Marguerite Casey Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Marguerite Casey Foundation funds organizations and initiatives that broadly align with its mission and intersectional grantmaking priorities. This might include support for anything from LGBTQI issues to racial justice, from farmworkers to elder care, and from democracy and civic engagement to predatory lending.
IP TAKE: The Marguerite Casey Foundation is a major social justice funder that’s long been known as a progressive foundation supporting community-based, grassroots programs as well as individual leaders and scholars. In 2020, founding president Luz Vega-Marquis stepped down, and current president Carmen Rojas took over. The foundation was an early proponent of DEI practices and participatory grantmaking; IP writer Ade Adeniji noted in 2021 that MCF was a “pioneer” in ensuring that a high proportion of its own staff and board are people of color. Across its funding areas, MCF prioritizes “increasing community power” through “locally based community organizing,” a strategy it believes is under-supported in philanthropy. Aside from its grantmaking, MCF is a major proponent of achieving its mission through impact investing.
Marguerite Casey’s grantmaking includes a marked propensity for multi-year, general operating grants, and it prefers to work in “areas across the country where social justice leaders cannot depend on a robust funding ecosystem to support their vision and leadership.” The foundation establishes long-term, collaborative relationships with grantees, often providing access to resources beyond the grant, including advocacy, research and technical support, and connections with other grantmakers. MCF is transparent about its financials, with detailed grant information included in its annual 990s. However, this funder isn’t particularly approachable. Organizations and individuals are considered for funding on an invitation-only basis, and there aren’t any avenues for unsolicited funding requests. Still, for those hoping to make inroads, the website does include a phone number as well as a general email address.
PROFILE: The Marguerite Casey Foundation (MCF) was established in 2001 by the Casey Family Programs, which was the inaugural philanthropy of Jim Casey, the founder of UPS. Today, MCF (named for Jim’s sister, Marguerite) is part of The Casey Philanthropies, which also includes the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Headquartered in Seattle, the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s mission is to “support organizations, scholars, leaders and initiatives focused on shifting the balance of power toward communities, families and individuals who continue to be excluded from shaping society and from sharing in its rewards and freedoms.” The foundation’s vision centers on building a representative economy and democracy amongst historically excluded communities.
MCF’s grantmaking focuses on organizational leadership and community empowerment across social justice areas; however, it does not have programs dedicated to specific causes, preferring a more holistic, intersectional approach to grassroots power-building. The foundation also invests in leaders and scholars from underrepresented communities who “nurture movements for justice and freedom.” MCF’s programs include Impact Investing, Freedom Scholars, and Public Dollars for Public Good.
As a signatory of the GUTC Pledge, this funder views the world through a relationship between democracy and an economy that works to “represent the contributions, dreams and desires of communities that have been historically excluded from sharing in the resources and benefits of society.” Casey’s inclusion efforts remain an overarching grantmaking priority.
Grants for LGBTQ
The Marguerite Casey Foundation supports organizations that advocate for a more just and equitable society. While MCF does not have a specific program dedicated to LGBTQ issues, its LGBTQ-related grantmaking facilitates its mission to achieve a more just and equitable society for everyone in the U.S. It has recently expanded funding and support for transgender justice, as indicated by its GUTC pledge. Past LGBTQ grantees at MCF include the Adults and Youth Development Association and the Advancement Project: People of Color Donor Organizing Project.
Grants for Housing, Food Systems, and Community Development
Casey focuses on investing in low-income families and communities in order to address systemic racism and inequality. MCF’s grantmaking reflects this and includes funding for child care, elder care, gentrification, homelessness, and poverty. A large part of its grantmaking also centers around food security, access to healthy food, and the promotion of healthy environments and lifestyles. Past grantees include American Indians in Texas – Spanish Colonial Missions, Arizona Community Action Association, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, and California Child Care Resource and Referral Network Project.
MCF also conducts related philanthropy through its newly launched Public Dollars for Public Good program. This program started with the allocation of over $5 million to “organizations advancing economic justice” in the form of “public options and public provisioning of essential goods and services such as healthcare and groceries.”
Grants for Racial and Indigenous Justice, and Immigration
Casey’s grantmaking for racial equity and indigenous rights includes broad support for organizations that address issues surrounding race relations, race equality, immigration, community organizing, criminal justice reform, and Native Americans. This funder does not name strategic approaches in this area of funding. In the movement grants area, MCF has become both a thought leader and movement-builder. Much of MCF’s work related to immigrants and refugees tends to focus on legal aid and human rights, as well as work that intersects with civic participation. Previous grantees whose work centers on immigration and refugees include Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, Puente Human Rights Movement, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
Grants for Democracy, Civic Engagement and Violence Prevention
MCF is a major funder of civic participation and anti-discrimination grants. Much of this work is broad and intersects with voter engagement, immigration, race relations, race equality, community organizing, and anti-discrimination.
Past grantees include the Tides Center, UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, University of Illinois at Chicago, ACLU, Action Now Institute, Texas Organizing Project Education Fund, La Union del Pueblo Entero, Inner-City Muslim Action Network, The Roosevelt Institute, and the Economic Policy Institute, among many others.
Grants for Work and Opportunity
MCF’s economic development and opportunity funding tends to invest broadly in work that creates more equitable labor practices. Funding here includes support for organizations that address issues surrounding employment, poverty, community development, farmworkers, living wages, predatory lending, tax policy, and workers’ rights. Past grantees include 9to5, National Association of Working Women, Action Now Institute, and the Economic Policy Institute.
Grants for Higher Education
The Casey Foundation’s Freedom Scholars fellowship provides unrestricted funding to academic scholars whose research aligns with the foundation’s giving goals and “whose ideas encourage us to imagine how we can radically improve our democracy, economy and society.” It has supported such underfunded research topics as “feminist prison abolition, global urbanism, alternatives to movement capture, Indigenous erasure and militarized policing.” This fellowship consists of a one-time, unrestricted grant of $250,000. Candidates are selected by invitation only and the foundation does not accept submissions or nominations.
Important Grant Details:
The Marguerite Casey Foundation’s grants range widely from $1,000 to $1.5 million. According to MCF, the average grant is around $150,000.
This funder’s grantmaking is national in scope, supporting organizations and projects across the U.S. However, it has tended to fund along both coasts and the Southeast and Southwest in recent years.
MCF offers cash grants, employee matching gifts and grants to individuals.
MCF does not accept unsolicited letters of inquiry, requests for funding, or grant proposals. It also does not field requests for funding, but it will answer questions about its work.
MCF focuses on “raising additional funds for grant recipients on top of the funds we provide through our own grants. It is also why we are increasing our focus on providing grant recipients access to a wider set of relationships, communications channels, research and technical support, and other means of increasing the momentum behind their leadership.”
Grant seekers may contact the foundation at info@caseygrants.org or (206) 691-3134.
PEOPLE:
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