Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Announces Racial Equity Grants

Editor’s Note: Updated December 7, 2021

This year, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced a series of grants that support organizations leading the way to advance racial equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts. The grant recipients are led by, or work in support of, communities of color and focus on equipping leaders, tackling racial disparities, shaping policies, and advancing institutional change. These grants are part of a multi-year, $500 million investment CZI announced in December 2020. In addition to key investments to date across our core initiatives, our five year commitment includes directing $100 million to support partners who have been and will continue creating conditions for organizations, communities and individuals at the front lines of the fight for equity to thrive.

Building on the key investments CZI has made since its founding five years ago, the organization has embarked on an enterprise-wide effort to more consistently and systematically apply a racial equity lens to its  work. 

“Embedding a racial equity lens across CZI’s philanthropic areas of focus will help us drive the impact and results that we are all working to achieve,” said CZI’s Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Belinda Stubblefield. “As part of this critical work, we are engaging changemakers, community members, and movement builders with deep expertise and lived experience as partners, helping to shape our strategies and actions. We are dedicated to this work for the long term.”

The grantees include: 

• The American Indian College Fund: The American Indian College Fund has been the nation’s largest charity supporting Native higher education for 32 years and believing  “Education is the Answer.” The College Fund provided $15.5 million in 2020-21 and has given $259 million since its  founding for scholarships, program, and community support across the country. The College Fund also funds programs at the nation’s 35 accredited tribal colleges and universities, which are located on or near Indian reservations, ensuring students have the tools to graduate and succeed in their careers.
• The Anti-Racism and Intersectional Justice Fund: The ARIJ Fund was established by the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund in 2020 to address the alarming spike in anti-Asian violence and hate crimes spurred by race-based targeting of China and Chinese people as scapegoats for the COVID-19 pandemic, but has much deeper roots in the race-based targeting that has been going on for centuries — particularly against African Americans. In 2020, ARIJ made one-time grants totaling more than $1.6M to local AAPI groups to counteract this trend in anti-Asian violence. 
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus: The mission of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus is to promote, advance, and represent the legal and civil rights of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Their vision is a democratic society where race, class, and immigration status are not barriers to full and equal participation in American life. 
• African American Policy Forum: The African American Policy Forum (AAPF), founded in 1996 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, is an innovative think tank that connects academics, activists and policy-makers to promote efforts to dismantle structural inequality.
• Black Education For New Orleans (BE NOLA): The mission of Black Education For New Orleans is to support Black educators and Black-governed, Black-led schools to ensure an education that creates better outcomes and opportunities for Black children in New Orleans, which is a critical factor in building a thriving Black community.
• Borealis Philanthropy: Borealis Philanthropy is a social justice philanthropic intermediary working to resource transformational change, from Black-led movement-building, to queer and trans liberation, to disability justice and inclusion. CZI will provide support to two Borealis collaborative funds, the Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund and the Transforming Movements Fund (TMF). Both funds invest in the future of a true multiracial democracy—REACH by investing in racial equity practitioners working to transform the nonprofit sector, and TMF by supporting visionary queer leaders of color who are building more a connected, inclusive, and just world.
• Cheyenne River Youth Project: Founded in 1988, the Cheyenne River Youth Project®  is a grassroots, not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing the youth of the Cheyenne River reservation with access to a vibrant and secure future through a wide variety of culturally sensitive and enduring programs, projects, and facilities that ensure strong, self-sufficient families and communities.
• East Bay Asian Youth Center: The East Bay Asian Youth Center (EBAYC) supports under-served youth to be safe, smart and socially responsible by providing trusted mentors, educational programs and grassroots policy work, so that youth may realize their aspirations and personal paths to success. We envision young people becoming lifelong builders of a just and compassionate multicultural society. Annually, EBAYC serves a racially and ethnically diverse membership of nearly 2,500 K-12th grade youth. 
• Echoing Green: Echoing Green is building a dynamic community of social innovators, business leaders, institutions, and investors committed to solving global issues. CZI will support Echoing Green’s Racial Equity Philanthropic Fund with the goals of scaling social enterprises that advance racial equity globally, breaking down barriers to capital, and equipping private sector employees with the tools to engage in the movement for racial equity.
• The Ernest E. Just Life Science Institute at the UNCF:  UNCF’s mission is to increase the total number of African Americans attending and graduating from college and to support historically black colleges and universities. UNCF established the Ernest E. Just Life Science Institute to increase the number of African Americans pursuing careers in the life sciences and to build life science research infrastructure and capacity at HBCUs. 
• Forward Together: Forward Together unites communities to win rights, recognition and resources for all families.  Since 1989, Forward Together has continually fought to dismantle the ways our society marginalizes individuals based on race, sexuality, and gender. Today, Forward Together builds courage and fosters connection among our multi-racial community of changemakers to secure the rights, recognition and resources all families need to thrive.
• The Futuro Media Group: Futuro Media is an independent, nonprofit organization producing multimedia journalism that explores and gives critical voice to the diversity of the American experience from the perspective of underrepresented communities. Futuro Media includes Latino USA, In The Thick, Latino Rebels, original programming from Futuro Studios, and special projects and investigative reporting produced via Futuro Unidad Hinojosa.
• Global Kids: Global Kids educates, activates, and inspires youth from underserved communities to take action on critical issues facing our world.  With support from CZI,  Global Kids will take its comprehensive global education approach, and engage its program participants in leadership development programming that will lend in their work to identify and invest in youth-driven community change efforts that promote diversity and equity in their communities. 
• Grantmakers for Girls of Color: Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC) works to mobilize and amplify philanthropic resources so that girls and gender-expansive youth of color can achieve equity and justice in this critical moment in history — and in our future.  
• HBCU Executive Leadership Institute housed at Clark Atlanta University: Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) serve as critical access points to higher education for Black students, and despite significant strides, HBCUs are still under-resourced. The goal of the Executive Leadership Institute at Clark Atlanta University is to prepare leaders at HBCUs with the support they need to elevate their leadership.
• Instituto Familiar de la Raza: For over 40 years, IFR has established a leadership role in community mental health services, violence prevention, school-based mental health consultations, family supports, culturally-based integrated HIV services, and indigenous wellness programs designed to provide a seamless continuum of health and wellness programs for Chicanos/Latinos in San Francisco. IFR is committed to building a healthy community by honoring culture and spirit and what they bring to health and healing and supporting the self-determination of Chicano/Latino communities. 
• Khmer Girls in Action: Khmer Girls in Action is a community-based organization whose mission is to build a progressive and sustainable Long Beach community that works for gender, racial and economic justice led by Southeast Asian young women.
• The National Medical Association: The National Medical Association (NMA) is the largest and oldest national organization representing African American physicians and their patients in the United States, representing the interests of more than 50,000 African American physicians and the patients they serve. NMA is the leading force for parity and justice in medicine and the elimination of disparities in health. 
• Northern California Indian Development Council: The Northern California Indian Development Council (NCIDC) works to meet the needs of American Indian communities by researching, developing and administering social and economic development programs in addition to working to conserve and preserve historic and archeological sites and resources.
• OneAmerica: OneAmerica® is the largest immigrant and refugee advocacy organization in Washington State, organizing with and advocating for immigrant and refugee communities, including Latinx, African, and Asian communities. OneAmerica plays an active and leading role in state and national coalitions working on immigrant rights, education, economic justice, voting rights, and immigrant integration.
• Othering & Belonging Institute: The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley brings together groundbreaking researchers, organizers, stakeholders, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society in order to create transformative change. 
• Pew Research Center’s new national study – Giving Voice to a Changing America: Chronicling the Immigration and Integration Experiences of Asian-Americans: The Pew Research Center, a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, will conduct a groundbreaking, detailed study of Asian communities and how they are helping to reshape America in the 21st century. Pew Research Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan “fact tank” that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research to generate a foundation of facts that enriches public dialogue and supports sound decision-making.
• Project South – The Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide: Project South’s mission is to cultivate strong social movements in the South to contend with some of the most pressing and complicated social, economic, and political problems we face today.
• Seeding Justice: Seeding Justice is working for a better, more just and more equitable philanthropic model based on trust, abundance, equal relationships, and collaboration. Seeding Justice funds small, emergent, and grassroots organizations and those that are led by Black and Indigenous people and other communities of color, especially those that identify as having other intersecting identities, such as LGBTQIA2S+, immigrants and refugees, and those living with disabilities.
• Seventh Generation Fund: The Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples emerged from Indigenous leadership during the cultural, social, and political renaissance era of the ’60s and ’70s to respond to the needs of grassroots Indigenous communities and initiatives. The Seventh Generation Fund continues to be dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and the sovereignty of Native nations. 
• Women’s Foundation California: Women’s Foundation California invests in, trains, and connects grassroots leaders to advance racial, economic, and gender justice, building a feminist future for California. WFC supports BIPOC women and transgender, gender expansive, and intersex individuals through grantmaking, policy advocacy fellowships at the Solís Policy Institute, and convenings to drive systems change and justice across California.

For more information about CZI’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and to sign up for updates about racial equity grants, visit here; see Frequently Asked Questions about these racial equity grants here.

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About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our local communities. Our mission is to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone. For more information, please visit chanzuckerberg.com.