Racial Justice

Racial Justice Funding Collaborative

The Racial Justice Collaborative is a partnership of private and corporate foundations, family foundations and individual donors that share a commitment to support and learn from communities seeking racial justice. The Collaborative will provide grants to partnerships involving lawyers and community organizations that are using legal and non-legal tools to achieve equity and fairer policies for communities marginalized by race, ethnicity, and immigrant or citizenship status.

The Racial Justice Collaborative has three primary components: 1) a national grantmaking fund; 2) state and regional grantmaking funds; and 3) a documentation and learning initiative. The national fund will provide grants to innovative nonprofit organizations and institutions throughout the United States. State funds have been established in California and North Carolina to provide support to organizations in those states. More state/regional funds are expected in the future. Grant amounts will range from $50,000 to $100,000 for the national and regional Funds.

Funders’ Collaborative for Racial Justice Innovation North Carolina Fund

Frequently Asked Questions

• WHAT IS THE FUNDERS’ COLLABORATIVE FOR RACIAL JUSTICE INNOVATION? The Funders’ Collaborative for Racial Justice Innovation (Racial Justice Collaborative - RJC) is a partnership of private and corporate foundations, family foundations and individual donors that share a commitment to support and learn from communities seeking racial justice. The RJC will provide grants to partnerships involving lawyers and community organizations that are using legal and non-legal tools to achieve equity and fairer policies for communities marginalized by race, ethnicity, and immigrant or citizenship status.

In North Carolina, the RJC will also support organizations that are not currently engaged in a partnership, but demonstrate a strong interest in exploring the possibility of engaging in such a partnership.

• WHY IS THIS COLLABORATIVE NEEDED? A three-year examination of the civil rights field – culminating in a report entitled Louder Than Words – found that despite civil rights laws, structural barriers to opportunities, resources and policymaking – particularly for minorities – remain embedded in political and economic systems.

While many foundations and institutions support the important work of national civil rights organizations and local institutions, broader support is needed at all levels. 

Racial justice lawyering can be a powerful added tool to expand community engagement, mobilize public will and promote social policy. The collaborative will support this type of work.

• WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF THE WORK THAT WILL BE FUNDED THROUGH THIS INITIATIVE? The primary goal of the RJC is to fund innovative partnerships between community organizations and legal advocates like those cited in the report, Louder Than Words. For example, in Greensboro, North Carolina, African American and white Kmart employees joined forces with a diverse group of community organizations, congregations and UNITE, to fight against the outright discrimination African American workers were experiencing. Through organizing and community-focused lawyering, the result was a union contract guaranteeing more equitable terms for Kmart workers and efforts by the City of Greensboro to demand greater accountability from corporations locating facilities there. 

In the Mississippi Delta, a partnership of grassroots activists and community-focused lawyers mounted a highly successful redistricting campaign on the local, state, and congressional level. Lawyers from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. and Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) worked with community members to help them understand the requirements of the Voting Rights Act and the procedures for redistricting. The lawyers and community members also worked as teams during the districting negotiations. The campaign resulted in the election of record numbers of African-Americans to office and a greater accountability by elected officials.

In Los Angeles, working class and low-income residents organized with the Bus Riders' Union and other grassroots organizations and mounted a multi-strategy campaign against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) when it announced that it was cutting service and raising fares. Lawyers working with the campaign filed a lawsuit against the MTA and worked with community members on a highly effective and well-organized media strategy that put pressure on the MTA. The campaign resulted in a settlement with the city that brought up to $1 billion in improvements in Los Angeles bus service.

• HOW DOES THE RACIAL JUSTICE COLLABORATIVE WORK? The RJC has two grantmaking components – a national fund that will support the work of institutions throughout the country – and state/regional funds that will support work in specific states and regions. Each fund will have its own grantmaking process. Donor partners of each fund will customize their respective Requests for Letters of Intent to reflect their funding priorities.

There are currently two state funds, the California Fund and the North Carolina Fund. The North Carolina Fund was established in the Fall of 2002 and has two anchor donors: the Warner Foundation and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.

• WHAT WILL THE RACIAL JUSTICE COLLABORATIVE SUPPORT? The Fund’s intent is to provide multi-year, flexible funding that will enable organizations to strengthen partnerships around racial justice community work or to seed such partnerships. Support is intended to build organizational experience with creative legal approaches and permit the creation of networks and sophisticated problem-solving and communication techniques. To this end, the Fund will support training, knowledge development, infrastructure development and relationship building – especially relationship building between community activists and lawyers. 

The Fund will also support activities that are integral to an innovative approach to racial justice but for which funding is often difficult to secure, for example: planning and holding of community meetings; preparation of community members to engage in discussion with local agencies; provision of translation and interpretation services; public education campaigns and other communication approaches; production and distribution of informational materials, purchase of advertisements in local and ethnic media; production, translation and distribution of informational videos, CDs or other media; participatory research on community claims/legal issues; preparation and dissemination of policy data; staff time of lawyers and community activists needed to interface with each other and support each others’ work; technological assistance and technology that supports constituency building; office space for prolonged local campaigns; staff time for negotiation with government agencies; transactional work related to all of the above.

• WHEN WILL THE REQUEST FOR LETTERS OF INTENT BE ISSUED? The Request for Letters of Intent for the North Carolina Fund will be issued in the early summer of 2003.

• WHERE CAN I OBTAIN MORE INFORMATION? By writing to: The Racial Justice Collaborative – NC Fund c/o Public Interest Projects, 80 Broad Street, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10004, or by calling: 212.764.1508 ext. 243

For more information, you may also contact:
Darryl Lester
HindSight Consulting
9000 Breeland Way
Raleigh, NC 27613
919.845.4687 Office
919.845.7083 Fax
dklester@nc.rr.com E-Mail

TIMETABLE FOR PROPOSAL SOLICITATION AND REVIEW
July 28, 2003 - Letters of Intent Postmarked
October 13, 2003 - Notification of Request for Full Proposals
November 17, 2003 - Full Proposals Postmarked
February 9, 2004 - Notification of Grant Awards

For information on Letters of Intent for the Funders' Collaborative for Racial Justice Innovation North Carolina Fund see www.rjcollab.org.