This is awesome: All Souls Unitarian Church at 15th and Harvard sent me a press release about the Beckner Advancement Fund, which offers $70,000 in grants each year up to $10,000 for a variety of social justice causes:
- Safe, affordable housing
- Environmental justice
- Peace and reconciliation
- Immigration
- Anti-oppression efforts, including racial and ethnic justice
The deadline for the first part of the application is January 26, and the group needs to either be a 501(c)3 nonprofit or be affiliated with one.
Here’s a bit more about the fund and requirements, with a full description on their website (scroll down for the External awards, Internal are for church members.)
About the Beckner Advancement Fund
All Souls Church Unitarian has a long history of working for social justice and fighting against oppression of all kinds. Our proud tradition of public witness here in the nation’s capital dates back to standing against slavery and continues to this day. For almost two centuries, the congregation has worked to make our city, our nation, and our world more just and compassionate.
All Souls members Earl and Meta Beckner endowed the Beckner Advancement Fund in 1973. The Deed of Gift states their desire to “make the Church and surrounding community more cohesive, attractive, and forward-looking; foster human rights and dignity; and enhance the influence of All Souls Church in the Washington metropolitan area.”
Grounded in commitment to social-change philanthropy, the Beckner Advancement Fund distributes about $70,000 each year to support efforts that advance All Souls’s social justice mission. The Beckner Advancement Committee, made up of All Souls members, the senior minister, and coordinated by a program officer, manages the Fund and advises the church’s Board of Trustees, who make the decisions for the Beckner Advancement Fund. Internal grants fund the church’s own social justice activities, and external grants support DC organizations that address urgent and compelling social justice issues from the community. as identified the following social justice priority areas.
The Fund
prioritizes proposals for organizations and projects that:
1. demonstrate significant ties to Ward 1 neighborhoods and residents
(where the church is located);2. are facilitated by small, grassroots organizations;3. address root causes of social service needs (rather than providing
direct services);4. actively engage the community they serve in developing program
strategies;5. effectively measure their success (or are building systems to do
so);6. seek support for new initiatives or for project components that
build capacity of existing programs;7. demonstrate willingness to educate and include All Souls members
in their work for social change; and8. have existing relationships with All Souls Church or its members.
The Fund will not consider requests to fund individuals, sectarian programs that promote religious doctrine, or organizations that ask for more than 10% for general operating support.
Read more at their website, scroll to the External Grants.
