The Whitman Institute advanced social, political, and economic equity by funding dialogue, relationship building, and inclusive leadership.
The Whitman Institute carried out its mission through an eclectic grantmaking portfolio that featured trust-based grants in a range of areas including civic and community engagement, leadership development, human rights, movement building, and media and journalism. We provided multi-year, unrestricted funding while making targeted grants to support emerging opportunities and help communities respond to crises.
This approach enabled us to provide long-term, predictable support to core partners with enough room to be nimble and responsive.
Consistent, unrestricted funding
The bulk of our grants ranged from $25,000-$50,000 though we also made many smaller and a few larger ones. With our modest endowment, we focused on funding organizations over time in order to provide significant cumulative support to core grantee partners. Regardless of their budget (we generally favored smaller organizations) or the relative size of the grant, we found unrestricted funding was always highly valued by our grantee partners.
An evolving issue framework
Civic engagement, broadly defined, was the major thread that wove our interest in dialogue, relationship building, and leadership development together. Within this theme or framework, our funding evolved over the years to include a more explicit focus on addressing inequity, more intentional support for organizations led by people of color, and more grants for organizations that work at the grassroots level.
With the presidential election in 2016, we increasingly allocated a portion of our funds to protect and build power within communities most vulnerable to the rollback of civil and human rights. We did this through our individual grantmaking and through participation in collaborative funds such as Defending the Dream and Rise Together.
We also worked collaboratively with other funders when we made a significant investment to collectively launch the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project in January 2020 as a five-year initiative that would continue past our closing.
In our final year we made a large grant to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust which focused on healing and was an act of recognizing the ways in which TWI has benefited in a society that was built on colonial occupation and violent displacement of indigenous peoples.
As our grantmaking came to an end, we reflected that our history of support had only deepened our belief that work that centers dialogue, relationship building, and inclusive leadership — while not a silver bullet — is foundational to building a multi-racial democracy and a more equitable, peaceful, and just world.
TWI Grant History 2001-2022
ACCE Institute
$310,000; 5 years; (2015-16; 2018-2020)
AAPIP Civic Engagement Collaborative Fund
$85,000; 3 years; (2012-2014)
Active Voice
$680,000; 13 years; (2008-2020)
Ag Innovations Network
$50,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)
Alliance for Children and Families/Civic Engagement Program
$150,000; 3 years; (2012-2014)
Alliance for Girls
$35,000; 4 years; (2013-2016)
Aloha Lahui CAF/Tides Foundation
$2,500; 1 year; (2016)
Alternatives in Action
$100,000; 4 years; (2013-2016)
America Speaks
$14,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)
Ashoka
$25,000; 1 year; (2015)
Banteay Srei
$17,000; 1 year; (2014)
Bay Area PLAN
$15,000; (2012)
Bay Area Rising
$10,000; 1 year; (2016)
Bay Area Workforce Funders Collaborative/SF Foundation
$25,000; 1 year; (2019)
Beat Within
$670,000; 14 years; $2008-2020; 2022)
Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice
$100,000; 4 years; (2018-2021)
Blueprint North Carolina
$220,000; 4 years; (2018-2021)
Building Equity and Alliance Initiative
$50,000; 2 years; (2016-2017)
Building Movement Project
$225,000; 5 years; (2014-2018)
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
$25,000; 1 year; (2019)
Cal Humanities/Searching for Democracy Project
$75,000; 3 years; (2012-2014)
California Campus Compact
$65,000; 3 years; (2014-2015; 2017)
Campus Election Project
$10,000; 1 year; (2013)
Center for Community Solutions
$20,000; 1 year; (2014)
Center for Courage and Renewal
$79,000; 3years; (2012-2014)
Center for Cultural Power
$25,000; 1 year; (2020)
Center for Global Peacebuilding/Muslim Peacebuilding Conference
$40,000; 1 year; (2012)
Center for Investigative Reporting
$125,000; 5 years; (2013-2017)
Center for Media Justice
$15,000; 2 years; (2015-2016)
Center for Spirituality at Work/Making Choices Program
$35,000; 2 years; (2005-2006)
Center for Story-Based Strategy
$25,000; 1 year; (2017)
Civity
$60,000; 4 years; (2013-2016)
Clarence Foundation
$15,000; 1 year; (2005)
Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science
$143,000; 5 years; (2011-2014; 2016)
Color of Democracy Fund/Progressive Era Project
$25,000; 1 year; (2017)
Common Counsel Foundation/Still We Rise Fund
$25,000; 1 year; (2017)
Common Sense California
$75,000; 3 years; (2006-2008)
Commonweal
$25,000; 1 year; (2022)
Commonweal/Regenerative Design Institute
$10,000; 1 year; (2012)
Commonweal/The New School
$200,000; 8 years; (2010-2017)
Commonweal/Gift of Compassion Project
$15,000; 3 years; (2016; 2018; 2022)
Commonweal/Seeing Voices Project
$5,000; 1 year; (2014)
Community Housing Partnership
$75,000; 3 years; (2009-2011)
Convergence
$5,000; 1 year; (2012)
Cosecha
$10,000; 1 year; (2017)
CoreAlign
$20,000; 1 year; (2013)
Creative Catalysts
$30,000; 2 years; (2013; 2016)
Culture Strike
110,000; 3 years; (2016; 2018-2019)
Decision Education Foundation
$75,000; 4 years; (2003-2006)
Defending the Dream
$300,000; 3 years; (2018-2020)
Deliberative Democracy Consortium/National Civic League
$25,000; 1 year; (2013)
Democracy Café
$10,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)
Demos/Allison Fine Fellowship
$75,000; 3 years; (2006-2008)
Detroit Narrative Agency
$30,000; 1 year; (2019)
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
$50,000; 1 year; (2019)
EDGE Funders Alliance/Shake the Foundations
$15,000; 1 year; (2018)
Everyday Democracy
$110,000; 3 years; (2012-2014)
Fibershed
$20,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)
Forward Together
$340,000; 8 years; (2014-2021)
Freedom Center for Social Justice
$10,000; 1 year; (2016)
Free History Project
$58,000; 8 years; (2011-2016) (2020) (2022)
Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing/Pipelines to Power
$80,000; 2 years; (2018-2019)
Funders Committee on Civic Participation
$15,000; 1 year; (2015)
Fund for Shared Insight/Listen for Good
$20,000; 1 year; (2016)
Game Theory Academy
$30,000; 2 years; (2008) (2011)
Global Press Institute
$5,000; 1 year; (2014)
Grant Advisors
$25,000; 1 year; (2017)
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
$5,000; 1 year; (2012)
Grassroots International
$30,000; 2 years; (2017-2018)
Hawaii People’s Fund
$10,000; 2 years; (2015-2016)
Hutchins Dialogue Center/Sonoma State University
$122,500; 7 years; (2001; 2006; 2011-2015)
Hybrid Vigor Institute
$25,000; 1 year; (2008)
iLeap
$10,000; 1 year; (2015)
Images and Voices of Hope
$107,500; 6 years; (2011-2016)
Inner City Struggle
$25,000; 1 year; (2018)
Institute for Health Solutions
$50,000; 2 years; (2007-2008)
Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources
$55,000; 3 years; (2012-2014)
Institute for Local Government
$5,000; 1 year; (2013)
Interfaith Youth Core
$50,000; 2 years; (2012-2013)
International Bill of Rights Association
$20,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)
Internews Interactive/Digital Citizen Project
$25,000; 1 year; (2013)
It Takes Roots
$10,000; 1 year; (2019)
Jobs with Justice
$50,000; 2 years (2012; 2014)
Jolt
$25,000; 1 year; (2018)
Just Think
$125,000; 5 years; (2007-2011)
Justice Funders/BAJFN
$85,000; 4 years; (2015-16; 2019; 2021)
Justice Matters Press
$25,000; 1 year; (2017)
Latino Community Foundation
$40,000; 2 years; (2016-2017)
Leadership Learning Community
$25,000; 1 year; (2012)
LeaderSpring
$545,000; 13 years; (2006-2018)
Likeminded
$25,000; 1 year; (2012)
Listening for a Change
$27,500; 3 years; (2012-2014)
Living Cities/Activest
$25,000; 1 year; (2016)
Management Assistance Group/Network Leaders Innovation Lab
$40,000; 2 years; (2013; 2015)
Mediators Foundation
$315,000; 7 years; (2005-2011)
Millennium Campus Network
$20,000; 3 years; (2017-2018; 2022)
Million Hoodies
$50,000; 1 year; (2018)
Mobilize.org
$200,000; 5 years; (2007-2011)
Momentum
$10,000; 1 year; (2017)
Monitor Institute
$25,000; 1 year; (2016)
Movement for Black Lives
$25,000; 1 year; (2021)
Movement Strategy Center/Organizational Development for Social Change
$2,500; 1 year; (2015)
National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation
$250,000; 6 years; (2006-2011)
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy/Beyond Silos
$15,000; 1 year; (2014)
National Urban Fellows
$75,000; 3 years; (2011-2013)
Neighborhood Funders Group
$5,000; 1 year; (2015)
New Leaders Council
$5,000; 1 year; (2011)
Nexus
$25,000; 1 year; (2015)
Not in Our Town
$45,000; 2 years; (2014; 2017)
Oakland Kids First
$65,000; 3 years; (2013-2015)
Odessa’s Blessing
$10,000; 1 year; (2020)
One Common Unity
$35,000; 2 years; ((2016-2017)
One Life Institute
$10,000; 1 year; (2012)
One World Now
$20,000; 3 years; (2012-2014)
One World Youth Project
$50,000; 2 years; (2012-2013)
On the Move
$933,000; 17 years; (2004-2020)
Partnership for Immigrant Rights and Leadership
$5,000; 1 year; (2011)
PassageWorks Institute
$280,000; 8 years; (2004-2011)
Peace Development Fund
$12,000; 1 year; (2012)
Peace is Loud
$25,000; 1 year; (2015)
Peninsula Arts & Lectures
$10,000; 1 year; (2013)
Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement
$245,000; 11 years; (2006-2016)
Proteus Fund/Security and Rights Collaborative/Rise Together
$150,000; 6 years; (2015-2020)
Public Insight Network
$50,000; 2 years; (2012-2013)
Puente Arizona
$10,000; 1 year; (2018)
Rainier Valley Corps
$35,000; 2 years; (2017-2018)
Remake
$15,000; 1 year; (2016)
Renaissance Journalism
$480,000; 10 years; (2012-2021)
Restorative Resources
$5,000; 1 year; (2014)
Reuniting America
$50,000; 2 years; (2007-2008)
Right Question Institute
$715,000; 12 years; (2010-2021)
Rockrose Institute Youth Dialogue Project
$25,000; 1 year; (2008)
Rockwood Institute
$175,000; 4 years; (2014-2017)
RYSE Center
$80,000; 4 years; (2011-2015)
San Diego Foundation/Great Neighborhood Challenge
$25,000; 1 year; (2015)
San Francisco Neighborhood Centers Together
$95,000; 5 years; (2011-2015)
Seasons Fund
$5,000
Seattle City Club
$20,000; 2 years; (2012-2013)
Sharon Bridgeforth/Thousand Currents
$19,000; 3 years; (2015-2016)
Social Transformation Project
$55,000; 3 years; (2015-2017)
Society for Philosophical Inquiry
$285,000; 9 years; (2001-2009)
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
$150,000; 1 year; (2022)
SouthEats
$5,000; 1 year; (2020)
SPARK
98,000; 5 years; (2011-2015)
Speak Out: Institute for Democratic Education and Culture
$10,000; 1 year; (2015)
Spirit in Action
$2,500; 1 year; (2015)
Spirit of Peace Project
$9,500; 2 years; (2012-2013)
Spot.us
$25,000; 1 year; (2011)
Standing in Our Power
$7,500; 2 years; (2014-2015)
Sustained Campus Dialogue Project
$110,000; 4 years; (2012-2015)
Taos Institute
$60,000; 4 years; (2006-2008; 2013)
Threshold 15/10/Community Dialogue for San Mateo Housing Solutions
$25,000; 1 year; (2006)
Thousand Currents
$465,000; 8 years; (2014-2021)
Touchstones Discussion Project
$212,000; 6 years; (2002-2007)
Trust-Based Philanthropy Project
$785,000; 3 years; (2019-2021)
Twenty Forty-Eight Project/UC Berkeley
$250,000; 5 years; (2007-2011)
United Roots
$50,000; 1 year; (2019)
Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity
$25,000; 1 year; (2017)
United We Dream
$40,000; 2 years; (2016-2017)
University of San Diego/School of Leadership and Education Sciences
$17,500; 1 year; (2015)
Unpack Impact
$2,500; 1 year; (2020)
Urban Habitat
$35,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)
Voice of Witness
$457,000; 10 years; (2012-2022)
Voices of Congo Square
$20,000; 1 year; (2019)
Western Justice Center Foundation
$150,000; 6 years; (2006-2011)
Within Our Lifetime
$15,000; 1 year; (2018)
Women Engaged
$40,000; 2 years; (2017; 2021)
World Café Community Foundation
$125,000; 5 years; (2008-2011; 2016)
YES
$75,000; 3 years; (2007-2008; 2014)
Young Nonprofit Professionals Network
$115,000; 4 years; (2014-2017)
Youth Truth
$50,000; 2 years; (2013-2014)