Roy and Patricia Disney Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation supports criminal justice reform, environmental justice, civic empowerment, and affordable housing preservation in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and Tacoma. It also funds select crisis response efforts in the U.S. and globally.
IP TAKE: The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation is a small family foundation that has gradually grown in size and impact in recent years. In an interview with Inside Philanthropy, the foundation’s board chair, Susan Disney Lord, described a “lean” foundation with family members directly involved in selecting and approving grantee partners, including younger family members. The foundation embraces place-based grantmaking, tends to provide general operating support, and has dabbled in participatory grantmaking. “We all believe that change has to be driven locally and that locally, people know what their community needs are better than any of us could say,” Disney Lord told IP.
This is not an accessible funder. It takes a proactive approach to selecting grantees, and applications are reviewed on an invitation-only basis. Limited contact information is available at its website. While the website contains some information about select grantees, it does not host a grants database. Prospective grantees will find it difficult to engage this funder; deep networking is likely the best way to explore avenues for funding.
PROFILE: The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation is a multi-generational family foundation established in 1969 by Roy O. Disney, Walt’s older brother and the co-founder of the Walt Disney Company. Roy O.’s son, Roy E. Disney, along with Roy E.’s wife Patricia, were also founding members of the foundation. Over the years, the foundation has been administered and led by various members of the Disney clan. Susan Disney Lord, the daughter of Roy E. and Patricia, has chaired the board since the 1990s. According to an extensive Inside Philanthropy interview with Disney Lord, the family philanthropy ramped up in 2012, when Patricia passed away and left what Susan characterized as a “good deal” of money. In a recent year, there were 12 Disney family members active on the foundation’s two boards.
The Disney Family Foundation seeks to “invest in innovative solutions and community leaders to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world in which all people thrive.” The foundations describes itself as a “social justice grantmaker.” It tends to work through longstanding relationships with grassroots organizations in low-income urban communities.
Its three main funding initiatives are criminal justice reform, environmental justice and affordable housing preservation.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
The foundation’s criminal justice reform grants aim to reduce prison populations and support anti-recidivism measures. According to the website, the foundation supports “community-led efforts to address re-entry and policy reform,” as well as identifying “new funding streams for community-led re-entry efforts, and to transform a broken system through empowering community leaders to engage in the civic process.”
Many of Disney’s criminal justice grants go to organizations operating in the greater Los Angeles area. One past grantee, Chrysalis, collaborates with employers in Los Angeles to create opportunities for people with criminal records and recent prison releases. Another grantee, the New York City-based JustLeadershipUSA, works through state and local chapters to build support for a nation-wide movement toward “decarceration” and bail reform. Other criminal justice reform grantees include A New Way of Life and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition.
Grants for Housing and Community Development
The Disney Family Foundation funds housing and community development through its affordable housing preservation initiative. The program targets shifting real estate markets in urban areas where it aims to protect renters from rising prices and create community trusts for “permanent affordability.” According to the website, its housing strategy also includes “supporting the development of tenant protection policies, innovations in affordable housing finance, and new tools that create or promote permanent affordability.”
Grantee partners in this area include InnerCity Struggle, which works toward housing and social equity in Los Angeles’s east side neighborhoods, and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, which provides legal support for tenants in suits concerning renters’ rights, safe housing and equitable community development.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Justice
The foundation’s environmental justice grantmaking has an urban focus and supports organizations working in the areas of environmental inequity, community well-being and advocacy. According to the website, “investments are hyper-local and focus on advocacy, regulation, policy change, and capacity building. Our work is centered in communities that have historically been marginalized or disenfranchised where environmental harm is often felt first.”
Environmental grantees include East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Liberty Hill Foundation, which worked to reinvest a portion of California’s greenhouse gas reduction funds into Los Angeles’s poorest communities.
The Disney Foundation also funds the Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award in partnership with the Environmental Grantmakers Association. According to the website, the award “will provide seven community-based BIPOC-led environmental justice nonprofits working on vital environmental justice and social issues with three years of general operating support – no strings attached.”
Important Grant Details:
The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation has given away about $3 million to $6 million annually in recent years. Grants tend to be smaller, typically ranging from $5,000 to $200,000. Its average grant size is about $25,000.
This funder names Los Angeles, Tacoma and New Orleans as target cities, though it also often funds New York-based organizations, as well as national and internaional organizations involved in specific disaster relief efforts.
The foundation often funds multi-year partnerships with aligned organizations.
Funding generally supports grassroots organizations working in low-income communities. Grantees tend to have longstanding relationships with the foundation. For additional information about these partnerships, see the foundation’s partners and partner spotlights pages.
Grant applications are accepted on an invitation-only basis. General inquiries may be directed to foundation staff by telephone at 818-973-4240.
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