New World Foundation
OVERVIEW: The New World Foundation mainly supports workers’ rights and labor organizing initiatives, especially ones that seek to build connections and networks among workers and activists in a globalized economy.
IP TAKE: Though it is progressive, this funder is not accessible, preferring to scout its own grantees to fund. Overall, this funder supports coalition and movement-building organizations. It’s responsive and approachable, however, so contact them with general questions.
PROFILE: When Anita McCormick Blaine chartered the New World Foundation (NWF) in 1954, she already had a long history of progressive philanthropy. For example, she supported desegregation and efforts to further civil rights in the south. Since McCormick Blaine passed, her granddaughter, Anne Blaine Harrison, has continued McCormick Blaine’s philanthropic wishes and strategies. Today the foundation works to “support leaders and organizations that advance democracy, protect communities and build a humane social vision.” NWF’s grantmaking includes the New Majority Fund, Phoenix Fund, the Climate Action Fund, investing in youth, and through its resource lab, offering economic stimulus packages for community organizations.
NWF offers several types of grants. Its Base Building grants prioritize community-based organizations; Regional and Cluster grants seek to maximize impact in specific grantmaking regions; and its Deepening Grantee Partnerships grants offer continuing support to NWF grantees.
Grants for Environmental Conservation, Climate Change, and Marine Conservation
The New World Foundation’s Climate Action Fund awards grants to organizations that “aim to reverse the devastating impact on society’s dependence on fossil fuels.” The program’s approach addresses climate change’s effect on the overlap between economics, health, energy, and the environment. This initiative funds toxic cleanups, activists concerned with rising asthma rates, unions demanding increased workplace safety, Native Americans fighting for land rights, farmworkers concerned with the dangers of pesticides, combatting mountain removal coal mining, and stopping fracking. The program is largely focused on reversing the impacts of fossil fuel dependence, but still makes considerable contributions to conservation. In order to reverse the impact fossil fuels have on the planet, NWF seeks environmental conservation organizations across the United States, such as the Hudson Mohawk Resource Conservation and Development Council and the Land Stewardship Project.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The New World Foundation’s New Majority Fund is an initiative to “claim a powerful place at decision-making levels to affect policy at the city, county, and state levels.” It supports “community-based infrastructure,” “diverse constituencies,” and “state-based alliances between local organizations.” Originally targeted at eight select states, it is now a national program that funds efforts such as labor organizing, civic engagement, and activism. Grantees include Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and California Calls.
Grants for Work and Opportunity
The New World Foundation’s Phoenix Fund for Workers and Communities supports labor organizing efforts in the face of the “realities of globalization by multinational corporations and regional free trade agreements which impose serious losses for workers and their communities.” It invests in “frontline organizations and collaborations” concerning issues like sweatshops, child labor, and anti-union efforts. It also supports solidarity campaigns that build networks of organizers across industries around the world. Its current initiatives include Labor-Community Collaborations, which promote civic engagement and policy reform for workers’ rights in key metropolitan areas, and Worker Centers, which provide spaces for workers to develop connections and alliances that benefit the cause of rights organizing.
Grants for K-12 Education and Higher Education
The New World Foundation’s Civic Opportunities Initiative Network (COIN) cultivates youth leadership and civic engagements through programs in collaboration with schools, universities, non-profits, and government agencies. It supports programs that provide opportunities like leadership development, educational enrichment, college access, mentorship, and long-term civic engagement. The foundation’s unique approach seeks to identify “recognizable pillars of support experienced by middle-class families that can be applied to the successful education and mobility of low-income young adults.” Originally piloted in 2011 with twenty-one select students in Florida, California, New Mexico, New York, and Virginia, the COIN model is now employed by programs across the United States, such as the Posse Civic Engagement Program, the New World Fellows Program at Skidmore College, and the Port Richmond Partnership Leadership Academy at Wagner College.
Important Grant Details:
While the foundation offers a few sizable grants in the $100,000 to $450,000 range, most range from $20,000 to $100,000. The New World Foundation conducts the majority of its grantmaking through donor advised funds and impact partnerships. It does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. General inquiries may be submitted via the foundation’s contact page.
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