OVERVIEW: The Zellerbach Family Foundation organizes its grantmaking around themes of Safety & Belonging and Arts & Culture. Grantmaking centers on equity and justice for marginalized people and creating vibrant and inclusive communities.
IP TAKE: The Zellerbach Family Foundation is an important Bay Area funder with a relatively clear strategy but limited open access. Its sweet spot is community-rooted work in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties that strengthens belonging, builds power or changes public systems. Immigrant justice, youth and family systems, restorative justice, community organizing, policy advocacy and culturally grounded arts all stand out.
Community Arts offers a genuine point of entry for eligible artists, fiscally sponsored projects and arts organizations with budgets below $2 million. Applications are open throughout the year and reviewed quarterly. Outside that program, however, Zellerbach is an invitation-only funder. Together in Community is paused for 2026, and Journey to Justice is a selected-participant initiative rather than an open grant competition.
The best prospects are organizations with deep local credibility, community-accountable leadership and meaningful relationships within Zellerbach’s existing grantee, intermediary and funder networks. A cold pitch is unlikely to gain much traction. For organizations aligned with Safety & Belonging or the invitation-only Arts & Culture portfolio, coalition participation and a trusted introduction offer the strongest paths onto the foundation’s radar.
Working exclusively in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties, Zellerbach has collaborated with the Fleishhacker Foundation and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to streamline its application process.
PROFILE:
The Zellerbach Family Foundation is a long-established Bay Area funder supporting community power, systems change and community-rooted arts and culture. Jennie B. Zellerbach created the foundation in 1956, and it became a general-purpose private foundation focused on Bay Area communities in 1968. The Zellerbach family traces its U.S. origins to Anthony Zellerbach, who immigrated from Bavaria to the U.S. in the mid-1840s and moved west to California during the Gold Rush.
The foundation organizes its work under two formal investment areas: Safety & Belonging and Arts & Culture. It primarily supports work in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, although some funding supports statewide policy, systems-change initiatives and intermediaries connected to its local priorities.
Through its strategic framework, Zellerbach emphasizes community leadership, lived experience, collaboration, imagination and systems change. Its strategies include organizing, base building, policy and legal advocacy, narrative change, coalition building, public-system engagement, community-based arts and service innovation.
Grants for Safety and Belonging
Zellerbach’s Safety & Belonging work centers people affected by public and nonprofit systems, particularly youth, families and immigrants. The foundation supports efforts to transform local and statewide justice, child welfare, children’s mental health, social safety-net and immigration systems.
- This is a broad investment area rather than a collection of separately administered programs. Funding may support community organizing, leadership development, legal and policy advocacy, coalition infrastructure, narrative work, system innovation and direct services that inform broader policy or institutional change.
- Recent grantees reflect a strong interest in immigrant justice, youth justice, family well-being and organizations that combine community-based work with advocacy or systems reform. Recipients have included the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area, Young Women’s Freedom Center, Youth Law Center, Life Learning Academy, California Immigrant Policy Center, Immigrant Legal Defense, Mujeres Unidas y Activas and organizations working through fiscal sponsors or philanthropic intermediaries.
- Recent grants have also supported the California Children’s Trust, which Zellerbach helped launch to advance children’s behavioral health systems change.
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
Immigrant justice is one of Zellerbach’s oldest and most consistent interests. Current funding fits within Safety & Belonging and focuses on immigrant-serving systems, community power, legal advocacy, public policy and access to services.
- The foundation has supported legal-services providers, immigrant-led organizing groups, policy organizations and collaborative infrastructure. Its history includes helping establish the California Immigrant Integration Initiative, supporting a Bay Area DACA collaborative and seeding a Northern California rapid-response network during increased immigration enforcement.
- More recently, Zellerbach has participated in the California Immigrant Justice and Infrastructure Fund, a collaborative associated with Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.
- Grantseekers should not treat immigration as a separate open program. Related funding occurs. Funding is invitation only and appears most likely to reach organizations already active in Bay Area immigrant-rights, legal-services, policy and organizing networks.
Grants for Children, Families and Mental Health
Zellerbach seeks to transform systems serving children and families, including child welfare, behavioral health and the social safety net. Its mental health work is not limited to clinical services. The foundation is interested in policy reform, community-informed systems, expanded access and approaches that address structural inequities.
- Zellerbach helped seed the California Children’s Trust in 2018. The initiative advocates for changes to California’s children’s behavioral health system, including broader access to services, greater use of schools as places of healing and approaches that center families and the effects of race and class.
- Organizations providing direct services may be competitive when their work also informs policy, tests a promising service model, strengthens community leadership or improves how public systems operate.
- Conventional service delivery without a clear connection to Zellerbach’s systems-change framework may be a weaker fit.
Grants for Criminal and Youth Justice
Zellerbach supports youth-justice reform, restorative justice, alternatives to incarceration and organizations led by or accountable to people directly affected by justice systems.
- Its current Journey to Justice initiative convenes system leaders, advocates and community organizations from Alameda and San Francisco counties to explore restorative, culturally responsive approaches to youth justice. The six-month learning program was developed with the San Francisco Foundation, Akonadi Foundation, California Wellness Foundation, California Funders for Boys and Men of Color and Impact Justice.
- In June 2026, Journey to Justice announced its first grant: $100,000 to the Brotherhood of Elders Network to launch the Ubuntu Justice Initiative, a healing-centered restorative diversion model serving Black youth in Alameda County. No open application or nomination process has been published for this initiative.
Grants for Arts and Culture
Zellerbach’s Arts & Culture funding supports artists working with, in and for Bay Area communities. The foundation is particularly interested in work that elevates historically excluded voices, engages diverse audiences, strengthens community connection and uses art or culture to change public narratives. The broader Arts & Culture portfolio is invitation only.
Zellerbach’s open application opportunity is the Community Arts program. The Community Arts program awards approximately $1 million annually through a quarterly open application process.
- Grants are available at fixed levels of $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000. Although applicants describe an upcoming public project, awards are made as general operating support.
- Eligible applicants include:
- Applicants based in or meaningfully serving San Francisco, Alameda or Contra Costa counties.
- Arts and culture organizations with 501(c)(3) status.
- Fiscally sponsored individual artists, organizations, collectives and informal groups.
- Organizations with annual budgets below $2 million.
- Eligible disciplines include dance, music, theater, literary arts and visual arts, as well as multidisciplinary and traditional art forms. Film, journalism, podcasts, digital media and related disciplines are generally ineligible unless they are components of a broader project in an eligible primary discipline.
- The foundation prioritizes projects that engage the public, involve local artists, elevate communities historically excluded from arts funding and reflect diversity among participating artists. It also gives special consideration to underfunded artists and arts organizations in Contra Costa County.
- Community Arts applicants may apply in multiple cycles but generally may receive only one Community Arts grant per calendar year.
- Applications remain accessible throughout the year through the foundation’s Fluxx portal and are reviewed after four fixed deadlines. First-time applicants are encouraged to attend an application workshop or review the foundation’s recorded materials.
- Community Arts participates in the optional Common Application for the Arts—Bay Area. Applicants may use the Common App to prepare responses that overlap with applications from several participating Bay Area arts funders. It is not a shared application portal or pooled fund; applicants must still submit separately through Zellerbach’s system.
The Together in Community program previously awarded $5,000 and $10,000 grants for fairs, festivals and public gatherings that celebrated historically underserved communities and strengthened belonging.
- Eligible applicants included 501(c)(3) and fiscally sponsored organizations presenting events in San Francisco, Alameda or Contra Costa counties. The program did not support general operations, arts festivals better suited to Community Arts, fundraisers, galas, conferences, retreats, private gatherings or commercially oriented events.
- Together in Community has paused grantmaking for 2026. Grantseekers should not treat it as a currently available opportunity unless Zellerbach announces a new cycle.
Other Grantmaking:
Zellerbach participates in collaborative and field-building efforts related to immigration, children’s behavioral health, youth justice and arts infrastructure. These relationships may direct resources to nonprofits through intermediaries, but they should not be confused with open Zellerbach grant programs.
Important Grant Details:
For the year ending December 31, 2024, Zellerbach reported approximately $160.1 million in net assets and nearly $6 million in grantmaking.
In 2024, Zellerbach awarded $1 million through 113 Community Arts grants, for an average grant of approximately $8,850. Its remaining grantmaking totaled $4.995 million through 111 grants, averaging $45,000.
Community Arts grants are fixed at $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000. IRS-derived data for the broader portfolio show a 2024 median grant of $10,000 and grants ranging from approximately $2,500 to $170,000. Grant sizes outside Community Arts vary considerably by strategy, recipient and purpose.
- Geographic focus: Grantmaking is limited to Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties in California.
- Across all areas of grantmaking, this funder prioritizes equity, justice and creating a sense of belonging among the region’s diverse communities.
- Only the Community Arts program accepts applications for funding. The foundation runs quarterly cycles, with application windows open for specific two-week periods in September, December, March and June.
- The foundation’s website does not currently publish individual staff email addresses.
- Community Arts questions may be directed to communityarts@zff.org.
- The paused Together in Community program maintains a separate address at togetherincommunity@zff.org.
- How to Apply:
- Community Arts is Zellerbach’s only clearly open application opportunity in 2026. Eligible artists and arts organizations may apply through the foundation’s online portal during any of four annual cycles. Fiscal sponsorship is accepted, and first-time applicants may attend an application workshop.
- All other grantmaking is invitation only. The foundation does not publish a general letter-of-inquiry process, open application calendar or mechanism for submitting unsolicited proposals to Safety & Belonging or the broader Arts & Culture portfolio.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS:
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