more difficult for Georgians of color to cast votes in state and national elections. The project has also worked with grassroots organizations in Florida and Louisiana to push back against restrictive voting measures.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
The Advancement Project’s work in the area of criminal justice reform stems from its school-to-prison pipeline and policing and criminalization programs. Through the school-to-prison pipeline program, the project partners with organizations “to examine, expose and reform practices that lead to the criminalization of students.” In one recent effort, the project partnered with the international law firm Arnold and Porter and the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center to file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the expansion of schools’ authority to regulate and discipline student speech. The school-to-prison pipeline initiative has also partnered with the national organization Alliance for Educational Justice, Dream Defenders and the Communities for Just Schools Fund.
The Advancement Project also supports criminal justice reform via its policing and criminalization initiative, which “supports grassroots movements in communities of color that challenge racial criminalization and call for genuine police accountability.” The project’s work in this area focuses on helping communities to “define the terms and control the means by which peace is realized in their streets and neighborhoods, and to re-imagine for themselves how ‘safety’ is pursued.” One recent project in this area is a series of videos on “the various obstacles that exist in our incarceration state” and “tools that can help individuals navigate the criminal legal system.” Recent partners in this effort include Michigan Liberation, Close the Workhouse and the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition.
Grants for Education
The Advancement Project’s education justice initiative aims “to secure equitable, high-quality public schools for all children” by partnering with organizations to strengthen public school systems and prevent the corporatization of public education in the U.S. The project’s work in this area overlaps significantly with its school-to-prison pipeline efforts, with a significant portion of its recent work addressing the policing of public schools and student discipline. Partner organizations involved in education equity include the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, the Dignity in Schools Coalition and Philadelphia’s Student Union.
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
The Advancement Project names immigrant justice as an area of focus and “seeks to end the unnecessary criminalization of immigrants” in the U.S. through policy development, advocacy, organizing and litigation with its like-minded organizational partners. In a recent year, the project partnered with Arizona’s Puente Human Rights Movement and the on-line immigrant organization Mijente to create a webinar about the incarceration of immigrants in Maricopa County. The project also joined over 200 immigrants’ organizations in authorship of multiple letters to federal judges and member of the Biden-Harris administration calling for amendments to the Dream and Promise Act of 2019.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
Operating separately from its national chapter, the Advancement Project’s California chapter aims to transform “the public systems that govern our lives to create a more racially equitable California.” Like the national organization, the California branch of the Advancement Project does not make monetary grants but collaborates with organizations to effect change in the areas of educational equity, equity in community investments and political voice.
The project’s educational equity program aims to improve educational opportunities for California “children who need them most” and runs sub-initiatives for early childhood education, K-12 education policy and increasing access to high quality education for dual language learners. One of the Advancement Project’s signature programs involves hosting and convening Water Cooler Network gatherings and conferences where education professionals and advocates can network and collaborate on expanding California’s early care and birth-to-five education programs. Organizational partners include the Equity Alliance for LA’s Kids, Early Edge California and Schools and Communities First.
The project’s equity in community investments initiative “partners with communities of color to equip them with the budget and advocacy tools necessary to win sustainable investments that help all Californians to thrive. The project’s work in this area consists mainly of budget planning, policy analysis, leadership training and campaign support. One recent project involved launching a website that informs Los Angeles families about the Los Angeles Unified School District’s budget and its impact on educational equity. Partners of the equity in community investments include the Park Equity Alliance, the San Fernando Valley LGBT Community Center, Changeist and Tutcint Youth Empowerment.
The California Chapter’s third focus area, political voice, aims to “make state and local governments more participator and representative.” The programs specific areas of interest include fair redistricting, government responsiveness to racial inequity, public participation in governance and fair elections. Partnering organizations in these areas include the California Black Census and Redistricting Hub, Equality California and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans.
Important Grant Details:
The Advancement Project does not generally support its partners with monetary grants. Instead, it provides support in the form of assistance in communication, budget planning, policy development, litigation and training. Many of its partners are grassroots organizations operating in communities of color and working toward sustainable change toward equity in democratic systems, criminal justice, education and immigrants’ rights. The Advancement Project does not accept applications for funding or provide a direct way of getting in touch, but organizations working in its areas of interest may sign up to join its email list at the bottom of the project’s home page. The project also maintains a searchable directory of its staff and board members with links to their social media handles.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS: