OVERVIEW: The Rockefeller Family Fund supports efforts to promote civic engagement, government accountability, and civil rights in the United States. Its environmental program almost exclusively focuses on climate change, but sometimes funds other environmental projects. It also makes grants for women and girls through its economic justice for women program, which focuses on equal pay and women’s empowerment.
IP TAKE: Despite its impressive family name, this foundation’s grants tend to be rather modest, but it does accept applications online, making it accessible and particularly amenable to smaller organizations that conduct policy and advocacy work with national implications. Note that the RFF’s initiatives change frequently, so check their site often. Though RFF is responsive, it’s not the most approachable, but don’t lose hope, especially if you’re a smaller organization.
PROFILE: The Rockefeller Family Fund was established in 1967 by Martha, John, Laurance [sic], Nelson, and David Rockefeller, the children of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The foundation describes itself as a “family-led public charity that initiates, cultivates, and funds strategic efforts to promote a sustainable, just, free, and participatory society.” Its two-pronged strategy involves both traditional grantmaking and a “nimble advocacy” approach, through which it “develops and runs initiatives and projects to help address key societal issues.” The foundation’s three main programs are Environment, Institutional Accountability and Individual Liberty, and Economic Justice for Women.
Grants for Climate Change
Since 2006, the RFF’s Environment program has prioritized climate change action with two key initiatives: Climate Education and Funder Collaborative. Its Climate Education initiative supports programs designed to “engage and motivate citizens demanding change; deepen public recognition of the climate disruption now unfolding; unmask forces working to prevent climate progress, and policies, and require polluters to pay their fair share of the climate damages they caused to help the public meet enormous climate adaptation expenses we now face.” As well, this initiative has led to a report issued by “senior U.S. military advisors that climate change is a national security risk; an active and thriving grassroots movement demanding climate progress; reporting by investigative journalists about what fossil companies knew about climate change (and when).”
Similarly, RFF’s Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas was launched in December 2018 to curtail U.S. oil and gas production and prevent “development of massive new domestic infrastructure” is an urgent and necessary part of solving the climate crisis. The Funder Collaborative’s core purpose is to limit ongoing oil and gas production; prevent the lock-in of GHG-emissions for new and expanded oil, gas, and petrochemical infrastructure; and weaken the industry’s financial standing and political influence.
Some previous climate grantees include the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Dakota Resource Council, the NRDC, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club Foundation and the Ecology Center, among many others. Note that even though RFF’s initiatives in this space may change often, the work remains similar in scope from year to year in recent years.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The Rockefeller Family Fund’s grantmaking for Institutional Accountability and Individual Liberty works to promote the active participation of citizens in government, make government and private institutions “more accountable and responsive,” and ensure that “individuals’ rights and liberties under the Constitution are protected.” Notable initiatives include the Democracy Project, which is “working to connect people of color, young people, and low-income people to their political power in ways that result in durable agency and voice in our democracy.” Past grantees include Alliance for Justice, Alliance for Youth Organizing, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Foundation, Campaign Legal Center, Faith in Action, and Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Grants for Women and Girls
The RFF conducts grantmaking related to women through its Economic Justice For Women program, which “seeks to improve the quality of life for working women and their families in two ways: by advocating for equitable employment opportunities and updated employment standards, and by building power through support of women’s activism. Working at the national, state and local levels, we support research, training, public education campaigns and advocacy efforts. The program offers the Women Effect Fund, which promotes “a suite of economic reforms that are central to women’s economic equality and the well-being of their families.” This program also previously offered an initiative, Local Solutions Support Center, which “act[ed] as a national hub intended to reframe and respond to preemption as a threat to the advancement of local policies that promote economic, social and public health equity and justice.” Past women and girls grantees include A Better Balance, the Center for American Progress, and Mothering Justice, among many others.
Important Grant Details:
Grants generally range from $10,000 to $100,000. The foundation, however, prioritizes both established and smaller organizations in its grantmaking so long as they have national impact. Those looking for more information about RFF's grantmaking policies should go to its website.
The Rockefeller Family Fund accepts Letters of Inquiry (LOI) year round through its online application portal.
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