Threshold Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Threshold Foundation is a membership-based organization that makes grants for the environment, Middle East peace, election reform, racial justice, and documentary film.
IP TAKE: The Threshold Foundation is a progressive funder for grassroots organizations working in its specific areas of interest. While it is not accessible, prospective applicants can reach out with general inquiries via email after exploring the foundation’s current programs on its website.
The foundation is proactive in its giving, which means you’ll have to hustle to get on its radar. It’s an otherwise responsive and collaborative funder that works to help its grantees thrive through active engagements with grantees. Note that it conducts its grantmaking through a racial equity and climate change lens, so your application, if approached to submit one, should speak to and amplify these lenses as they apply to your work.
PROFILE: The Threshold Foundation was established in 1981 by a group of wealthy activists with a vision of creating “a just, joyful and generative world.” The organization describes itself as a “multi-generational membership organization devoted to aligning our responses with our values while fostering a fertile training ground for the full and authentic expression of our passion and purpose.” Known for its conservation and clean energy grantmaking, this funder has expanded its areas of grantmaking interest over the past several years. Its current funding programs include Land and Climate, Middle East Peace, Fair Elections, Immigration Justice, the Black Justice Flow Fund, High Impact Documentary Films and Psychedelic Research, Education and Policy.
Grants for Climate Change, the Environment and Sustainable Agriculture
Grants for climate change and clean energy stem from the foundation’s Land and Climate initiative, which is one of the foundation’s largest giving areas. A main goal of this program is to mitigate climate change through the management of “farms, ranches, and other landscapes so we pull carbon out of the air and return it to soils and living systems.” Grantmaking prioritizes organizations with strong impact, a focus on equity and budgets of less than $2 million. Previous grantees include California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCan), Ecdysis Foundation, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Threshold also conducts environmental conservation work through its Land and Climate initiative, which focuses on protecting forests and wetlands from “the policies and billions in subsidies which now drive and reward deforestation and the most destructive forms of agriculture.” Recent conservation grantees include the Dogwood Alliance, the New England Grassroots Environment Fund, Amazon Watch, and Friends of the Earth.
Grants for Global Security and Human Rights
Threshold makes grants for global security and human rights via its Middle East Peace funding initiative, which supports “a nonviolent transformation of the conflict and conditions in Palestine and Israel into an enduring peace with full civil rights, dignity and security for all.” Recent grantmaking focuses on women’s and children’s groups. One recent grant supported the Friends of Taghyeer, a peacebuilding organization that empowers women and youth to build a national Palestinian nonviolence network. Other grantees include the Parents’ Circle Families Forum, which comprises Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost family members to conflict, and Kids4Peace, a global interfaith youth organization with a strong presence in Jerusalem.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The Threshold Foundation’s Fair Elections initiative was established with the goal of protecting voting rights and vote counts, as well as reforming redistricting and campaign finance laws. Several recent grants have gone to organizations working at the state level to protect elections, including Law Forward Wisconsin, which uses strategic litigation to “develop the law” in Wisconsin. Other recent grantees include national organizations including AUDIT-USA, Coalition for Good Governance and Verified Voting, which promotes the responsible use of technology in elections.
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
Threshold’s Immigrant Justice funding program focuses on the rights of migrating people at the San Diego/Tijuana and El Paso/Juarez/Las Cruces border regions. Areas of interest include legal challenges to anti-immigrant policies and ending the practice of family detentions and violence toward migrants. Grantees include both large organizations mounting legal challenges on behalf of migrants and grassroots and community-led groups providing direct support in the foundation’s geographic areas of interest. Past immigration and refugee grantees include Fe’s Somos Un Pueblo Unido, which works to protect the rights of all New Mexicans regardless of their immigration status, and the Mexican organization Ojo de Agua, which works to protect the rights of indigenous and migrant people fleeing violent situations. Some of Thrasher’s larger grantees in this area include the Border Network for Human Rights, the Washington Office on Latin America and chapters of the ACLU operating in New Mexico and Texas.
Grants for Film
Threshold’s High Impact Documentary Films funding program invests in “documentaries that have the potential to transform public perception on major issues by exploring compelling, underrepresented themes and issues with a depth and nuance that is not seen in most mainstream media.” In addition to supporting the production of films, the foundation supports publicity, marketing and distribution to broaden the reach of powerful works. Grantmaking is conducted through a “close partnership” with DocSociety, a U.K. social entrepreneurship organization that is known for its support of award-winning documentary films. Threshold’s recent grants have supported documentary films including “After Sherman,” “Dystopia” and “Seeds.”
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
Threshold recently established its Justice Fund in 2020 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. Since 2022, this fund has transitioned to focus in particular on Health Justice, responding to the inequities exposed in the wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The foundation has not yet outlined specific goals for this program, and grantmaking is in its earliest stages. Prospective grantees should check the organization’s website for updates on this grantmaking program. The foundation appears to conduct all of its grantmaking with racial equity in mind.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
Through its Psychedelic Research, Education and Policy funding initiative, Threshold supports organizations working toward the legalization of psychedelic drugs for medicinal and religious purposes. Recent grants have gone to the California Institute of Integral Studies, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Heffter Research Institute and the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service.
Important Grant Details:
In recent years, the Threshold Foundation has made between $500,000 and $2 million in grants a year, with an average grant size of about $25,000 and a maximum grant size of $500,000. The foundation’s largest giving areas are human rights and the environment, and many of its grantees are small grassroots organizations working directly with community stakeholders in the foundation’s areas of interest. For additional information on past grantees, see the foundation’s individual program pages or its recent tax filings.
The Threshold Foundation does not review unsolicited proposals for funding, but prospective grantees may submit general inquiries to the foundations staff via email at info@thresholdfoundation.org or telephone at 914-257-3598.
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