We envision a world that honors the sacredness of our natural resources and recognizes the inalienable rights of all.
We believe that such a world cannot be achieved if institutional philanthropy is constrained by its ingrained practices that uphold the accumulation of wealth and power, while perpetuating systemic social and economic inequality.
We assert that philanthropy’s role in building a thriving and just world is to redistribute wealth, democratize power and shift economic control to communities.
Redistribution means letting go of two narratives that currently dominate philanthropy: 1) charity, which perpetuates power dynamics between givers and receivers without tackling root causes of injustice; and 2) investment, which expects a financial return to the ultimate benefit of the investor.
By embracing redistribution, we are following the lead of the most courageous movement leaders of our time, who are standing in their power and unapologetically asserting their rights to live with dignity and to thrive. We are deeply inspired by this movement moment and recognize that now – more than ever – philanthropy must be just as bold and relentless.
What call on philanthropy to abundantly resource the movements that uproot the systems that oppress us and also support the creation of local, regenerative solidarity economies that build political, economic and cultural power in Black, Indigenous and communities of color.
Responding to the needs of both movements and the philanthropic sector, Justice Funders supports individual, organizational, and field-wide transformation in philanthropy.
We are guided by the Just Transition principles for building political and economic power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.
As such, a Just Transition for philanthropy requires philanthropic institutions to shift their practices away from extraction towards regeneration, which requires fundamentally shifting our underlying assumptions about capital and our underlying approach to philanthropy.
Justice Funder’s 100-year vision for a Just Transition for philanthropy is detailed in Resonance: A Framework for Philanthropic Transformation.
At Justice Funders, we are re-imagining a world that works for all of us, and philanthropy’s role in creating it.