Peace Development Fund
OVERVIEW: The Peace Development Fund is a human rights funder. Recent areas of interest include racial and economic justice, women and girls, environmental conservation, criminal justice reform and civic engagement and democracy.
IP TAKE: The Peace Development Fund’s Grantmaking is tailored to early-stage, grassroots organizations for whom small grants can have a large impact. This is a strong supporter of small- to medium-sized grassroots groups working for human rights across a range of areas. In addition to traditional grantmaking programs, the organization runs a rapid response grant program, supports other grantmakers through its donor and community advised funds and offers administrative support, research, management, training and capacity building. Proprietary grantmaking focuses on U.S. organizations, while donor and community advised funding is global in scope.
This funder accepts applications for several of its programs and links guidelines and application materials to its website. The fund also runs a capacity building program and offers fiscal sponsorship to nonprofits working in its areas of grantmaking interest.
PROFILE: The Amherst, Massachusetts-based Peace Development Fund (PDF) was founded in 1981 when a “[s]mall group of donor activists came together with a common vision of funding social justice and peace through a public foundation.” The fund maintains that “lasting change will come only when a large number of people are well informed and empowered to make change,” and its funding prioritizes organizations that pursue peace “from the bottom up.”
This funder tends to organize its grantmaking by recipient type, as opposed to cause. PDF mainly supports grassroots organizations working in areas related to social justice and human rights. Its current grantmaking programs are Pioneer Valley Community Advised Fund, the De Colores Rapid Response Fund and the Seeding the Movement Fund. From time to time, it also makes grants for special initiatives. PDF’s proprietary grantmaking is limited to the U.S. and its territories, but it also oversees several donor-advised funds that work globally.
PDF also supports nonprofits through its capacity building and fiscal sponsorship programs, which offer technical, organizational and administrative support to smaller grassroots organizations.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights, Criminal Justice, Women and Girls and LGBTQ
PDF’s four grantmaking programs support grassroots organizations with a strong focus on groups and projects that “that will have a significant impact in their geographic and social justice focus area, or are working on issues that are not yet recognized by progressive funders.” The foundation names “four pillars of grantmaking.” They are:
Organizing to Shift Power, including organizations that engage in “collective action-planning and decision-making” and those that aim to hold those in leadership positions accountable to the people whose lives are affected by their decisions and actions;
Working to Build a Movement, which includes alliance-building and forging “connections between local issues and a broader need for systemic change”;
Dismantling Oppression, which refers to activities that challenge “ institutional structures that perpetuate oppression” as well as efforts to explore “ connections between the different forms of oppression (racism, heterosexism, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, etc.), and its connections with injustice”;
Creating New Structures, by which PDF means both “alternative organizational structures” and the creation of new social systems “ that are liberating, democratic, and environmentally sustainable and which promote healthy, sustainable communities.”
The foundation’s current grantmaking programs include the following:
The Pioneer Valley Community Advised Fund supports grassroots organizations based in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties in Massachusetts that are working toward social justice. The program currently prioritizes organizations “led by people of color.” A recent grant supported Nueva Esperanza, which supports the Puerto Rican and Afro-Caribbean communities in the town of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Other grants supported Great Falls Books Through Bars and the Pa’lante Restorative Justice Program.
The De Colores Rapid Response Fund works nationally “to make funds available for quick, short-term delivery to hot spots of opportunity for organizing in marginalized urban and rural communities.” Priorities of this program include l0w-income communities, communities of color and “opportunities to amplify the effects of in-the-moment issues.” In New York, a grant supported Movement for Justice in El Barrio, which used funding to support its work for housing justice and immigrants rights during the COVID-19 crisis. Other grantees include Utah’s Disabled Rights Action Committee and the United Taxi Workers of San Diego.
The Seeding the Movement Fund focuses on start-up organizations that are “led by people from their communities.” According to the program’s page, many grantees of this program are awarded “renewals, reflecting our commitment to investing in the ongoing work of transformative grassroots organizing.” Recent areas of focus have included LGBTQ rights, the environment, economic equity and racial and gender justice. Recent grantees include the Alyssa Rodriguez Center for Gender Justice, Communities for Clean Water of Taos, New Mexico and the Root Cause Research Center, which organizes tenants at risk of displacement throughout the U.S. South.
PDF’s is not currently making grants for any special initiatives. Past initiatives have included criminal justice, women peacemakers, Middle East peace and “Economic Dislocation and the Solidarity Economy.”
This funder also supports grassroots organizations via its capacity building and fiscal sponsorship programs.
The capacity building program offers “multi-year grants, training, organizational development assistance, strategic convening and support for collaboration among groups working on common issues.” Capacity building assistance is generally available to PDF’s current grantee partners and sometimes follows the thematic direction of the fund’s special initiatives; past capacity building initiatives have focused on sustainability and criminal justice.
The fund’s fiscal sponsorship initiative “provides administrative infrastructure and extends the legal framework of fiscal sponsorship to grassroots groups and projects so they can carry out their work without the burden of managing donations and other tax-exempt requirements.” PDF has provided fiscal sponsorship support to 45 grassroots organizations since the program’s inception. Information about applying to this program is available in the Fiscal Sponsorship Program Handbook.
Grants for Global Development, Security and Human Rights
While PDF’s grantmaking mainly serves U.S. causes and organizations, the fund manages several donor-advised and community-advised funds that grant globally in the areas of human rights and violence prevention. Examples include the Babson International Peace Fund, the Mary N. Lloyd Memorial Fund and Maverick Fund, which works extensively in the Caribbean and Central and South America in the areas of labor and independent media. The fund’s website does not offer information on how to apply for these specific grantmaking opportunities, but PDF staff “recommends groups for funding.”
Important Grant Details:
In a recent year, PDF made about $4.5 million in grants, which represents a significant increase over the past several years. Tax filings show that grants ranged from $5,000 to $1 million, although larger grants generally stem from PDF’s donor-advised funds. PDF’s grants tend to range from $2,500 to $7,500.
Grantmaking is limited to grassroots and/or community organizations with annual budgets under $250,000 and those that are directly involved with social justice and rights in the U.S.
Massachusetts, New York, California an Illinois appear to be the largest destinations for PDF grants.
For additional information about past grantees see the organization’s funding map or recent tax filings.
PDF accepts applications for its Pioneer Valley Community Advised Fund, the De Colores Rapid Response Fund and the Seeding the Movement Fund, although eligibility, guidelines and due dates vary by program. Application materials for each program are available at the individual program pages linked above. For donor and community advised funds, applicants should submit a letter of inquiry through the fund’s website. General inquiries may be directed to the fund’s staff via email or telephone at 413-256-8306.
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