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. The fund also supports nonprofits with administrative support, research, management, training and capacity building.
IP TAKE: The Peace Development Fund’s grantmaking prioritizes grassroots human rights organizations. In addition to traditional grantmaking programs, the organization runs a rapid response grant program and supports other grantmakers through its donor and community advised funds. Proprietary grantmaking focuses on U.S. organizations, while donor and community advised funding is global in scope.
This accessible funder accepts applications for several of its programs and links guidelines and application materials to its website. Grantmaking is tailored to early-stage, grassroots organizations for whom small grants can have a large impact. 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 supports human rights, women’s and girls’ causes, climate change initiatives, criminal justice reform and civic engagement and democracy. Its grantmaking programs include Community Organizing Grants, the De Colores Rapid Response Fund and a Special Initiatives program, which currently supports criminal justice reform, women’s peace movements, labor organizing and Middle East peace. The fund also supports nonprofits through donor and community advised funds, a fiscal sponsorship program and capacity building support.
Grants for Global Security and Human Rights
The Peace Development Fund supports human rights initiatives through its community organizing grants, the De Colores Rapid Response Fund, special initiatives and donor/community advised funds. The Community Organizing program prioritizes organizations operating in the U.S., Haiti and Mexico and supports efforts to shift power, build movements, dismantle oppression and build new structures. One grantee, API Equality-LA, received funding to establish LGBTQ equality within the Asian and Pacific Islander community in the Los Angeles area. Another grantee, South Carolina’s Education Justice Alliance, works to “reduce the number of public school students pushed off the academic track through unfair suspensions, harsh discipline policies and academic failure.” The De Colores program maintains similar goals, but offers short-term support to grassroots organizations in marginalized urban and rural communities. One recent grantee, Gente Organizada, is a youth-led group that advocates for the rights of immigrant families in Southern California. Several donor advised funds have also supported human rights organizations. Examples include the Babson International Peace Fund and the Mary N. Lloyd Memorial Fund.
Grants for Women and Girls
Grants for women’s and girls’ causes stem from PDF’s community organizing, De Colores and special initiatives programs. The community organizing and De Colores programs do not name women and girls as funding priorities but have given to organizations including Women Against Mass Incarceration and the Boston Abortion Support Collective. The special initiatives program names women peacemakers as an area of focus. Grants aim to create opportunities for women’s groups in the fund’s fiscal sponsorship program to collaborate, grow and thrive. Grantees include the Women’s International League for Peace, South Korea’s Women Demilitarize the Zone and the Heart and Hand Fund, which supports feminist activism in the Balkans.
Grants for Environmental Conservation
PDF does not name the environment as a funding priority but has supported organizations involved in environmental conservation and justice via its community organizing and De Colores rapid response grantmaking programs. Past grantees include Louisiana’s RISE St. James, which works to protect residents and homes from local expansion of the petrochemical industry, and Downwinders at Risk, which builds awareness and activism against air pollution in North Texas.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
PDF names criminal justice reform as a focus area of its special initiatives funding program. Specific areas of interest have included sentencing reform, prison overcrowding and living conditions, parole reform, restorative justice and the effects that illegal drugs have on low-income communities across the U.S. In Michigan, the fund has supported Nation Outside, which amplifies the voices of the formerly incarcerated to reduce racial profiling and build awareness of the contributions formerly incarcerated people have made in their communities. Another past grantee is Unchained, a Syracuse-based organization that advocates for prison reform and education for prisoners.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The fund supports civic engagement and democracy broadly across its funding programs. Grantmaking in this area has recently prioritized “new and emerging” organizations that are rooted in the Occupy, MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, as well as organizations that represent new issues “that are not yet recognized by progressive funders.” Community organizing grantees include Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan, which educates and empowers young people to hold local governments accountable to marginalized groups, and Phoenix Local Organizing Committee, which aims to empower and build leadership in African American Communities. A past grantee of the De Colores program is One Montgomery, which empowers residents of Montgomery County, Maryland to “pursue educational equity, data-informed policy, and fiscal responsibility.”
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
In addition to its traditional grantmaking programs, the PDF supports nonprofits working in its areas of interest via its Fiscal Sponsorship, Capacity Building and Donor/Community Advised programs. Through the Fiscal Sponsorship program, the fund helps grassroots organizations manage financial and administrative responsibilities. The Capacity Building program, which is named the Sustainability Project on the fund’s website, offers grantees multi-year support in the form of training, organizational support, networking and strategy development. PDF’s Donor and Community Advised Funds program supports smaller grantmakers and foundations with research, grants management and reporting for a percentage-based fee.
Important Grant Details:
The Peace Development Fund makes about $2 million in grants each year. Community Organizing grants generally range from $2,500 to $10,000 and De Colores grants range from $500 to $1,000, while donor and community advised grants have been awarded in amounts up to $500,000. Human rights is the fund’s largest area of giving, with grantmaking focusing on grassroots organizations for peace, equity and social justice. For additional information about past grantees see the organization’s funding map or recent tax filings.
PDF accepts applications for its community organizing grants, the De Colores program and its donor and community advised grants. Community Organizing grant applications are linked to the website beginning on December 1 of each year with a due date of December 29. If selected, applicants must submit supplementary materials by March 13 and will be notified of selection by April. Applications for the De Colores Rapid Response program are accepted at any time via the fund’s website. 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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