Nike | Black Community Commitment

As part of our 10-year, $100 million Black Community Commitment, in partnership with Michael Jordan, we are pleased to announce the fifth round of our annual Community Grant Program, benefiting grassroots nonprofit organizations throughout the United States. The application portal will open on January 15th – February 16th 2025 at 11:59PST.

Qualifications and Application Requirements:

• Be a non-profit organization with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status that has been established for two or more years.
• Have an annual operating budget between $100,000 to $3 million.
• As this program is an initiative of our Black Community Commitment, your nonprofit organizations must have a mission that aligns with at least one of our key focus areas.

FOCUS AREAS:

ECONOMIC JUSTICE: Expand pathways to generational wealth to Black people through access to financial literacy and career development coaching.

EDUCATION: Support Black students by increasing the amount of Black educators, supporting educators in underserved neighborhoods, and providing access to higher education opportunities.

NARRATIVE CHANGE: Increase awareness of the role race plays in our history to drive a deeper understanding of the consequences of racism in our everyday lives.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: Grow the Black Community’s social and political capital by investing in and advocating for policy reform to increase voter registration and turnout.

Apply Here

Trans Justice Funding Project

The Trans Justice Funding Project (TJFP) is a community-run, non-charitable trust that funds Trans-led grassroots organizations in the US and US Territories who exist to serve and improve the lives of their local and national trans, gender non conforming and non-binary communities. TJFP is staffed by all trans and non-binary individuals who are Black, Brown, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

Eligibility Criteria

• Are you a group of 2 or more people working together towards a shared trans justice goal?
• Are you a grassroots, trans justice group run by and for trans people?
• Is your group’s total budget less than $250,000?
• Are you located in the United States or a U.S. territory?
• Are you centering the leadership of trans people organizing around their experiences with racism, economic injustice, transmisogyny, ableism, immigration, incarceration, and other intersecting oppressions?
• Are you meeting the needs of different local communities and using organizing and/or providing services to help bring people together?
• Do you see your work as part of a bigger picture of trans-led work that seeks dignity and justice for all people?

TJFP will be organizing three opportunities for trans-led organizers and activists to apply for funding each year:

• Cycle 1: January 24 – February 14, 2025
• Cycle 2: April 28 – May 16, 2025
• Cycle 3: July 28 – August 15, 2025

Learn more and apply here.

Nathan Cummings Foundation

The Nathan Cummings Foundation is a multigenerational family foundation, rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice, working to create a more just, vibrant, sustainable, and democratic society through our grantmaking in the United States and Israel.

For FY 2025, the portal will be open from January 16, 2025, through June 30, 2025, and will reopen on October 1, 2025. The portal will be closed from July 1, 2025, to September 30, 2025, to allow time for assessment and reflection.

NCF is on a learning journey, and we seek to connect with innovative partners and proximate change makers who are driving impact. We want to learn from, work with, and support organizations that share our commitment to advancing racial, economic, and environmental justice (REEJ).

NCF offers two types of funding opportunities: grants and PRIs. Successful grant and PRI proposals will align with NCF’s interconnected goals of REEJ focus areas.

This is a competitive process and NCF has limited resources. This year, we anticipate awarding six to eight new grants per REEJ area with a focus on initiatives in the U.S. South. Review our FAQs and racial justice, economic justice, and environmental justice focus areas to understand if your work aligns and apply here.

NDN Collective Community Action Fund

The Community Action Fund (CAF) grants support direct actions and organizing efforts that are often urgent and time sensitive. CAF prioritizes frontline, grassroots and community-based efforts that defend Indigenous peoples rights, communities and nations, including responses to climate disasters.

Eligibility: Indigenous-led frontline, grassroots, and community-based groups and organizations, including non-profit organizations, U.S. based Tribes, tribal non-profit entities or tribal programs, Alaska Native Villages or their non-profit entities, First Nations or Inuit and Metis communities, groups and organizations based in Canada, Indigenous communities, groups and organizations based in Mexico, and Individual Indigenous people leading direct action or movement building work.

Applicants must be based in the post-colonial borders of the US, Canada, Mexico, and the related Island Nations of Hawai’i, Borikén/Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Budget: Applicants will be required to submit a budget for the funds relating to the direct action such as funding for travel, climate response items, supplies, equipment, consultants, contractual services and staff that support various forms of NVDA (non-violent direct action), i.e., marches, camps, boycotts, prayer vigils as a form of resistance, organizing or protest to affect change.

Reporting: Awardees will be required to submit a grant report at the end of their grant term within 30 days of their grant closing.

Grant Cycle Deadlines:

Opens: January 29, 2025
Registration Closes: October 17, 2025 5pm Central Time US
Application: Accepted on a rolling basis until October 31, 2025 5pm Central Time US (or until funds are expended)

Learn more and apply here!

Spark Justice Fund (SJF) Safety & Security Rapid Response Fund

The Spark Justice Fund (SJF) launched in 2019 and resources grassroots organizing groups that are ending money bail and unjust pretrial detention policies. The SJF focuses on supporting grassroots and power-building groups to decarcerate, close jails, and advance transformative visions of pretrial justice in the communities most impacted by incarceration.

About This Funding Opportunity

Recognizing the challenging and hostile environments that organizations are operating in, particularly during this significant election year, the SJF is now accepting requests for proposals to support organizations addressing our safety & security rapid response funding priorities. The SJF prioritizes funding for work towards, but not limited to:

• Emergency Preparedness and Response: Ensuring the physical safety of staff and volunteers, implementing security protocols, providing safety training, and having emergency response plans in place.
• Cybersecurity: Protecting against data breaches, phishing scams, malware attacks, privacy concerns, and protecting sensitive information.
• Crisis Communication: Managing communication during times of unexpected or significant adversity that could potentially harm an organization’s reputation, operations, or stakeholders.

Proposals are currently being accepted. The SJF Team will continue accepting applications until our funding designated for this support is depleted. All grant proposals will be reviewed by SJF team members and a grantmaking advisory committee. The SJF Team will notify all applicants about the status of their proposal once our funding allocation for this support has been depleted.

Eligibility Criteria

The proposal process is open to any groups meeting the criteria below:

• 501(c)(3) or fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) organization;
• Have a 2024 annual operating budget of $750,000 or less;
• Did not receive a payment from the SJF in 2023
• Are working authentically with the communities most impacted by policing and incarceration;
• Have an explicit, demonstrated commitment to racial, disability, and gender justice that is reflected in the organization’s leadership and staffing and in how it conducts its work;
• Work includes a power-building and leadership-development strategy that centers those most impacted by policing.

Priority Considerations

Groups that are:

• Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)-led organizations;
• Led by individuals who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system;
• Led by individuals with disabilities;
• Led by individuals who identify as Trans or Gender-Nonconforming;
• Not receiving significant support from national foundations and generally have budgets of $750,000 or less;
• Serving communities in historically underfunded geographic areas such as the South, Mid-West, rural areas, U.S. Territories, etc.

See additional information and apply here.

Just Fund. 

JustFund is the nation’s first—and only—common application grantmaking solution. Rather than requiring organizations to complete dozens of separate and time-consuming grant proposals, JustFund offers a common application model designed to save grantseekers time and help grantmakers with thoughtful decisions.

Peace Development Fund: De Colores Rapid Response Fund

De Colores RRF is looking to impact positive, dynamic-shifting opportunities, rather than provide emergency response for humanitarian crises or technical assistance. It is designed to make funds available for quick, short-term delivery to hot spots of opportunity for organizing in marginalized urban and rural communities.  Please read RRF’s Grant Guidelines to see if your organization is eligible to apply.

Additional eligibility criteria includes: 

• Organizing in U.S. grassroots communities, with a focus on communities of color, poor and working-class;
• Opportunities for strategic intervention (i.e. Ferguson and Baltimore moments);
• Opportunities to impact new and strategic shifts (i.e. Occupy); and
• Opportunities to amplify the effects of in-the-moment issues (i.e. Hurricane Maria or #MeToo). The event or situation you are responding to was unanticipated and requires urgent action that is well thought out with clear goals and desired outcomes.

Proposals are accepted all year, and reviewed regularly. Groups will  be notified within one to three weeks and checks will be mailed the following week. Grants are in the $500 to $1000 range. 

Groundswell Fund Rapid Response Fund 

 Groundswell’s Rapid Response Fund (RRF) provides fast funding to grassroots organizing groups led by women of color, trans and gender-expansive people of color, and low-income women in critical but unexpected fights to protect and advance reproductive and social justice. The Rapid Response Fund is open to rolling requests monthly. Please see the Groundswell Fund Rapid Response Fund landing page for a sample timeline of the decision-making process.

Fund reopens early 2025, check for updates here.

Emergent Funds 

Founded in 2016, Emergent Fund is a national rapid response fund created to explicitly support Black, Indigenous and People of Color-led (BIPOC) social justice movements. From family separation, to Muslim bans to continued violence against Black communities, Emergent Fund grantees are BIPOC organizers and directly impacted communities responding to the biggest crises of our time by boldly fighting to build the world we all deserve. 

As a rapid response fund, we play a unique role in the funding ecosystem; often filling a gap by providing low barrier funding in as little as a week to organizers when they need it most. 

Grants are awarded on a rolling basis. Grants decisions are made on a month basis and typically, you will receive an update on the status of your proposal within 4-5 weeks. There is no set grant size, but they have ranged from $10,000 to $30,000.