Blog Post

Dear JustFund Community, Philanthropy and its systems and structures have a racial bias that results in the chronic underfunding of multiple communities, including groups that are BIPOC-led. One way our racial bias manifests in grantmaking is through access: who gets to apply for funding? Usually, the answer depends on who you know. Do you have…

Dear JustFund Community, We know that technology is starting to change the way we give, yet the impact is still slow to take hold at scale. When you consider that there is $142 Billion currently sitting in Donor Advised Funds and that there is a sustained interest within philanthropy to fund historically excluded communities, the impact…

Dear JustFund Community,   A few years ago, I remember reading an email about a (then) new initiative called “Black Mama’s Bail Out Day.“ Organizers from Southerners Organizing on a New Ground were raising money to bail out as many mothers and caregivers as possible so they could be home on Mother’s Day. Funds would go toward…

Dear JustFund Community,  When I started JustFund back in 2017, there was one goal in mind: to move more money to movements. Back then, I was working at Solidaire Network, a community of donor organizers mobilizing critical resources to the frontlines of intersectional movements for racial, gender, and climate justice.   We, like many other donor networks, collaborative…

Dear JustFund Community,  You’ve heard us say that Money Moves at the Speed of Trust™ and undoubtedly you’ve been in a meeting or read a piece using the phrase “trust-based philanthropy”. People are talking about centering trust in their grantmaking, but what role does trust play?   At the very basic level, we rely on trust when we…

Dear JustFund Community,  Did you know that JustFund is the nation’s first – and only – national common application grantmaking solution? We launched the common proposal in 2017 with three funds: Solidaire Network, The Emergent Fund, and Defending the Dream Fund. We moved about $200K in our first year of operating and over 800 organizations were able to utilize…

Dear JustFund Community,  It’s happening! There are so many more dynamic conversations in motion today about how to truly center equity in philanthropy. The most recent one I heard was at the PEAK 2022 Grantmaking Conference last week, (if you didn’t attend this year, be on the lookout for next year’s conference!) where the opening speakers, Amoretta Morris, Vu…

Dear JustFund Community, JustFunders are off and running in 2022 as they center equity in their grantmaking and work to move more resources to historically excluded organizations. Our team has supported 177 grant cycles for 56 funds and foundations to date, giving more than 6,000 organizations the chance to apply for funding through the nation’s…

Dear JustFund Community, I continue to be struck by the exclusionary and expensive nature of traditional philanthropy, which makes funding accessible to only select nonprofits with the right expertise and networks, not to mention prohibitively costly for organizations and funders to seek and distribute funding.  We can and we must do better.  Our JustFund team…