Grantees

meet our grantees

Through our Fall 2022 General Grant Program and Special Grant Round, we invested $535,000 in 57 groups, coalitions, and organizations, leading 63 grassroots community-led projects.

GENERAL GRANT PROGRAM FALL 2022

GROUPS & ORGANIZATIONS

Ally Theatre Company & Voices Unbarred’s Community Advocates (people currently and formerly incarcerated) advocate for tangible changes to policies in the incarceration system through theatre.

Amy Jacques Garvey Institute teaches youth how to be civically engaged beyond voting by training them to protest effectively, testify at DC Council hearings, and hold elected officials accountable (also a Rapid Special Round Grantee)

Angels of Hope Ministries, Inc. supports formerly incarcerated people and their families to testify at DC Council hearings and propose legislation addressing budget inequalities impacting their lives.

Baldwin House Community Collective is re-establishing long-term Black community, power, and wealth in one of the most historically Black and fastest gentrifying cities, starting with Ward 1.

Black Lives Matter DC will continue the critical work toward abolishing MPD.

Black United Front will continue supporting tenant leaders in Ward 8 in fighting displacement threats.

Blueboy Publishing House’s team is a grassroots network led by activists and creatives rooted in community care to support the sustainability of various movements in DC.

Bold Yoga supports movements and abolitionist groups by providing healing spaces for Black organizers as they work to keep us safe.

Capitol Ballroom Council, Inc is strengthening its internal capacity and advocating for systemic change to bring life-affirming resources to the Black LGBTQ community in DC.

Connection C.O.R.E. provides support to previously incarcerated people to become leaders and organizers advocating for budgetary and administrative changes to programs supporting previously incarcerated people.

Darfur Women Action Group provides advocacy training to African communities to influence policy reform and organize against racial, social, and economic disparities.

DC Greens will continue activating the Well at Oxon Run in Ward 8 as a gathering place for community leaders and BIPOC-led organizations base-building for their organizing work.

DC Organizing Public Narrative Training & Podcast is documenting and sharing the stories of DC grassroots organizers and resourcing other community of organizers through public narrative training and podcasting training.

Faith for the City, Inc. is working to build organizational capacity to expand its youth organizing and healing programs to public housing in Wards 5, 7, and 8.

Fihankra Akoma Ntoaso (FAN) will continue organizing foster youth and communities in the child welfare system to advocate for systemic changes to advance racial, social, and economic justice.

FixPat, Inc. is working to strengthen reproductive rights, especially for Black and Brown neurodivergent pregnant people.

Foster and Adoptive Parent Advocacy Center is working for policy reform in the child welfare system to address racial inequalities affecting Black and Brown youth pushed out of the system too early without support.

Friends of Anacostia Park is strengthening its youth base to organize against inequities in development planning that have impacted Anacostia Park for decades.

Many Languages One Voice is building power within DC immigrant communities (particularly those for whom English is not their first language) to fight racial and social justice (also a Rapid Special Round Grantee).

Muslims for Just Futures, in partnership with The People’s Center, is supporting Muslim advocacy communities, specifically working-class Black and Brown Muslim women, to develop an organizing and advocacy tool for community members, organizers, and service providers.

National Reentry Network for Returning Citizens is offering programming, delivering essential services, and building a legacy of progress in legislative reform, all devoted to the success of returning citizens in DC (also a Rapid Special Round Grantee).

On the Ground: Voices of Resistance from the Nation’s Capital’ radio show and podcast exists to highlight voices and strategies of resistance, liberation, and healing that are working to overturn systemic social injustice and inequality.

ONE DC Black Workers Center Chorus exists to organize community members to take control of their communities, improve housing conditions, improve working conditions, and advocate for better health care and better schools.

Positive Productions is increasing its capacity to protect, digitize, and distribute decades of productions documenting cultural and racial justice organizing. They are also launching the Sankofa Film Academy to institutionalize its filmmaker and community training.

Restaurant Opportunities Center of DC is building power with restaurant workers to improve wages and working conditions to create a more just, equitable, and dignified restaurant industry (also a Rapid Special Round Grantee).

Saving Our Youth, Inc. (SOY) is working to support youth organizers fighting against systemic racism in criminal justice, employment, health care, and education systems.

Summit Health Institute for Research and Education, Inc. (SHIRE) will provide advocacy training for participants in Wards 7 and 8 to advocate for expanding community engagement and empowerment programs by the Department of Health.

The Greenway Initiative is a hyperlocal neighborhood approach to dismantling root causes of violence in their community through violence interruption training, civic engagement, and community exploration activities.

The Madison House provides healing support and space for Ward 8 Black and Brown communities harmed by systemic oppression and active in fighting back against oppression.

TRAPP Stars has been supporting Black youth in DC to become self-advocates. TRAPP Stars is expanding its programs to support Black youth to become organizers and the leaders their communities need to fight against racial injustices.

Washington International Spiritual Center supports Black and Brown youth by helping them name and transform the root causes of racism in District and national policy.

COALITIONS

Collective Resiliency is a grassroots-led movement that focuses on programming to empower economic and gender justice for LBGTQIA people of color in DC.

D.C. RAINBOW MAKERS is a coalition of DC community-based organizations (based mostly East of the River) with positive gun violence initiatives working to change the narrative of public safety and demand accountability from MPD.

DC Environmental Justice Coalition is a new grassroots citywide network working to advance policies and decisions that protect health and the environment within DC’s Black and brown communities.

DC Girls’ Coalition, comprised of youth-serving and advocacy organizations, will adopt and fight for the implementation of policy recommendations that center their leadership and address their needs (also a Rapid Special Round Grantee).

Feeding QTBIPOC in the Oxon Run watershed continues to build power within the youth LGBTQ+ community to cultivate anti-racist leaders and empower food production and distribution systems.

Heal the Healers is a 3 part series of healing circles in a sacred space for community organizers, front-line workers, and Violence Interrupters.

Herb and Temple bridges holistic wellness with socio-political advocacy to decolonize Black spaces, minds, and bodies via healing, organizing, and education.

Public Health Liberation – Washington, DC will apply public health liberation theory for reducing structural racism and gender violence in public housing in Washington DC.

Sovereignty Centers: legal, medical, worker mutual aid will host a series of mutual aid clinics, inspired by their experiences as mutual aid organizers. People’s ability to organize is based on their ability to meet basic needs.

Sex Worker Advocates Coalition (SWAC) works to improve the health, safety, and well-being of sex workers in Washington, DC. Their main campaign is DECRIMNOW!, a campaign to fully decriminalize sex work in Washington, DC (also a Rapid Special Round Grantee).

Tamachtiluyan Shuchikisa An Ne Nawat* Indigenous Salvadoran Grassroots groups in the DMV unite to educate the Diaspora community, spread awareness to the community at large, and promote language access, history, and culture for the next seven generations.

RAPID/ SPECIAL GRANT ROUND

ORGANIZATIONS

Empower DC works to enhance, improve, and promote the self-advocacy of low and moderate-income DC residents.

Black Swan Academy is providing healing spaces to Black youth organizers in D.C.

Business Technology Career Center (BTCC) “Grand families United Project” engages Black and Brown grand families in underinvested communities to organize against oppression affecting their lives.

Fair Budget Coalition’s JustRecoveryDC campaign will provide critical resources to individuals affected by COVID-19.

Grassroots DC provides media training & coverage to community members, activist and advocacy groups.

Harriet’s Wildest Dreams is organizing activities for its Reclaim Safety campaign.

Justice for Brentwood is a resident-led campaign for environmental justice.

Mothers Outreach Network, Inc supports mothers where they are, and builds their leadership in advocacy, organizing, and mutual support.

People Power Action (PPA) seeks to build its infrastructure after no longer having the staff and budget of a non-profit.

The Butterfly Village Inc provides legislative recommendations, programming, and mobilization for residents affected by incarceration.

Who Speaks for Me? Advocates for systemic change through their campaign Sharing Our Stories to Reclaim Our Lives: The Journey on the Trauma to Prison Pipeline for Women, Girls & LGBTQ+ people.

COALITIONS

The Woodberry Project via MIDaS7 under the Healthy DC and Me Leadership Coalition is fighting displacement threats at the Woodberry Village apartment in SE DC’s Ward 8.

The DC Child Justice Coalition is a network of family-centered organizations and individuals committed to cooperation and mutual aid. They mobilize communities in the pursuit of racial, disability, and reproductive justice through political education.

People for Fairness Coalition is mobilizing in support of the Michael Stoops anti-discrimination Campaign /Human Right Enhancement Act of 2022. They represent an eight-year campaign to add homeless residents as a protected class under the DC human rights commission.

The DC Safety Team is building a real alternative to calling the police #WeKeepUsSafe.

This special round aimed to support current and prior Diverse City Fund grantees doing deep mobilizing, advocacy, and organizing leading policy campaigns and movements. Spring 2022 grantees were eligible to apply.