Overbrook Foundation
OVERVIEW: The New York City-based Overbrook Foundation names human rights and the environment as its main areas of grantmaking focus. Within these initiatives, it supports women and girls, LGBTQ causes, democracy, criminal justice reform, conservation and sustainability initiatives.
IP TAKE: The Overbrook Foundation funds human rights and environmental causes with a strong focus on innovation and grassroots organizing. This funder outlines specific goals and subprograms in its areas of interest. Many grantees receive multi-year funding, making this funding space more crowded. However, it also means that grantees are supported over the longer term.
While Overbrook does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding, it encourages organizations working in its specific areas of interest to share news, ideas and projects with foundation staff.
PROFILE: The Overbrook Foundation was founded in 1948 by philanthropists Helen and Frank Altschul. Frank Atschul, who died in 1981, was a financier and the founder of the Overbrook Management Corporation. Based in New York City, the foundation initially focused on environmental issues but expanded its grantmaking to include human rights concerns in the early 2000s. The Overbrook Foundation’s current grantmaking supports human rights, LGBTQ causes, women and girls, criminal justice reform, democratic practice, environmental conservation and climate change and clean energy initiatives.
Grants for Global Security and Human Rights
Overbook’s human rights funding focuses on the support and protection of human rights defenders in Latin America. Recent grants have gone to organizations involved in policy development, legal advocacy, network building, physical and digital protection and “emergency grants for threatened activists.” One grantee is the American Jewish World Service’s program, Promoting Human Rights for Marginalized People in Mesoamerica, which provides technical assistance to grassroots organizations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Mexico. Another grantee, the Indian Resource Law Center, advocates for indigenous peoples in the Americas, and Guatemala’s Unit for Protection of Human Rights Defenders received a grant to help rights defenders build capacity and mitigate physical risks to activists. Other human rights grantees include the Urgent Action Fund for Latin America and the Caribbean, Just Associates, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Article 19 Mexico and Central America.
Grants for LGBTQ Causes
The Overbrook Foundation supports LGBTQ causes via its gender rights funding area. In past years, the program has focused on marriage equality, but since the broad legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, it has prioritized organizations that oppose religious exemptions as a means of discriminating against LGBTQ individuals, families and communities. Recent funding has mainly gone to advocacy and policy development initiatives including Lamda Legal and the Transgender Law Center.
Grants for Women and Girls
Overbrook’s gender rights grantmaking program focuses on reproductive justice, which the foundation defines as “when all people have the social, political and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about gender, bodies, sexuality and families for ourselves and our communities.” Recent grantmaking has focused on organizational collaborations and movement building. One recent grantee, Advocates for Youth, received a grant for its Reproductive Justice through Youth Mobilization and Engagement program, which supports youth movements for sexual and reproductive health and rights. The Groundswell Fund, which supports grassroots movements of low-income LGBTQ and people of color has received ongoing support, and the University of Oklahoma’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program received funding for its Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice Conference. Other grantees in this area include the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, the Third Wave Fund and Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The Overbrook Foundation recently established a Defending Democracy initiative to support “organizations working on a wide range of areas that are critical to a robust democracy, such as: increasing civic engagement and voter education, promoting voting rights and access, preventing gerrymandering, ensuring a fair census count, and pioneering electoral innovations.” Early grantmaking has prioritized grassroots organizations that use innovative means of engaging people in movements toward campaign finance reform. In New Mexico, the grassroots organization OLÉ received multi-year funding for its democracy reform and community enrichment efforts. Other grantees include the Democracy Initiative Education Fund, New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and the Piper Fund.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
Overbrook has supported organizations involved in U.S. criminal justice reform via its domestic human rights sub-initiative. Grantmaking in this area aims to “challenge systems of mass criminalization and incarceration.” At Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women, the foundation supported an initiative that involved research and professional seminars on “ending criminalization and mass incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color.” Another recipient, Solitary Watch, monitors the widespread use of solitary confinement in prisons and juvenile detention centers. Other past grantees in this area include the Innocence Project, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Borealis Philanthropy and Legal Service for Prisoners with Children.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Justice
The Overbrook Foundation names the environment as one of its main areas of grantmaking and supports conservation and justice via its Latin American biodiversity and drivers of change sub-programs. The Latin American program aims to mitigate pressing threats to vulnerable species and ecosystems, prioritizing the nations of Mesoamerica and projects that simultaneously support local communities and sustainable livelihoods. In Guatemala, the Association of Forest Communities of Petén received funding for its conservation programs targeting the Maya Forest, and in Belize, the foundation has given to the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment, which manages protected areas in the district of Toledo. Other grantees of the Latin American program include the Amazon Conservation Team, Mongabay Latin America, the Legacy Works Group and the Ya’axché Conservation Trust.
Overbrook also supports environmental conservation organizations via its drivers of change subprogram, which targets “organizations that build networks and alliances, recognize the interdependence of their work with that of other organizations, and seek to advance the mission of the broader progressive movement, beyond individual issues areas.” Grantees of this program tend to be large national or global organizations and collaboratives. Grantmaking that stems from the program often overlaps with Overbrook’s human rights funding. Past grantees include the Climate Justice Alliance, the Environmental Grantmakers Association, the Midwest Environmental Justice Network, the U.S. Climate Network and the Wildfire Project.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy and Marine and Freshwater
Grants for climate change and clean energy stem from Overbrook’s communities and climate subprogram. The communities and climate program aims to change individual and collective behaviors towards more sustainable energy use. Recent grantees include organizations that promote activism and develop policy to counter “destructive industries,” as well as projects to enhance public awareness of climate change. Grantees of this program include the Massachusetts-based Better Future Project, which supports community movement toward renewable energy economies, and the Ecology Center of Berkeley, California, which plans and implements sustainability programs in the East Bay area. Other grantees include 350.org, Grist.org, Transportation Alternatives and the Alliance for Climate Education.
Overbrook’s Oceans funding subprogram invests in organizations “planting mangroves, seagrass, kelp, oysters, and coral” to help restore “degraded coastal.” Recent grantees in this area include GreenWave and Raising Coral (Amigos of Costa Rica).
Important Grant Details:
The Overbrook Foundation makes about $6 million in grants each year. Grants range from $5,000 to $250,000, with an average grant size of about $50,000. This funder tends to support innovative organizations and projects that work directly with communities and stakeholders. For additional information about past grantmaking, see the foundation’s annual reports and individual program pages linked above.
The Overbrook Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding but encourages organizations working in its areas of interest to reach out with news and ideas. Staff members’ email addresses are linked to the foundation’s board and staff page. The foundation can be reached by phone at (212) 603-9996.
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