Emerson Collective

OVERVIEW: The Emerson Collective is a limited liability corporation (LLC) that uses a “wide range of tools and strategies in pursuit of a more equal and just America” with programs that focus on immigration, the environment, health equity, education, media & journalism, gun violence reduction in Chicago, and race & equity in the U.S. South.

IP TAKE: The Emerson Collective is not a likely source of funding for grant seekers, but it’s a key organization to know about for nonprofits working within its funding areas. In an interview with Chronicle of Philanthropy, Emerson’s director of philanthropy, Anne Marie Burgoyne, highlighted Emerson’s commitment to multiyear general operating support grants, saying this is the “most obvious, best way to do grantmaking.” Harnessing its LLC model, the Collective embraces multiple avenues for achieving change, including impact investing, policy advocacy, and leadership development. Emerson provides grantees with support “beyond the grant,” including capacity building, training and operational support.

Unlike most peer philanthropies, Emerson Collective doesn’t host a grants database on its website, nor does it provide even a partial list of grantees. Partner organizations must be deduced from press releases and media coverage. Inside Philanthropy has noted that Emerson “is notoriously lacking in transparency when it comes to hard details on giving.” The Emerson Collective’s website states that this type of anonymous giving is “in keeping with our view of the proper spirit of giving and to honor the work of our grantees.” Emerson has a strict no unsolicited submissions policy. This is not an accessible funder. All told, while Emerson is an important philanthropy and a trailblazer in flexible grantmaking, this is a long-shot for grant seekers.

PROFILE: Founded in 2004 by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, the Emerson Collective is a limited liability corporation (LLC) rather than a traditional foundation or 501(c)3. The Emerson Collective works to “advance some of society’s most calcified systems, creating pathways to genuine opportunity so that people from all communities can achieve their potential.”

Named for Ralph Waldo Emerson, who believed deeply in self-reliance, the Emerson Collective believes that “complex issues require complex solutions.” In this vein, the Collective leverages several tools to achieve its goal of a “more equal and just America,” including philanthropy, venture investing, convenings, and art to “spur lasting change.”

Using cross-functional and multi-disciplinary approaches, grantmaking priorities include Immigration, Education, Environment, Gun Violence Reduction in Chicago, Race & Equity in the South, Media & Journalism and Health. Given its LLC framework, the Emerson Collective is able to take an in-depth approach to all of its priority issues. It’s known in particular for engaging with advocacy and policy change, including at the state and local levels. Because it focuses on more than traditional grant making, the Collective sees itself as an active player in the philanthrosphere, drawing upon its resources in policy, advocacy, media, narrative change, and social justice.

Grants for K-12 Education

The Emerson Collective’s Education grantmaking broadly aims to invest in “people, tools, and models — partnering with educators, communities, and schools to better prepare young people for all the future has to offer.”

The Collective is light on the details of its education giving. It recently contracted information regarding its giving interests and priorities in this area of funding; however, previous versions of its website reiterated that it invested in efforts to “harness technology to challenge and excite our students and to empower our teachers, school leaders, and families.” During COVID-19, the Emerson Collective’s K-12 education work funded work that supported remote learning and at-home learning resources during in order to close homework and learning gaps.

Writing for WIRED Magazine, Powell Jobs wrote the article “Immigrants Fuel Innovation. Let’s Not Waste Their Potential,” which advocated for President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — advocacy that is reflected in much of the Collective’s education-related funding that aims to support immigrant and undocumented students achieve their potential.

The Emerson Collective gives a bulk of its education funding to support two organizations with which Powell Jobs is affiliated: XQ and College Track. Indeed, Powell Jobs herself, as IP has reported, has become a major K-12 funder by investing in how kids learn and schools operate, with the goal to provide students with an education fit for rapidly evolving world.

The XQ Institute started with an “open invitation to communities to reimagine their own high schools.” Thousands responded and, in turn, Emerson chose 10 visions for the “future of high school—redesigns of current schools or new institutions dreamed up from scratch.” Emerson has also engaged several communities with additional support to accelerate promising ideas. Its XQ Institute is essentially focused on asking how does education and work readiness look like in the 21st in the age of climate change. So, grantseekers that focus on innovative, future-facing ways to rethink education have an edge here.
College Track, which Powell Jobs co-founded in 1997, aims to improve minority education success through extracurricular programs and tutoring. A lot of funding here has focused on improving immigrant and underserved students’ access to college, among other issues.

Studying giving across these two organizations will provide further insights into the specifics of how Emerson views funding education. One thing is true about Emerson’s education funding — it focuses much of its grantmaking on “rethinking high school,” as Russlynn Ali, the Managing Director of Education at the Emerson Collective and CEO of XQ, puts it, rather then concentrating all of the Collective’s weight in other corners of the K-12 space. Another thing, Emerson views education as a “civil rights” issue, so grantee partners and organizations should keep this in mind when networking here.

Grants for Health and Diseases

Emerson’s Health grantmaking primarily works to “accelerate solutions that will improve cancer detection, treatment, and the patient experience.”

This area of giving centers on supporting “academic researchers pursuing hundreds of groundbreaking projects aimed at helping (them) better understand tumor biology, detect and treat cancers of all types in new ways, and deliver care more equitably and efficiently.” Though this work, the EC invests in researchers from an array of institutes and universities, from Weill Cornell Medicine to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Emerson’s health giving prioritizes established researchers and organizations that have world-class resources at their disposable.

As well, EC invites cancer patients to share their information with researchers everywhere through the Count Me In research initiative, a citizen science nonprofit, that reflects a partnership between the Broad Institute and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Grants for Climate Change and Conservation

Emerson’s Environment program works to “support a just transition to a regenerative economy that helps communities most impacted by our changing climate.”

In this light, EC’s environmental giving revolves around mitigating the effects of climate change rather than traditional conservation projects. EC conducts this work, like other focus areas, through a climate justice and equity lens by following grassroots leadership.
EC’s investees are “following the carbon,” so to speak, leading to transformations in clean energy. This program’s philanthropic giving is closely integrated with organizations that close the gap in “climate-tech and community investment” to advance climate progress.

As IP has reported previously, this giving area is remains relatively quiet about who and what it seeks to fund; however, Powell Jobs other organization, the Waverly Street Foundation, offers a deeper look into related giving. That said, Powell Jobs herself has become a major climate change giver, so look out for quickly evolving climate funding developments at both Emerson and Waverly.

Grants for Violence Prevention

Emerson conducts violence prevention and civic engagement funding through its Gun Violence Reduction in Chicago program seeks a “radical reduction in gun violence,” which the Collective views as “within reach.”

The Emerson Collective’s approach towards gun violence reduction grants seeks to “work directly with the individuals most likely to carry a gun or get shot.” In doing so, the Collective’s “street outreach team recruits them,” called Chicago Cred, and brings them into the Collective’s fold through “programming, counseling, education, and job training.” The Emerson Collective also makes related grants to support policies that prioritizes these individuals’ voices.

Grants for Journalism and Civic Democracy

Emerson’s Media & Journalism program, believing that “high quality journalism and storytelling are crucial to a health democracy,” focuses on “local and rural news outlets, investigative journalism, and a diverse array of unscripted and scripted content.”

This area of giving supports an array of mediums connected to journalism and media, which include podcasts, magazines, film, and newspapers, among other areas.
When partnering with for-profit media and journalism organizations, EC broadly seeks “leaders with a very clear, crisp, and innovative vision of what they want to achieve.” EC believes in the role journalism plays in a healthy democracy, offering its support for local journalism and The Atlantic’s coverage, stating “that type of journalism is indispensable for readers who are deeply engaged with the most consequential issues of the day.”
Key to receiving funding in this space, then, centers on an approach to media and journalism that’s dedicated to bolstering democracy and its norms.
Previous grantees in this space include the Marshall Project’s We Are Witnesses, a collection of short videos that explore the impact of America’s punishment policies and the state of crime and punishment in the United States; and Solutions Journalism Network, which received support for its work providing “[r]igorous reporting on responses to social problems.”

The Emerson Collective paid over $100 million for a reported 70% stake in The Atlantic Monthly. The Collective has also funded many left-of-center media outlets, such as ProPublica and Mother Jones.

Grants for Immigrants and Refugees

Immigration has been a long-time, major issue for the Emerson Collective. Through its Immigration program, the Emerson Collective works to help aspiring Americans “contribute to our prosperity.” Much of Emerson’s work in this area centers on building pathways to citizenships for a range of immigrants — from the undocumented to asylum seekers and refugees. To this end, EC uses technology, media, advocacy, and impact investing in its strategies to address immigration.

EC has been consistently interested in funding issues related to DACA holders; increasing legal counsel and due process to “increase the system’s legitimacy”; detention centers and their civil violations; refugees and asylees; and related community advocacy. Overall, Emerson’s immigration program utilizes a variety of strategies to help expand immigrant rights and immigration reform, employing a variety of strategies.
EC boasts a grant funding arm that houses a Silicon Valley-style incubator that deploys technology to help immigrants. Consisting of several branches, the immigration team works in multiple spaces adjacent to immigration, including the arts and communication, to create a variety of partnerships in the immigration space.
Grants for immigration and refugees can range widely, but in this space, EC offers long-term flexible support.

In 2022, during the annual Climate Week convocation, Emerson Collective launched the Climate Migration Council (CMC) — a “collection of elected officials, national security experts, business leaders, academics, and advocates who share a commitment to putting people at the center of climate action.” Emerson founded the CMC in order to help catapult the issues of forced displacement and migration into the global discussion surrounding climate solutions. Climate change discussions have often ignored climate as a push factor for human mobility.

Past immigration grantees include support for the artist JR, as well as support for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Academy Award-winning, virtual reality experience Carne Y Arena to Washington, D.C.

Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights

Emerson’s Race & Equity in the South program works to confront racism head on through its work with the Unum Fund, an organization founded by former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu.

Important Grant Details:

Since the Emerson Collective is an LLC rather than a 501(c)3, it is not required to publicly disclose its financial activities, including grant award amounts. However, past grantees range from hundreds of thousands to $100 million, and counting. Keep abreast of EC’s latest giving through its social media outlets and email listserve at the bottom of its front landing page.

Emerson does not accept unsolicited submission requests for funding or submissions of any related materials such as proposals or literary compositions.

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