Investments

Through our investments, we seek to build a stronger culture of belonging for everyone in America. New Pluralists and our partners are working towards a future where we treat each other with respect, collaborate across our differences to solve problems, and stand up for each other’s dignity.

As a funder and field collaborative, New Pluralists partners deeply with diverse national and community leaders and initiatives who are fostering pluralism across lines of political difference, race and ethnicity, religious faith, geography, generation, economic status, and more. While national philanthropic initiatives are not always set up to be meaningfully informed and influenced by life experiences and localized expertise of diverse communities, we believe we cannot succeed without it. We are inviting Field Builders and other leaders to shape how our work evolves and ensure that philanthropy’s response to these enormous challenges supports local communities’ goals and needs and ensures that all people in America see themselves represented in these efforts.

OPEN OPPORTUNITIES: We are exploring what is possible for a public RFP in 2024. In the meantime, please fill out this form to stay connected with our Collaborative.

HEALING STARTS HERE GRANTS

In May 2022, New Pluralists announced our first major investment: More than $10 million to support local leaders, networks, and community groups who are addressing divisive forces in their neighborhoods, towns, and counties. We wanted to learn how healing happens when it reflects the unique histories, cultures, and desires of diverse communities.

Out of nearly 800 applicants, we landed on 32 projects that demonstrate the many issues communities are healing, and the ways healing happens. Healing Starts Here initiatives are led by people with vastly different life stories and circumstances. They validate our belief that people from all walks of life care about the fates of their neighbors and the resilience of their communities.

The diversity of the Healing Starts Here portfolio is part of the point. They tell a story of why pluralism matters and the commitment we all must make to it. They tell a story of the hard work it takes to create a lasting multiracial, multifaith, and politically vibrant democracy.

WHAT WE SUPPORT

Building the pluralism ecosystem, where people and organizations who are advancing pluralism are better seen, understood, connected, and supported and have the space to learn, exchange, and reflect together. This may include supporting communities of practice and other actors who connect others across the field, as well as supporting research and evidence-based resources that make it easier for funders, organizations, and other social change actors to advance pluralism in their contexts.

Catalyzing generational culture change, which invites people and communities to strengthen the beliefs, values, skills, and habits that make it possible for us to embrace the beauty in our differences, grants us the courage to heal and repair, and enables us to preserve our individual dignity and liberty while recognizing that our fates are interdependent. This includes long-term narrative change strategies, as well as community-driven efforts that free our imagination of what it looks like to live in a society where each of us belongs.

HOW WE PARTNER WITH GRANTEES

We embrace an adaptive and emergent approach in our strategies and investments, and we expect to evolve our practices and priorities based on what we’re learning from our partners, active investments, and changing realities in our society.

In each of our investments and relationships, we strive to live up to the following core values:

  • We trust our partners to do what’s best for their work and impact.
  • We recognize that ambitious, long-term social change involves courage and risk.
  • We show up with curiosity, humility, and a learning orientation.
  • We try to be helpful, regardless of whether we can invest in a project.
  • We convey and encourage a spirit of mutual support.

Additionally, we’ve adopted the following policies for our investments (which may evolve over time, as we discover what works and what doesn’t):

  • We are increasingly moving to conducting the majority of our grant-making through public calls for applications. In a competitive process, we spend the time to reach out to unlikely partners and allies, and we work to make our investment opportunities accessible.
  • Investment amounts are contingent on demonstrated need, strategic alignment, as well as the Fund’s giving capacity in any given year.
  • We give flexible resources to initiatives that seek to amplify what they’re doing, try something different, develop resources for the field, or forge new relationships. While we recognize the importance of long-term, general operating support, we are not a capacity-building fund.
  • We pay attention to dynamics including ethics, fairness, diversity, and belonging in our design, application, selection, and grant-making processes. We avoid supporting any organization that is actively working against a culture of pluralism in the U.S.

Investments

Through our investments, we seek to build a stronger culture of belonging for everyone in America. New Pluralists and our partners are working towards a future where we treat each other with respect, collaborate across our differences to solve problems, and stand up for each other’s dignity.

As a funder and field collaborative, New Pluralists partners deeply with diverse national and community leaders and initiatives who are fostering pluralism across lines of political difference, race and ethnicity, religious faith, geography, generation, economic status, and more. While national philanthropic initiatives are not always set up to be meaningfully informed and influenced by life experiences and localized expertise of diverse communities, we believe we cannot succeed without it. We are inviting Field Builders and other leaders to shape how our work evolves and ensure that philanthropy’s response to these enormous challenges supports local communities’ goals and needs and ensures that all people in America see themselves represented in these efforts.

OPEN OPPORTUNITIES: We are exploring what is possible for a public RFP in 2024. In the meantime, please fill out this form to stay connected with our Collaborative.

HEALING STARTS HERE GRANTS

In May 2022, New Pluralists announced our first major investment: More than $10 million to support local leaders, networks, and community groups who are addressing divisive forces in their neighborhoods, towns, and counties. We wanted to learn how healing happens when it reflects the unique histories, cultures, and desires of diverse communities.

Out of nearly 800 applicants, we landed on 32 projects that demonstrate the many issues communities are healing, and the ways healing happens. Healing Starts Here initiatives are led by people with vastly different life stories and circumstances. They validate our belief that people from all walks of life care about the fates of their neighbors and the resilience of their communities.

The diversity of the Healing Starts Here portfolio is part of the point. They tell a story of why pluralism matters and the commitment we all must make to it. They tell a story of the hard work it takes to create a lasting multiracial, multifaith, and politically vibrant democracy.

WHAT WE SUPPORT

Building the pluralism ecosystem, where people and organizations who are advancing pluralism are better seen, understood, connected and supported and have the space to learn, exchange, and reflect together. This may include supporting communities of practice and other actors who connect others across the field, as well as supporting research and evidence-based resources that makes it easier for funders, organizations, and other social change actors to advance pluralism in their contexts.

Catalyzing generational culture change, which invites people and communities to strengthen the beliefs, values, skills, and habits that make it possible for us to embrace the beauty in our differences, grants us the courage to heal and repair, and enables us to preserve our individual dignity and liberty while recognizing that our fates are interdependent. This includes long-term narrative change strategies, as well as community-driven efforts that free our imagination of what it looks like to live in a society where each of us belongs.

HOW WE PARTNER WITH GRANTEES

We embrace an adaptive and emergent approach in our strategies and investments, and we expect to evolve our practices and priorities based on what we’re learning from our partners, active investments, and changing realities in our society.

In each of our investments and relationships, we strive to live up to the following core values:

  • We trust our partners to do what’s best for their work and impact.
  • We recognize that ambitious, long-term social change involves courage and risk.
  • We show up with curiosity, humility, and a learning orientation.
  • We try to be helpful, regardless of whether we can invest in a project.
  • We convey and encourage a spirit of mutual support.

Additionally, we’ve adopted the following policies for our investments (which may evolve over time, as we discover what works and what doesn’t):

  • We are increasingly moving to conducting the majority of our grant-making through public calls for applications. In a competitive process, we spend the time to reach out to unlikely partners and allies, and we work to make our investment opportunities accessible.
  • Investment amounts are contingent on demonstrated need, strategic alignment, as well as the Fund’s giving capacity in any given year.
  • We give flexible resources to initiatives that seek to amplify what they’re doing, try something different, develop resources for the field, or forge new relationships. While we recognize the importance of long-term, general operating support, we are not a capacity-building fund.
  • We pay attention to dynamics including ethics, fairness, diversity, and belonging in our design, application, selection, and grant-making processes. We avoid supporting any organization that is actively working against a culture of pluralism in the U.S.