OVERVIEW: The Freedom Together Foundation, formerly The JPB Foundation, supports U.S.-based organizations working to build and expand multiracial democracy, with a focus on people and communities that have been denied power. Its current grantmaking centers on community and worker power; democracy, gender and racial justice; faith, bridging and belonging; movement infrastructure; reproductive health; medical research; and selected community grants.
IP TAKE: Freedom Together is a major progressive funder. Since 2023 under Deepak Bhargava, the foundation has moved away from old issue silos like poverty, environment and medical research and toward a power-building frame centered on organizing, social movements and communities most affected by injustice.
In light of major federal funding cuts across several sectors, FTF has gone further, doubling its payout from 5% to 10%. Bhargava, in a letter titled “Courage is Contagious,” writes, “The call we must answer today is a call of conscience […] This crisis demands an extraordinary response from philanthropy. […] We’re backing groups that are defending democratic norms, as well as supporting safety and security initiatives for organizations under threat. And we’re doubling down on long-term strategies to get at the roots of the democracy crisis.”
Freedom Together does not accept unsolicited proposals and says it invites applications only from organizations it selects. It is U.S.-focused and does not fund attempts to influence legislation. Although the foundation has announced rapid-response funding and doubled its payout to 10% in response to current threats on democracy, it has not published an open rapid-response application. Grantmaking in this vein has included large grants to national coalitions and regranting organizations for grassroots movements, leadership development, and front-and-center issues like “rising authoritarianism, climate change, economic inequality [and] rising racism.”
FTF is not the most transparent or accessible funder. The best path is through the networking, not the front door. Strong prospects are U.S.-based groups already visible in worker and community organizing, multiracial democracy, reproductive health, gender and racial justice, immigrant justice, faith-and-belonging work, environmental justice or movement infrastructure. Warm introductions through current grantees, peer funders, coalitions, donor collaboratives and regranting intermediaries matter most.
PROFILE: The New York-based Freedom Together Foundation, formerly the JPB Foundation, was established in 2011 by Barbara Picower, the widow of Jeffry Picower, one of the main beneficiaries of Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme. The foundation was established with a bequest of over $1 billion from Picower’s estate. From 2012 through 2023, the foundation made 3,900 grants totaling $2.7 billion. In 2023, Barbara Picower stepped down as the foundation’s president, although she continues to serve as president emerita and chairs the foundation’s board of directors. She was replaced by Deepak Bhargava, who previously served on FTF’s board and as CEO of the Center for Community Change.
Renewing its longstanding commitment to social justice, the Freedom Together Foundation also restated its mission, which is to “support people who have been denied power to build it, so they can change unjust systems and create a more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable society.” Today, the foundation organizes its work around five program areas: Community and Worker Power; Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice; Faith, Bridging, and Belonging; Movement Infrastructure and Explorations; and Reproductive Health, Medical Research, and Community Grants.
Grants for Racial Justice, Immigrants, and Democracy
Funding under this umbrella is primarily conducted through Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice and Movement Infrastructure and Explorations, with some overlap with Faith, Bridging, and Belonging.
- Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice works to expand multiracial democracy by supporting organizations that protect democratic institutions, expand fundamental rights, defend free and fair elections, protect bodily autonomy, support communities free from discrimination, and build a multiracial pro-democracy movement powerful enough to advance economic, racial and gender justice.
- The Movement Infrastructure and Explorations program supports durable infrastructure for organizations, coalitions and alliances, including capacity building, leadership, strategic hubs, narrative and culture-change strategies, and tools and technology for social justice innovation.
Some of the foundation’s largest, multi-million-dollar grants have supported national organizations, regranters and collaboratives involved in grassroots organizing, justice movements and diverse leadership development.
Smaller grants in the hundreds of thousands have gone to state-level, regional and local initiatives for voter engagement and organizing around specific issues, groups or industries.
Recent grantees include Movement Strategy Center, Equal Justice Initiative and Voter Registration Project are named in the current IP profile as large grantees related to racial justice and democracy. United We Dream Network, Alliance for Youth Organizing and National Immigration Law Center
Grants for Health, Reproductive Justice and LGBTQ+
Funding under this umbrella is conducted through Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice and Reproductive Health, Medical Research, and Community Grants. The foundation’s support for gender and LGBTQ causes has escalated in response to the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision and conservative resistance to the recognition and LGBTQ people and rights.
Freedom Together’s reproductive justice, reproductive health and LGBTQ grantmaking sits at the intersection of its Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice program and its Reproductive Health funding, reflecting the foundation’s view that bodily autonomy and freedom from discrimination are core democracy issues.
- The Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice program explicitly names bodily autonomy, communities free from discrimination, LGBTQ communities, women and immigrant communities as part of the foundation’s expansive democracy frame.
- The Reproductive Health strand of Reproductive Health, Medical Research, and Community Grants supports initiatives that protect and expand access to essential reproductive healthcare.
- Top recipients in these areas include the Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Women’s Law Center, each of which received grants of several millions. Planned Parenthood describes its work as protecting and expanding access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and education, while the Center for Reproductive Rights describes itself as a legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing reproductive rights as human rights.
FTF’s Medical Research also supports research on Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, and also supports MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Freedom Together also says it is exploring ways to support scientists, their research and their freedom to make truth public as part of civil society.
- Past medical research grantees include the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Grants for the Environment, Climate and Economic Development
Grantmaking in these areas primarily occur through Community and Worker Power and Movement Infrastructure and Explorations. FTF’s environmental and climate grantmaking is now best framed as environmental and climate justice movement-building rather than traditional conservation funding, with support flowing through organizing, worker/community power, movement infrastructure and intermediary pathways.” This is not primarily a small-business or workforce-training funder; the strongest fit is organizations building worker, tenant, community and low-income people’s power.”
- The Community and Worker Power program supports large-scale membership organizations, grassroots community groups, unions and worker-led formations, including organizing that unites working-class communities across race, gender and other identities.
- The Movement Infrastructure and Explorations program supports durable movement infrastructure, coalitions, leadership, narrative change and technology for social justice. To counter rising authoritarianism, FTF invests in “strengthening movement infrastructure, building capacity and leadership, and supporting strategic hubs and communities of practice that make wider movement ecosystems more effective,” while also looking towards “narrative and culture change strategies” in order to “drive social change.”
- Some of the foundation’s largest grants have supported national organizations including GRID Alternatives, the Trust for Public Land, the National League of Cities and the United States Endowment for Forestry and Communities.
- The Fund to Build Grassroots Power, a Windward Fund project, says The JPB Foundation established it in 2018 to accelerate a just transition by strengthening four national grassroots environmental-justice networks: Climate Justice Alliance, Environmental Justice Leadership Forum/WE ACT, People’s Action Institute and PowerSwitch Action.
Grants for Economic Development and Opportunity
One of FTF stated strategies for advancing social justice, economic equity and democracy includes support for organizations focused on mobilizing “worker power.” These grants tend to focus on organizations that organize and activate workers in specific sectors or industries.
- The foundation also supports a number of large organizations working more generally for economic justice, fair pay and economic opportunity for people living near or below the poverty line.
- Grantees in these areas include the Low Income Investment Fund, Kentucky’s Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Housing Partnership Network of Boston and One Fair Wage.
Grants for New York City
Freedom Together continues to support selected New York City civic, cultural, youth, health and community institutions, but its current public program language calls this work Community Grants, not a standalone New York City program. That said, the foundation’s larger commitment to social justice at the national level has somewhat eclipsed its local giving here.
- The Community Grants program, which supports institutions that sustain community gathering spaces, expand opportunities for young people, engage students in arts and sciences, provide equitable access to parks, strengthen cultural heritage and serve as civic-life institutions.
- Grantees include the Regional Plan Association, Harlem Children’s Zone, the Fund for Public Health in New York City, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the New York Public Library.
Faith-based Grants
A newer area of work, FTF conducts faith-based grantmaking through Faith, Bridging, and Belonging, working to build a broad pro-democracy coalition beyond traditional alliances. The foundation says it supports “bigger we” approaches that recognize the human need for belonging, invest in everyday people’s agency, nourish spiritual capacities for movement leaders and support faith groups that can forge belonging and drive social change. Freedom Together’s “Bigger We” materials describe bridging and belonging as practices that strengthen connection, belonging and collective agency as “essential skills of democracy.”
- Early grantees include the Union Theological Seminary and Bend the Arc.
Important Grant Details:
FTF’s grants range from roughly $23,000 to $14 million. The latest available public filing is the 2024 Form 990-PF. ProPublica reports 2024 revenue of about $1.13 billion, expenses of about $520.2 million, net assets of about $3.36 billion and charitable disbursements of about $494.5 million.
FTF makes hundreds of grants each year. While many support large organizations and regranters for social justice, small- and medium-sized organizations that work with individual communities and interest groups are also represented.
Grantmaking is national in scope. Besides New York City, where it is based, this foundation does not name or show preference for any specific region, state or municipality.
The foundation says it exclusively supports U.S.-based grantees and does not fund attempts to influence legislation.
- This funder’s intermediary and collaborative pathways” subsection includes Blue Meridian Partners, Abundant Futures Fund/RPA, Fund to Build Grassroots Power/Windward Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors reproductive-health collaborative activity, and Amalgamated Charitable Foundation/Solidarity Fund. These are not necessarily open grant pathways, but look for associated open calls.
This funder makes grants to preselected organizations and does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding. A newsletter signup is located at the bottom of the site, and the foundation maintains a page on LinkedIn.
- The Freedom Together Foundation can be reached via email at info@freedomtogether.org or by phone at (212) 935-9860.
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