The Alaska Community Foundation announces 2018 Social Justice Fund grantees

The Alaska Community Foundation (ACF) is pleased to announce $120,000 in grant awards to 11 grantee organizations tackling complex social justice issues in Alaska. This is the second award cycle for this competitive grant program. Grants were awarded from the Social Justice Fund at ACF, made possible by a generous $1 million pledge by John Rubini and Clare Bertucio. The goal of this fund is to raise and award $10 million over the next 10 years to support Alaska’s nonprofit social justice sector. Many generous donors are now contributing to this fund.

ACF received 27 letters of intent for this cycle. In an effort to support a broad range of needs within organizations focusing on social justice work, ACF offered programmatic and operational support for eligible organizations. Successful requests demonstrated a commitment to meaningful collaborative work, leadership development, and addressing systemic social justice issues in Alaska.

We are thrilled to support the work of the Social Justice Fund’s second cohort of grantees. These grantee organizations were selected by an advisory panel for their ability to look beyond near term needs and devise innovative interventions in our society that will make positive changes today and create a more equitable future for Alaska. We are humbled by the amount of interest in the program and the number of extremely high quality proposals we received. There is truly a great need for support in this sector across Alaska, and it is our hope that John and Clare’s great generosity will encourage others to build support for social justice causes across our state.
– Nina Kemppel, President & CEO of ACF

2018 Social Justice Fund Grantees

Alaska Children’s Trust – $15,000 for the Alaska Resilience Initiative to develop a trauma and resiliency curriculum

Alaska Institute for Justice – $15,000 to support the establishment of a labor and immigrant rights program

Juneau Community Foundation – $15,000 to support World in Progress, an arts-based racial justice program

Alaska Literacy Program – $10,000 for Coalition of Alaskans for Immigrant Rights to run naturalization clinics

Anchorage Community Land Trust – $10,000 to support a comprehensive training and lending program to empower neighborhood entrepreneurs

Anchorage Youth Court – $10,000 for its 2018 Law and Leadership Program

Enlaces – $10,000 to support naturalization clinics and its Immigration Process Familiarization Project

Shiloh Community Development, Inc. – $10,000 to support Media Justice, a storytelling project designed to share the achievements and contributions of African American trailblazers in Alaska.

The Foraker Group – $10,000 to assist underserved nonprofit organizations with social justice related missions

ACLU of Alaska for Transgender Leadership Council – $8,000 to support leadership, education, and outreach

Alaska Innocence Project – $7,000 to ensure DNA testing to address wrongful convictions