Kataly Foundation is a left-wing grantmaking foundation focused on supporting ethnic minority advocacy groups to induce systematic societal change. Grant recipients include Movement for Black Lives, the Center for Economic Democracy, and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Kataly is entirely funded by heiress Regan Pritzker who invested $445 million at its founding in 2018. Pritzker plans to spend the entire endowment within a decade with an aggressive spending plan, including distributing all investment gains annually. ¹

Kataly receives administrative support from two “strategic partners:” ImpactAssets Inc. and Arabella Advisors. ²

The name “Kataly” is a reference to the Greek root of “catalyst.” ³

Founding and Leadership

The Kataly Foundation was founded in 2018 by Regan Pritzker and her husband, Chris Olin. ⁴ Pritzker is a member of the billionaire Pritzker family which initially built its wealth from the Hyatt Hotels chain. Her parents founded the Libra Foundation; Regan Pritzer sits on its board and has been highly influential in its operations. In the late 2010s, Regan Pritzker inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, much of which she invested into Kataly. ⁵

Kataly was founded under the leadership of CEO Nwamaka Agbo, who has worked in nonprofits since 2006, including at the California Institute of Federal Policy Research, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Wellstone Action, and Oakland Rising Action. Agbo also runs her own diversity, inclusion, and equity consulting firm, Nwamaka Agbo Consulting. ⁶

According to Agbo, she became the leader of Kataly to launch a new phase of philanthropy on behalf of ethnic minorities. Throughout her career, her attempted efforts had been “defensive,” or concerned with preventing further degradation in impoverished communities. She intends Kataly to take a far more comprehensive and aggressive stance toward philanthropy, which she describes as on “offense.” Thus, compared to similar grantmaking organizations, Kataly makes larger grants and plans longer time frames for disbursements. ⁷

According to Pritzker, Kataly targets organizations that promote “radical democratization of the economy” by breaking existing policy paradigms. She argues that her method is an alternative to the status quo of philanthropy which inadvertently entrenches inequality by funding a massive academic and policy complex which advocates for the status quo. ⁸

Grants

Since 2018, the Kataly Foundation has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to hundreds of nonprofits in four categories. ⁹

Religion and Spirituality

Grant recipients in the “mindfulness and healing justice” category promote “mindfulness” practices, Buddhism, meditation, and other mental health practices. Recipients include Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, Asian American Buddhist Working Group, Harvard Divinity School, the Healing Trauma Project, and the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. The single-largest grantee was the East Bay Meditation Center which received $3.3 million. ¹⁰

Left-Wing Policy

Grant recipients in the “environmental justice” category include the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Black Land and Power Coalition, the Climate Justice Alliance, the Groundswell Fund, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and the Southwest Workers Union. The largest recipient was the Indigenous Environmental Network which received $1.75 million. ¹¹

Grant recipients in the “restorative economies fund” category, which is the largest of the four, include the Black Futures Lab, the Brooklyn Movement Center, the Just Economy Institute, the New Economy Coalition, and One Fair Wage. The largest recipient was the Center for Economic Democracy which received $2.75 million. ¹²

Rapid Response Grants

In 2020, the Kataly Foundation launched a new “Rapid Response Grants” program with faster turnaround times in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Arabella Advisors lent Kataly administrative support during the pandemic for these rapid response grants. ¹³ Nearly all grant recipients were ethnic minority advocacy groups, ¹⁴ including the Anti-Police Terror Project, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Mothers Against Police Brutality, Movement for Black Lives, BYP 100, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the National Bail Out Collective. The largest recipient was Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, which received $375,000. Kataly also made a $50,000 grant to the transgender advocacy group Intersex Justice Project. ¹⁵

In June 2022, Kataly launched additional rapid response grants to fund 19 organizations advocating for abortion access, including 15 existing grantees. ¹⁶

Possibility Labs

In February 2022, Kataly announced a $20 million commitment to Possibility Labs’ donor-advised fund, which is supposedly the only donor-advised fund for which all senior leaders are ethnic minorities. ¹⁷

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2. “Strategic Partners.” Kataly Foundation. Accessed October 19, 2022. https://www.katalyfoundation.org/#about.
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8. Rojc, Philip. “At the Kataly Foundation, a Prtizker Heir Pursues the Democratization of Wealth.” Insider Philanthropy. January 5, 2021. Accessed October 19, 2022. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Kt8qBqfrfHkJ:https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2021/1/5/at-the-kataly-foundation-a-pritzker-heir-pursues-the-democratization-of-wealth&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.
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13. Love, Jessica; Keller, Shayna; Matsuno, Mika. “Responding to COVID-19: The Kataly Foundation’s Approach.” Arabella Advisors. Accessed October 19, 2022. https://www.arabellaadvisors.com/blog/responding-to-covid-19-the-kataly-foundations-approach/.
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16. “When Rapid Response Isn’t Enough.” Medium. June 30, 2022. Accessed October 19, 2022. https://kataly.medium.com/when-rapid-response-isnt-enough-216f6e2bf9d6.
17. “Katlay Foundation Joins Possibility Labs’ Donor Advised Fund (DAF) Pilot with $20M Activation.” Business Wire. February 15, 2022. Accessed October 19, 2022. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220215005289/en/Kataly-Foundation-Joins-Possibility-Labs%E2%80%99-Donor-Advised-Fund-DAF-Pilot-with-20M-Activation.