All You Need to Know About Racial Justice Grants in 2024

Racism exists in different forms of policies, norms, and practices that keep individuals and families from achieving equity and justice for themselves and their communities.

For nonprofits aiming to alleviate the ills of racism, accessing funding from grantmakers working to advance racial justice is absolutely crucial.

In this article we will examine different racial justice grants, discuss their importance, and provide a guide on how to apply for them. With this knowledge, your organization can begin leveraging key philanthropic support to contribute directly to racial healing and change for your community and broader society.

The history of the United States is inextricably intertwined with racism.

Beginning with the eradication and forced displacement of Indigenous Americans through colonialist campaigns and the United State’s significant participation in and reliance on the transatlantic slave trade, the country’s expansion west and the bulk of its early economic vitality was result of the targeted dehumanization and oppression of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples.

These historical policies and practices have had far-reaching ramifications. While it is less common for racism today to manifest as formally sanctioned discriminatory laws, historical policies and deeply-rooted institutional practices continue to harm minority communities.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), racism is a primary driver of health inequities.

Racism is also a contributor to economic insecurity and generational poverty. Recent data shows that Black households have achieved homeownership at a significantly lower rate than white households.

Moreover, research illustrates that Black Americans experience incarceration at 5 times the rate of white Americans, while Latinx individuals experience incarceration in state prisons at 1.3 times the rate of white individuals. Black males make up 6.1% of the U.S. population but account for 24.9% of all persons killed by law enforcement.

Racism took center stage in the public eye during the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, shining a light on police brutality and disparities in the criminal justice system among Black and Brown people.
‍

These international uprisings also spurred the philanthropic sector to action, with a dramatic increase in funding earmarked for racial justice causes, initiatives, and organizations.

Overall private and family foundation giving increased by 6.1% from 2020 to 2021 and some estimates put total funding for racial justice causes in 2020 at $3.4 billion.

However, philanthropy, like other U.S. systems and institutions, is not immune to perpetuating inequity and unequal treatment throughout the sector.

‍Recent reports have shown that race is a major contributor in how nonprofit organizations are funded. According to this research, Black-led nonprofits have 24% less revenue than their white counterparts, and the unrestricted assets of Black-led organizations is a staggering 76% less than their white counterparts.
‍

Because of this, many key funders across the United States have made racial equity a strategic priority. Funders have developed focus areas that center on these problems and provide support to organizations who are working to transform society to eliminate racism once and for all.

For nonprofits engaged in racial justice work, this is a period to take advantage of the philanthropic sector’s commitment to creating a difference and funding organizations doing real work to achieve transformative change.

Funders do not offer only one type of racial justice grant. There are several types of grants that are available to nonprofit organizations with a focus on racial justice that we will explore below.

General Operating Grants

Unrestricted, general operating funds are vital for organizations to carry out their work, and the work of achieving racial justice is no different.

General operating grants have always been a long sought-after source of funding for nonprofit organizations. While other grants can typically come with complicated reporting requirements and limitations on the way their funds can be spent, general operating grants offer nonprofits the freedom of flexibility.

Racism is a deeply complex problem—the solutions to eliminate it require the philanthropic sector to put its trust in the organizations already doing the work and leading through lived experiences.

General operating grants are also key to supporting nonprofits in their advocacy efforts.

To advance racial justice in the long-term, change is required at a systems and institutional level. To accomplish this, many organizations engage in policy analysis and policy change, and sometimes even lobbying.

Laws governing private foundations, nonprofits, and other 501(c)(3) organizations inhibit funding for extensive lobbying efforts. While 501(c)(3) organizations can engage in some lobbying, many funders will explicitly exclude funding for lobbying from their RFPs, limiting nonprofits’ ability to advance their advocacy work at a systems level.

General operating grants allow 501(c)(3) organizations who engage in advocacy to fund this work as they see fit.

Program or Project Grants

While general operating grants are highly sought after by nonprofits, program or project grants are the most common grants available to organizations.

Unlike general operating grants which provide unrestricted funding to an organization, program or project grants most commonly provide restricted funding or funding that is to be allocated to a specific area or program within the organization.

While they are restrictive at the organizational level, programmatic grants are critical for seeing that a nonprofit can carry out its mission. They can help jumpstart a new initiative, pilot a program, and even sustain a program’s operations.
‍

The Minneapolis Foundation provides racial and economic justice grant opportunities to Minneapolis and the neighboring Hennepin county. While they do offer some general operating support, the Minneapolis Foundation also provides project support under these key priorities.

Research Grants

Providing direct service or advocacy are just pieces of the equation when it comes to addressing racial inequity and achieving racial justice. The philanthropic sector has invested significant funds into research on racial equity and racism to develop innovative solutions to these multifaceted problems.

Funders like the Spencer Foundation have developed programs specifically for researching racial justice and finding solutions to address racial inequities in education.
‍

There are major strides that the philanthropy sector still needs to take to achieve racial equity.

With the types of grantmaking programs and opportunities listed above they are beginning to provide nonprofit organizations with the critical funds they need to catalyze change and create progress toward racial justice and equity.

Applying for a racial justice grant is really no different than applying for any other type of grant. The real difference is how you identify racial justice grants and determine whether or not they are aligned with your nonprofit and its work.

Do Strategic Prospect Research

The first critical step to applying for a racial justice grant is to prioritize and integrate prospect research into your grant seeking strategy.

Prospect research is an absolutely vital component of a successful grants program at a nonprofit. Finding the right grants for your organization is key to securing new sources of funding and identifying revenue that can sustain operations and advance your mission.

Once an opportunity has been identified, it is important to evaluate whether or not the opportunity is a good fit for your organization in particular.

Grantmaking can be a crucial tool for moving the needle on racial justice, but to do this, grant seekers should be strategic by only applying for opportunities that align with their work.

Make Key Connections

Identifying opportunities and developing a grant proposal are only part of the grant process.

To strengthen your chances of submitting a winning proposal, it is always good practice to meet with or connect with key people at the grantmaking foundation.

While not every foundation or grantmaking entity provides contact information for their staff or program officers, when they do it is always good practice to reach out and introduce yourself. With proper relationship building and cultivation, foundation staff can even help nonprofits obtain feedback from the foundation on what they are specifically looking for and guidance on how to craft their proposal.

Leverage Data and Evidence

When submitting a grant proposal it is important to highlight exactly why your nonprofit needs funding and how those funds will make an impact.

A great way to set your nonprofit apart from the competition is to leverage community data, evidence, and peer research to bolster your proposal and underline the importance of the request.

There are several sources available that provide community data and information related to racial injustice and inequalities throughout the United States. The following are few resources to review when developing your statement of need:

• Justice Divided: Data portal created to raise awareness around the overrepresentation of Black youth in the juvenile justice system and disproportionate minority contact (DMC).
• University of Illinois at Chicago: Database on police shootings and violence.
• Mapping Police Violence: Data portal designed to track police violence by location, race, and year. This portal also connects people to studies and resources related to police brutality and state sponsored violence in the United States.
• Coalition of Communities of Color Economic Justice Data Resources: Current data and information related to wage gaps, unemployment, financial well-being, and income disparities among others.

Bonus Tip: Use Grant Search Platforms

Finding racial justice grants can be as easy as finding a great grant search platform, like Instrumentl.

Instrumental helps connect nonprofits to thousands of active grant opportunities and RFPs, guiding organizations through every step in the grants process from qualification, cultivation, proposal submission, and the management of the award.

Instrumentl allows users to filter searches by items such as geographic priority area, location, grant amount, and type of funding opportunity. This helps users be as specific as need be when researching and identifying grants that align with their work.

The platform also lists key personnel and individuals associated with the foundation to help facilitate connections and help users build out their networks.
‍

Instrumentl is an easy to use, cloud-based platform that uses intelligent matching algorithms to easily identify best-fit funders and continuously update users with key information related to grant opportunities that are best aligned with their needs.

Racial justice grants are crucial to aiding the nonprofit sector in the fight to eliminate racism in all its forms.

For more information and guidance on how to find specific grants, including racial justice grants, visit Instrumentl’s blog for how-to grant proposal guides, fundraising FAQs, and other tools and resources to help your nonprofit sustain and grow for years to come.