Neighborhood Funders Group is a left-of-center philanthropic membership organization and grant maker. Its members and funding partners include some of the most powerful groups in left-of-center philanthropy. Its funding areas and strategies are influenced by concepts like critical race theory, decoloniality, organized labor, wealth redistribution, LGBTQ advocacy, and climate justice.

Background

Neighborhood Funders Group was founded in 1980 to finance “people of color-led, grassroots organizing, and power building” left-wing activist groups. ¹

Neighborhood Funders Group aims to connect people with its “dynamic programs that explore structural racism in health and housing, racial capitalism, migrant worker justice in rural areas,” among other left-wing initiatives. ²

Members

Neighborhood Funders Group is made up of more than 140 grantmaking organizations that “co-conspire to accelerate racial, gender, economic, disability, and climate justice.” ³ Eligibility includes being primarily a grantmaking organization and specifically moving funds to “racial, economic, gender, and climate justice” causes around the United States. It only funds groups who “hold values of liberation and justice” and “seek to mobilize resources” for greater results. It charges membership dues ranging from $600 to $50,000 depending on the members’ annual grant budget. ⁴

As of 2023, its members included Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation, Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, Conant Family Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation, General Service Foundation, A Foundation for Radical Possibility, Unbound, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Colorado Health Foundation, Allegany Franciscan Ministries, the Heinz Endowments, Chinook Fund, James Irvine Foundation, Northlight Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Trinity Church Wall Street, Julian Grace Foundation, Lubin Family Foundation, David Rockefeller Fund, Focus for Health Foundation, Y & H Soda Foundation, the Workers Lab, Rockefeller Foundation, WhyNot Initiative, Kresge Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation, Raikes Foundation, Brooklyn Community Foundation, Solidago Foundation, Hill-Snowdon Foundation, Libra Foundation, Hyams Foundation, Arabella Advisors, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Democracy Fund, Ford Foundation, Proteus Fund, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. ⁵

Programs

Democratizing Development Program

Democratizing Development Program is a nonprofit organizer, bringing together several national funders to share analytics and granting opportunities. Its key goals are “sustainable development”—climate, economic—and “community power building strategies.” ⁶

Its coordinating committee is led by California Endowment program manager Alex Desautels, Greater New Orleans Foundation senior program officer Isabel Barrios, Ford Foundation senior program officer Kevin Ryan, Hyams Foundation program officer Maria Mulkeen, the Heinz Endowments program officer of sustainability Matt Barron, Richmond Memorial Health Foundation director of community investments Michael Smith, and HouseUS co-director Syma Mirza. ⁷

Amplify Fund

NFG purports that its “Amplify Fund” is its “first-ever grantmaking effort.” ⁸ Its goal is to have “Black and indigenous communities, people of color, and low income people” benefit from economic development, which it claims they do not currently. It claims that these communities “are experiencing the most negative impacts of development” such as “climate disaster, gentrification, and housing displacement.” It has two priorities: giving out operating grants to organizations working to “build power” for communities of color, and organizing funders so they can fund with greater impact. ⁹

Funders for a Just Economy

Funders for a Just Economy (FJE) is a national network of funders dedicated to the organized labor movement and redistributive economic policies. It holds briefings, learning visits, and strategy sessions for its member organizations, aiming to provide “a range of opportunities” for them to “work together and align their efforts.” ¹⁰

The program holds that we exist under “racial capitalism” which is concentrates power “in corporations and dominant white supremacist, hetero-patriarchal ideologies.” It claims the United States is experiencing “rampant inequality” along with immense challenges caused by “surveillance technology.” Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NFG claims that “the crippling racial and gender gaps in wealth, income, and political influence, rising fascism, and the deteriorating conditions for Black, Indigenous, and people of color, low-income communities and workers, rural communities, LGBTQIA people, women, and immigrants” have all been “accelerated.” ¹¹

FJE aims to help its member groups organize strikes, demonstrations, and other labor tactics to bring about “real solutions” in the “longer term.” Its members operate according to a radical “new vision for justice and safety free from police violence and sexual violence, toward a vision that creates economic security and promotes physical, mental and environmental health.”

Its two main initiatives are “Meeting the Moment,” which develops collaborations between members to address “racial, gender, and climate justice,” and “Working at the Intersections,” which advises on how philanthropy can itself perpetuate disparities. Both initiatives intend on centering “organized labor, worker centers, worker justice campaigns, policy efforts, collective bargaining and negotiating power and organizing strategies” on behalf of “people of color, women, migrants, the LGBTQIA community, and low-income individuals and families.” ¹²

FJE gives out an annual “Discount Legacy Award” to individuals who have “demonstrated outstanding leadership and contributed significantly to workers’ rights movements in the United States and/or globally.” It provides them with public recognition and $20,0000. The award was created in partnership with Jobs With Justice Education Fund in 2015. ¹³

Funding

According to tax filings, Neighborhood Funders Group has received funding from the AFL-CIO, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Asian American-Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, Bergmark Foundation, California Community Foundation, California Endowment, California Wellness Foundation, Colorado Health Foundation, Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, Dyson Foundation, Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Ford Foundation, Needmor Fund under the Northern Trust Company, NEO Philanthropy, NoVo Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, Rosenberg Foundation, the Russell Family Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Solidago Foundation, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Windward Fund, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. ¹⁴

In 2020, NFG had a revenue of $5,822,104, expenses of $4,792,046, and net assets of $6,821,117. ¹⁵

Leadership

As of 2023, Amy Morris is interim president of Neighborhood Funders Group. She is in charge of its “first-ever” grant making effort, the Amplify Fund. She joined the organization as an employee in 2017 but was previously a board member and a participant in NFG’s Funders for a Just Economy in her capacity as a program officer at the Surdna Foundation from 2010 to 2014. Morris has spent her career in left-of-center philanthropy, working for organizations like the Fund for Global Human Rights as director of programs and grantmaking. She has also worked as a union researcher, immigrant rights activist, and a human rights observer. ¹⁶

1. “About NFG.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/about-nfg/.
2. “About NFG.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/about-nfg/.
3.  “About NFG.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/about-nfg/.
4. “Membership.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/membership/.
5. “Membership.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/membership/.
6. “Democratizing Development.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/democratizing-development/.
7. “Democratizing Development – Our Leaders.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 18, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/democratizing-development/our-leaders/.
8. “Amy Morris.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/people/amy-morris/.
9. “Amplify Fund.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/amplify/.
10. “Funders for a Just Economy.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/fje/.
11. “Funders for a Just Economy.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/fje/.
12. “Funders for a Just Economy.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/fje/.
13. “Funders for a Just Economy.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/programs/fje/.
14. “Nonprofit Explorer Full-Text Search – Neighborhood Funders Group.” ProPublica. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?q=neighborhood+funders+group.
15. Neighborhood Funders Group. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). 2020. Part I, Lines 12, 18, 22.
16. “Amy Morris.” Neighborhood Funders Group. Accessed April 17, 2023. https://nfg.org/people/amy-morris/.