Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund (Catalyst Fund) is an investment vehicle for public interest technology housed at the Ford Foundation. ¹

In 2019, the Catalyst Fund was allocated $50 million in reserves by Ford Foundation to co-invest with other funders in what it identifies as public interest technology. ² According to Catalyst Fund director Jenny Toomey, the original announcement has helped mobilize more than $150 million in complementary grantmaking from partnering foundations ³ including Schmidt Futures, Craig Newmark Foundation, and the left-of-center Omidyar Network. ⁴

Catalyst Fund director Jenny Toomey has said that she hopes to be in an environment in the future where there are daily front-page stories about the undefined concept of disinformation, surveillance, and biased artificial intelligence. ⁵

History and Leadership

Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund (Catalyst Fund) was launched by the Ford Foundation in 2019. ⁶

Jenny Toomey is the director of the Ford Foundation’s Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund. Previously she led Ford Foundation’s International Technology and Society team and the U.S. Internet Freedom team. Before that, she worked at Internet Rights and was a copy writer at the Washington Post. ⁷

Toomey has said she hopes to be in an environment where there are daily front-page stories about alleged disinformation, surveillance, and biased artificial intelligence. ⁸

Michelle Shevin manages the Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund. ⁹

Activities and Funding

The Ford Foundation stood up the Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund (Catalyst Fund) in 2019 up with $50 million from the foundation’s reserves to co-invest with other funders in what it identifies as foundational infrastructure in public interest technology. That same year, Ford Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and New America launched the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) to create career pathways for civic-minded technologists. ¹⁰

Catalyst Fund director Jenny Toomey has said that the Catalyst Fund’s philanthropic approach is to bring critical race theory-influenced values like justice and equity to the fore. ¹¹ In 2023, she appeared in an online event organized by left-of-center philanthropic consultancy Arabella Advisors to discuss the future of philanthropy in the technology space. ¹²

The Catalyst Fund is an investment vehicle for Ford Foundation to support public interest technology that is used in a manner it considers responsible. ¹³ In 2019, the Ford Foundation approved a $50 million grant budget for the Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund. The announcement has helped mobilize more than $130 million in complementary grantmaking from partnering foundations. ¹⁴ Some of its philanthropic partners include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Schmidt Futures, Craig Newmark Foundation, and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s  Omidyar Network. ¹⁵

PIT Catalyst Fund spent $50 million between 2020 and 2022. ¹⁶ During this time, the Catalyst Fund also supported Georgetown University’s Beeck Center’s efforts to create critical race theory-influenced equitable delivery of public services. ¹⁷

The Ford Foundation’s interest in public interest technology began in 2010 with pushes to promote the concept of digital justice an internet rights. In 2015, the Ford Foundation launched the NetGain Challenge initiative with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Knight Foundation, liberal donor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, and Mozilla Foundation to increase the number of people worldwide who are using their technological skills to improve civil society and government. ¹⁸

Funding

Catalyst Fund is a project of the left-of-center Ford Foundation. It was launched in 2019 with $50 million from the foundation’s reserves. ¹⁹

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