Zellerbach Family Foundation
/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 envisions “a Bay Area where every resident feels safe, welcome, and has what they need to thrive.” This foundation’s grants support a broad range of arts and social service organizations and prioritize marginalized groups including immigrants and formerly incarcerated people. Working exclusively in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties, Zellerbach has recently joined with the Fleishhacker Foundation and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to streamline its application process. Zellerbach accepts applications for its Community Arts Program for four annual grantmaking cycles. This accessible and approachable funder provides email addresses for its staff members on its website.
PROFILE: Established in 1956, the Zellerbach Family Foundation was originally known as the Zellerbach Family Fund. 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. Zellerbach founded his own paper business.
Today, the foundation's board consists of members of the Zellerbach family and others. The foundation's mission is to be a “catalyst for constructive social change by initiating and investing in efforts that strengthen families and communities.” Its stated investment areas are Safety & Belonging, which encompasses grantmaking for mental health, immigrants and social justice, and Arts & Culture, which focuses on “changing narratives and giving voice to those who have been historically excluded from telling their own stories.” The foundation further organizes its grantmaking around themes of imagination, expression and action.
Imagination refers to innovation in services and systems to “better reflect the needs and strengths of the people they serve,” as well as the engagement of leaders to “to provide education, inspiration, and incentives to transform public systems into truly community embedded and community serving entities.”
Expression serves as the basis for the foundation’s arts and culture funding, which focuses on “community-based arts and culture, particularly from under-represented voices” and “the development of alternative narratives that celebrate the culture and contributions of all groups, particularly those who have been left out or misrepresented.”
Action refers to advocacy, coalition building and organizing “that will improve equity and contribute to a thriving Bay Area.”
Grantmaking is limited to Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties in California.
Grants for Mental Health
Mental health is a cornerstone of the Zellerbach Foundation’s Safety & Belonging grantmaking area. Grantmaking is responsive to the communities in the geographic areas served by the foundation and aims to “transform” systems to address residents’ needs. While the foundation does not name specific goals for its mental health giving, grants appear to focus on children’s welfare and families.
Grantees include Contra Costa’s Village and Community Resource Center, Coleman Children and Youth Services of San Francisco and the West Coast Children’s Clinic of Alameda.
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
A significant portion of grants stemming from the foundation’s Safety & Belonging program support organizations working with immigrants and refugees in the Bay Area. Through its philanthropy, the foundation aims to “further a sense of welcome, shared safety, and well-being for and among all residents.” In addition to supporting mental health and social services, grants have gone to organizations that provide advocacy and legal services to immigrants in the Bay Area.
Recipient organizations include Immigrant Legal Defense, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees and Immigrant Defense Advocates of Contra Costa.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform and Violence Prevention
The foundation’s Safety & Belonging grants have also supported initiatives for criminal justice reform, youth justice reform and programs for formerly incarcerated people. One grantee, the Youth Law Center, “advocates to transform foster care and juvenile justice systems so every child and youth can thrive.” Other grantees include Fresh Lifelines for Youth, which runs mentoring and educational programs that aim to “break the cycle of juvenile violence, crime, and incarceration,” and the Safe Return Project, which engages formerly incarcerated individuals and their families in “community organizing, violence prevention, and culturally based personal transformation strategies to address the root causes of poverty and transform the criminal legal system.”
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
Racial justice is an area of focus for both the Safety & Belonging and Arts & Culture grantmaking programs and represents a large portion of Zellerbach’s grantmaking portfolio overall. Grants stemming from the Safety & Belonging initiative tend to focus on community organizing for social justice and equity, while racial justice grants from the Arts & Culture program focus on “creating a thriving Bay Area by ensuring the voices, experiences, traditions, and dreams of all individuals and communities.”
Safety & Belonging grantees include the Black Organizing Project, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Arts & Culture grants have supported organizations including the Native Comedy Festival, Old Skool Cafe, the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and a production of Black to the Future by the Black Artists’ Contemporary Cultural Experience.
Grants for Arts and Culture and Community Development
The Zellerbach Family Foundation makes grants for Community Arts as a subprogram of its Arts & Culture funding. The foundation maintains that arts and culture are central to “creating a thriving Bay Area” and “must be centered, employed to bring people together, change hearts and minds, and imagine a better future.” Grants support arts organizations with annual budgets of less than $2 million that work in the disciplines of dance, music, theater, literary arts, visual arts or that produce publicly accessible community festivals or fairs. Grants are awarded in the amounts of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, and the foundation accepts applications quarterly, with application windows open for two-week periods in September, December, March and June. Detailed guidelines are provided on the program page. The foundation recommends that applicants attend an application workshop prior to submitting materials.
Past community arts grantees include Flyaway Productions, Anne Bluethenthal and Dancers, the Alternative Theater Ensemble and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir.
Important Grant Details:
This foundation awards grants in amounts up to $400,000, but most grants remain below the $50,000 mark.
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.
This funder has recently collaborated with the Fleishhacker Foundation and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to streamline its application process.
Zellerbach provides both general operating and project specific support.
Grants have gone to organizations of all sizes, but medium- and small-sized organizations account for a significant portion of this funder’s grantmaking.
Reach out with questions via telephone at (415) 421-2629. Email addresses for the foundation’s staff members are available at the organization’s About Us page.
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