Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation seeks organizations that protect and expand access to reproductive health services and information for girls and women.
IP TAKE: This funder prefers to make general support grants rather than project specific grants, and encourages requests for funding to address multiple priority issues. It’s not an accessible or approachable funder, despite its previous responsiveness.
The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation’s assistance comes in the form of Grantmaking and Investing. While its grants provide mostly unrestricted multi-year general operating support, its investments seek to support companies that can provide a financial return while still working towards goals aligned with the foundation’s mission. The foundation’s screening process ensures it does not work with companies who are “profiting from harm,” such as tobacco companies, weapons manufacturers, or fossil fuel concerns. It should also be noted that Noyes does not fund NARAL Pro-Choice America or Planned Parenthood affiliates.
PROFILE: Real estate developer Charles Noyes founded the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation in 1947 as a memorial to his late wife. The foundation’s earliest work fought to end school segregation and promoted educational equality for black students. Over time, its grantmaking expanded to address issues such as the environment, social justice, reproductive rights and food systems. Today, the foundation has shifted away from its previous funding silos to form a more intersectional approach that supports “grassroots organizations and movements in the United States working to change environmental, social, economic and political conditions to bring about a more just, equitable and sustainable world.” The foundation’s funding priorities invests in philanthropic work that addresses racial justice, environmental justice and gender equity.
Grants for Public Health, Women and Girls
The foundation’s work supports women’s and girls’ organizations that seek to protect and expand access to reproductive health services and information. Areas of interest include expanding state-level reproductive rights agendas to ensure that marginalized populations are engaged in the advocacy and protection of their reproductive rights, broadening the base of reproductive rights activists, and expanding the reproductive rights agenda to include a wider range of issues. While the foundation prioritizes reproductive rights, it also supports related matters, such as violence against women. Noyes’ beneficiary populations include, but are not limited to, young people, low-income populations, people of color and immigrant populations. Past grantees include Black Women for Wellness and National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum.
While reproductive rights are the main focus of the foundation’s public health grantmaking, it also supports related matters such as violence against women. It should also be noted that Noyes does not fund NARAL Pro-Choice America or Planned Parenthood affiliates.
Grants for Racial Equity
The Noyes Foundation builds int racial equity into its grantmaking process. It supports “people-powered nonprofits working to advance social justice on multiple, intersecting fronts.” It funds community-based grassroots organizations that are led by “Black, Indigenous, and people of color,” and approach systems of power “through the lenses of race and gender justice.” It prioritizes organizations that take an intersectional approach to social justice through race, gender, and sexuality. Some past grantees that focus on racial justice include the American Indian Law Alliance, Black LGBTQ+ Migrant Project, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, Concerned Citizens for Justice, Indigenous 20 Something Project, Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, Northeast Farmers of Color.
Important Grant Details:
Grant awards typically range from about $25,000 to $50,000. To learn more about the types of organizations supported by the Noyes Foundation, explore its current grants list. It prioritizes organizations in New York City, where the foundation is based, as well as in Mississippi, but facilitates grantmaking across the United States.
The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation no longer accepts unsolicited proposals. The foundation may be contacted via email.
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