OVERVIEW: This donor-advised fund supports advocacy for economic justice and the rights of immigrants and migrant workers. It also supports initiatives for underserved teens and young adults.
IP TAKE: The Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund supports a range of interventions, advocacy and policy to support the rights and integration of immigrants in the U.S. This is a small, donor-advised fund that does not accept or respond to unsolicited proposals. However, its trustees provide email addresses on the website, so if you believe your organization is a good fit for them, reach out with an introduction.
Recent grants have trended to the more modest side than older cumulative figures on WKF’s website might suggest. That said, giving at WKF appears intensely tuned into current events. “Virtually all” of its 2025 grants supported immigrant-rights advocacy, immigrant legal assistance or direct services to immigrants. Its stated 2026 direction is to “increase support for advocacy and legal work defending immigrants’ rights, especially in disadvantaged communities with significant immigrant populations.”
Additionally, co-trustee Jo Ann Intili died in April 2025. Keep an eye on upcoming giving to assess if this results in strategic changes.
PROFILE: The Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund (WKF), established in 2010, is a small, donor-advised fund run out of Fidelity Charitable Giving. The fund was founded by Jo Ann Intili and Ed Kissam, who both have experience as “applied researchers on issues of social policy program design, evaluation, and technical assistance.” Intili passed away in 2025. WKF now says Kissam will continue the fund’s work and describes him as carrying forward their shared priorities. WKF is dedicated to “community well-being and resilience through strategic gifts to organizations we know to be committed to social justice.” The fund also states that its “top priority is support for initiatives toward sound immigration policy reform and civic integration of immigrants”
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees, Economic Opportunity, Democracy, and Racial Justice
WKF’s grants stem from four separate giving interests:
- Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Inclusion & Policy Reform grants provide support to organizations that work to combat anti-immigrant sentiments and promote policy for the integration “immigrants who lack legal status into U.S. life.”
- This area is a major priority.
- Recent giving, especially during the 2nd administration of Donald Trump, includes grants to Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative, La Clinica de la Raza, American Immigration Council, Immigrants Rising and the Center for Migration Studies of New York, among others.
While urgent legal rights and emergency needs of immigrants have received significant attention of late, other immigration-focused interests remain.
- Lifelong Learning for Immigrants focuses on innovative, practical and effective interventions that help immigrants and other learners of any age to acquire skills and knowledge to “navigate an increasingly complex society.”
- Areas of interest have included education and training programs, internships and the exploration and piloting of “new learning opportunities for immigrants in rural areas.”
- Historical grantees include Building Skills Partnership, Community Technology Network, what is now Immigrants Rising, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Liberty Hill Foundation and UCLA’s Labor Center, among others.
- Civic Dialogue & Community Opportunities supports local and community-led programs for youth and education.
- WKF has supported youth leadership, mentoring, workforce development, community engagement, immigrant youth education, journalism, technology learning and other efforts that build what the fund calls “social capital and civic participation.”
- The program targets communities with high immigrant populations.
- Grantees include Community Technology Network, Immigrants Rising, Radio Bilingüe, UCLA’s Labor Center, Not in Our Town and indigenous immigrant organizations in California’s Central Valley.
- Overcoming Systemic Inequality Writ Large represents the fund’s concerted effort to “adjust our grantmaking in future years to respond to ongoing systemic injustice and the consequences of social determinants of health.”
- The page says future grantmaking will respond to systemic injustice and social determinants of health.
- Examples include American Immigration Council, National Center for Farmworker Health, Ventura County Community Foundation and Radio Bilingüe.
- The foundation does not designate which of its grants stem from which focus area, and many of its grantees appear to have purposes and goals that overlap with one or more of WKF’s focus areas.
Important Grant Details:
In a recent year, grants ranged between $2,000 and $31,000. As this is a donor-advised fund, rather than an independent foundation, it does not file its own 990s. In a recent year, it claims to have given $196,000 in total giving; since 2010, it claims to “have awarded 264 grants with a total accruing to $5.2 million.”
- While this funder supports many national organizations, smaller and local organizations operating in cities and regions with high immigrant populations also regularly receive support.
- WKF does not accept unsolicited proposals or requests for funding.
- For information about its past grantees, see the organization’s Past & Current Grants page.
- The foundation’s trustees can be contacted via email. Addresses, along with brief bios, are provided here.
PEOPLE:
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LINKS:
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