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 fewer than ten years, Borealis Philanthropy has become a leading player in the social justice movement in the U.S. It has become 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 rapidly changing philanthropic landscapes.
In addition to its grantmaking, Borealis is highly supportive. This funder 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.” This kind of support is rare in philanthropy, rarer still within it’s giving areas.
Borealis is not accessible at this time, but it is approachable, so prospective grantees may reach out via the organization’s contact page and sign up for email updates. Networking with members of Borealis’s board of directors will likely be important to get this philanthropy’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. In less than ten years, Borealis has become a leading player in social justice philanthropy, having made over $100 million in grants to grassroots organizations across the U.S. Borealis’s goal 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 LGBTQ causes, racial justice, criminal justice and the rights of disabled people.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
Funding for racial equity accounts for about 80% of Borealis’s annual grantmaking, with four of Borealis’s 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.” The Black-Led Movement Fund has made over $10.6 million in grants to 170 organizations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, with goals including increased 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. Recent 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 provides critical support to “racial equity practitioners advancing racial equity organizational development in the nonprofit sector.” Grantmaking from this fund began in 2019, since which time it has awarded almost $4 million to over 65 grantees. 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 towards racial equity within philanthropy, nonprofits and practitioners, broadly.” Recent grants have supported the Institute of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, the Interracial Institute for Social Change and the Center for Diversity and the Environment.
Borealis also makes funds for Racial Equity in both Journalism and Philanthropy. Its newest fund, the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund 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. Recent grantees include the 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.
The 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.” Established in 2018, the fund has made over $25 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. Supported projects include trainings and workshops for philanthropy professionals, data collection, peer learning initiatives, conferences, publications and more. Recent grantees of the Racial Equity in Philanthropy Fund 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 it’s grantmaking for criminal justice reform through a racial justice lens. This funder currently oversees two funds in this area: the Communities Tranforming Policing Fund and 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.” The fund has made over $6 million in grants in five years. Two grantees, Milwaukee’s African American Round Table and the Austin Justice Coalition, used funding to support its successful campaigns to divest funds from police department 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 long-term goal of Borealis’s Spark Justice Fund is to “reduce jail populations, decriminalize poverty, and reduce disparities for low-income communities of color.” In the short-term, however, the fund supports grass roots groups that “are ending money bail and unjust detention policies” that disproportionately affect communities of color. The fund began making grants in 2019, and has so far given away about $7 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. Grantees include Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation in Chicago and Frontline Dads, which runs the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, which provides financial assistance to individuals unable to pay bail and has advocated an end to both bail and pretrial incarceration in Philadelphia.
Grants for LGBTQ Causes
LGBTQ causes are the main focus of two of Borealis’s current funds: the Fund for Trans Generations and the Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund. The Fund for Trans Generation supports “trans-led organizing to support a future where transgender, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people live with freedom, safety, and self-determination.” Launched in 2016, the fund has made over $8 million in grants to 205 grantees and has prioritized the U.S. South, where “resources are most scarce.” Recent grantmaking stemming from this fund 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, which aims to “to challenge and end human rights abuses against transgender, gender variant and intersex people, especially transgender women, in California prisons and beyond.” Other grantees include CANScantSTAND, 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 about $6.6 million in grants to 62 organizations. ELLC funding aims to provide stabilizing, consistent and sustainable support to small- to 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. One recent grant went to New York City’s Colectivo Intercultural Transgrendiendo, an organization that supports the health, reproductive rights and cultural expressions of transgender and nonbinary people. Another grant funded the Brooklyn-based Fearless Femme 100, “a community group for and by Queer/Trans/BIPoC, focusing on peer mental health services, art and activism.” Other grantees of the fund include Los Angeles’s Unique Woman’s Coalition, inTRANSitive of Little Rock, Arkansas and GLITS, Inc., of Queens, New York.
Other Grantmaking Interests
Borealis’s ninth fund, the Disability Inclusion Fund, was established in 2020 and 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.” In its first two years, the fund has made $4.9 million in grants to 34 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 hat work collaboratively and in solidarity with other disability groups and activist movements. 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:
In recent years, Borealis Philanthropy has made around $50 million in grants. Most grants range from $5,000 to $500,000 and the most common grant amount is around $15,000. Many grantees have received multi-year support, along with technical assistance, leadership development and opportunities to network and collaborate with other grantees and funders affiliated with the philanthropy. Borealis’s largest giving area is racial equity, which accounts for about 80% of its total grantmaking and stems from six of its nine funds. It is worth noting that 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. 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.
Borealis Philanthropy does not run an open application program at this time but 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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