Borealis Philanthropy
/OVERVIEW: Borealis Philanthropy describes itself as a “social justice philanthropic intermediary” and runs funds to support grassroots organizations in the areas of racial justice, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ causes and disabilities.
IP TAKE: In less than 10 years, Borealis Philanthropy, a GUTC signatory, has become a leading player in the social justice movement in the U.S. It is a crucial source of unrestricted funding for grassroots organizations working toward racial justice, LGBTQ rights, criminal justice reform and disability rights. A key component of its work is maintaining close communication with donors, providing multiple opportunities for funders to engage with and learn from grantees in this rapidly changing philanthropic landscapes.
In addition to its grantmaking, Borealis offers “grantee-driven capacity-building support at the individual, organizational and movement levels. Historically, each of (its) nine grantmaking funds have designed and delivered their own capacity-building programs, which include leadership coaching, finance and fundraising training, IT and security assistance, as well as peer learning opportunities and convenings.”
Only two of Borealis’ nine funds accept application materials, but the organization is approachable and invites prospective grantees to reach out with questions and introductions. Each fund’s webpage offers an individual email address for contact. Beyond this, networking with members of the Borealis board of directors will likely be important in terms of getting this funder’s attention.
PROFILE: Based in Minneapolis, Borealis Philanthropy was founded in 2015 by philanthropy veteran Margarita (Magui) Rubalcava with funding from the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and many other well-known philanthropic organizations. Borealis’s mission is to “direct resources to people building powerful, thriving communities” by investing in “leaders, organizations and movements using diverse and leading-edge strategies to pursue transformational change.”
Borealis is not a traditional grantmaker; it describes itself as “a social justice philanthropic intermediary working to resource grassroots movements for transformative change,” and describes its work as “build[ing] bridges between funders and organizers to support movements working to make a future that serves all of us.” In addition to grantmaking, Borealis keeps its donors engaged and informed about the causes it supports via frequent communications, “learning sessions” and other events that focus on change and progress surrounding priority issues, communities and geographical regions. The organization currently runs nine funds focusing mainly on racial justice, LGBTQ causes, criminal justice and the rights of disabled people. In all cases, grantmaking decisions are made by committees of individuals representative of and vested in the area of interest.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
Funding for racial equity accounts for about 80% of Borealis’ annual grantmaking, with four of Borealis’ nine funds focused specifically on racial justice and two others focused on criminal justice reform through the lens of racial equity. Funds focused mainly on racial justice include the Black-Led Movement Fund, the Racial Equity to Accelerate Change Fund and the Racial Equity in Journalism and Philanthropy Funds.
The Black-Led Movement Fund was established in 2014 in response to the demonstrations surrounding the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The fund “invests in powerful local organizations that anchor the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) as well as the movement infrastructure that amplifies their work.”
It began funding in 2016, and has since then moved more than $28 million in grants to racial justice organizations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The fund’s specific goals include increasing civic engagement among people of color, the removal of racist symbols from public spaces, divestment of public funds from police budgets and the school-to-prison pipeline, and the development of local power and leadership in the South and Midwest.
This fund is not accepting applications for funding at this time.
Grantees include Action St. Louis, the Black LGBTQA+ Migrant Justice Project and Dream Defenders, a Florida-based organization that focuses on transformative justice and creating “alternatives to dealing with harm and violence.”
The Racial Equity to Accelerate Change Fund (REACH) provides critical support to “racial equity practitioners advancing racial equity organizational development in the nonprofit sector.” The fund aims to support initiatives for organizational development, programs that promote and enact racial equity in communities and opportunities for nonprofits to “share key learnings, including accelerators and barriers for progress toward racial equity within philanthropy, nonprofits and practitioners, broadly.”
Grantmaking from this fund began in 2019, since which time it has awarded close to $6.5 million to over 27 grantees. This fund is not currently accepting proposals for funding.
Previous grantees include the Institute of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, the Interracial Institute for Social Change and the Center for Diversity and the Environment.
Borealis supports racial equity in the field of journalism through one of its newer initiatives, the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, which aims to “strengthen the capacity and sustainability of news organizations led by and for people of color to provide relevant, accurate information to increase civic engagement in the communities they serve.”
Specific grantmaking strategies include providing general operating support to trusted organizations, capacity support for smaller and new organizations and the facilitation of “peer-to-peer learning and ecosystem-building” for journalistic and media outlets serving communities of color, immigrant communities and other areas that lack equitable media.
Since its establishment in 2019, this fund has moved about $10 million to 40 journalism and news organizations across the U.S.
This program accepts LOIs through Borealis’ application portal.
Previous grantees include South Seattle Emerald, the International Women’s Media Foundation and Enlace Latino NC, a Spanish-language news service in North Carolina that has been recognized for its excellence in investigative reporting and COVID-19 news coverage.
Borealis’ Racial Equity in Philanthropy Fund was established to support philanthropic organizations in their efforts to “integrate racial equity policies and practices into their grantmaking programs” and to “normalize grantmaking strategies that prioritize structural change and contribute to ending racial disparities.”
Supported projects include trainings and workshops for philanthropy professionals, data collection, peer learning initiatives, conferences, publications and more.
Established in 2018, the fund has moved about $28 million in grants and has prioritized initiatives and programs that offer opportunities for learning and sharing best practices among its grantees and other philanthropic organizations.
The fund is not currently accepting funding proposals or LOIs.
Recent grantees include Hispanics in Philanthropy and the United Philanthropy Forum, a network of 90 “philanthropy-serving organizations” that aim to “lead, strengthen and inform a national network of organizations that advance philanthropy’s impact for the common good.”
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
Borealis conducts its grantmaking for criminal justice reform through a racial justice lens and currently oversees two funds in this area: the Communities Transforming Policing Fund and the Spark Justice Fund.
Communities Transforming Policing prioritizes communities “impacted by deadly and discriminatory policing practices” and aims to improve the accountability of law enforcement and increase “investment in community-based programs and services as alternatives to police, jails and prisons.”
Grantmaking prioritizes organization with annual budgets of less than $500,000 and organizations led by BIPOC and/or “individuals who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system.”
Geographic priorities include “communities in historically underfunded geographic areas, such as the South, rural areas, U.S. territories, Native reservations, etc.”
The fund has facilitated over $20.7 million in grants since 2017.
Communities Transforming Policing does not accept applications for funding at this time.
Past grantees include Milwaukee’s African American Round Table and the Austin Justice Coalition, both of which used funding to support its successful campaigns to divest funds from police departments and increase funding for housing, employment and mental health initiatives. Another grantee, Unite Oregon, played an active role in advocacy for Measure 110, which decriminalized most drug use in the state.
The aim of Borealis’ Spark Justice Fund is to support “grassroots and power-building groups to decarcerate, close jails and advance transformative visions of pretrial justice in the communities most impacted by incarceration.”
The fund began making grants in 2019, and has so far given away about $10.4 million, prioritizing organizations that are “led by people from the communities most impacted by mass incarceration” at the local and state levels.
In addition to monetary support, Spark offers its grantees technical support, leadership development and other learning opportunities.
The Spark Justice Fund is not accepting applications at this time.
Grantees include Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation in Chicago and Frontline Dads, which runs the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, providing financial assistance to individuals unable to pay bail and advocating an end to both bail and pretrial incarceration in Philadelphia.
Grants for LGBTQ Causes
LGBTQ causes are the main focus of two of Borealis’ current funds: the Fund for Trans Generations and the Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund.
The Fund for Trans Generations supports “trans-led organizing to support a future where transgender, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people live with freedom, safety and self-determination.” Launched in 2016, the fund has supported almost 250 trans-led organizations with grants totaling over $11 million. This fund has prioritized the U.S. South, where “resources are most scarce.” Trans Generations is the only fund at Borealis that runs a Rapid Response Fund, for which it accepts grant applications from trans-led organizations with annual budgets or project budgets of less than $600,000.
Applications are accepted at any time through Borealis’ application portal, and grants are awarded in amounts of up to $10,000.
Recent grantmaking stemming from Trans Generations has focused on the human rights of LGBTQ people, as well as reproductive health and justice. The fund’s largest recipient in recent years has been the Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project. Other grantees include CANS Can’t STAND, San Francisco’s Transgender District, Trans*Visible and the Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts.
Borealis’s Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund (ELLC) focuses on supporting “leaders and organizations who understand that the issues like community safety, reproductive justice, immigrant rights and others do not exist in isolation from each other, and who approach liberation work from a place of inclusion.”
Since its inception in 2015, the fund has awarded over $12 million in grants to 116 organizations.
ELLC funding aims to provide stabilizing, consistent and sustainable support to small and medium-sized organizations that have the potential for large impact on the communities they serve.
Recent grantmaking has prioritized organizations working at intersections of the causes and issues that are important to Borealis and initiatives in urban areas of the U.S. This program is not accepting grant applications at this time.
Other grantees of the fund include Los Angeles’ Unique Woman’s Coalition, inTRANSitive of Little Rock, Arkansas and GLITS, Inc., of Queens, New York.
Other Grantmaking Interests
Borealis’s Disability Inclusion Fund, established in 2020, represents a five-year, $20 million commitment to “support U.S. groups run by and for people with disabilities to lead transformational change.” In addition to funding initiatives for disability rights, justice and inclusion, the fund aims to improve disability inclusion in philanthropy and is supported by the President’s Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy, a group of “foundation presidents who are committed to disability inclusion as a part of improving diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Since it started making grants, this fund has moved $9.4 million in grants to 72 organizations, including $500,000 in rapid-response grants during the COVID-19 crisis.
Grants have prioritized organizations that are led by members of the disability community and that work collaboratively and in solidarity with other disability groups and activist movements.
While this fund is not currently accepting applications, its web page suggests prospective grantees sign up for the program’s newsletter to keep up with new opportunities.
Grantees include Nebraska’s Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network, Detroit Disability Power and the Consumer Directed Persona Assistance Association of New York.
Important Grant Details:
Borealis’ grants mostly range from $5,000 to $500,000, with grant amounts and ranges often set by individual funds.
Borealis’ largest giving area is racial equity, which accounts for about 80% of its total grantmaking and stems from six of its nine funds.
About 70% of this funder’s grants consist of unrestricted general operating support to grassroots organizations, most of which are small to medium sized and operate at local and regional levels.
Many grantees have received “scaffolded” multi-year support.
This funder also provides extensive technical support, leadership development and other opportunities to its grantees on an ongoing basis.
Grantmaking is limited to organizations based in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and while the philanthropy does not prioritize any one region, it tends to focus its resources on areas that lack philanthropic support for specific issues of interest.
For additional information about recent grantmaking, see Borealis’s recent annual report and its tax filings.
Most of Borealis’ funds do not accept applications for funding. However, the Fund for Trans Generations accepts applications for its Rapid Response grants at any time, and the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund accepts LOIs. Materials for both of these programs should be submitted through Borealis’ grant application portal.
Borealis Philanthropy invites prospective grantees to reach out via its contact form and to sign up for email updates about funding opportunities. The names of Borealis’s board of directors, as well as links to its social media handles, are available at the website.
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