Dream Fund Grants
Through the Dream Fund, 35 participating donors have made 50 grants, making a total commitment of approximately $9.7 million through 2009. Public Interest Projects (PIP), a 501(c)(3) public charity with extensive project management experience in issues of social justice and human rights, oversees the Dream Fund's national and local grantmaking with input from funding partners.
Project Support Grants are made through the Dream Fund's National, State and Regional Funds to projects in four areas:
- Constituency building and organizing to engage stakeholders across a broad range of sectors, including private sector/business
- Legal advocacy to ensure affirmative action's steady progress while helping clarify its legal underpinnings
- Research to dispel misunderstanding about race and gender issues, particularly collaborative research projects conducted with community activists to support grassroots, affirmative-action activities
- Strategic communications to build public understanding that affirmative action has been an effective tool in promoting inclusion, citizenship and economic productivity
The Dream Fund has established a separate Strategic Opportunities Fund to provide rapid-response, general-support grants to national, statewide or grassroots groups working to preserve affirmative action. These grants are targeted at imminent threats, with priority given to groups who have successfully formed cross-issue or cross-movement collaborations that broaden support of affirmative action. Application for Strategic Opportunities Fund grants are by invitation only; no unsolicited proposals are accepted.
Because Strategic Opportunities Fund grantees provide a key resource for learning, assessing and documenting the infrastructure needs of organizations facing challenges to affirmative action, they regularly share approaches and strategies with each other and the broader Dream Fund community.
