Mission/Giving Statement: The Public Welfare Foundation supports efforts to ensure fundamental rights and opportunities for people in need. The Foundation looks for carefully defined points where its funds can make a difference in bringing about systemic changes that can improve the lives of countless people.
Grantmaking Program Areas: Criminal Justice; Juvenile Justice; Workers' Rights
Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:
Criminal Justice: Supports groups working to end over-incarceration of adult offenders in America. In particular, the program makes grants to groups that are working to: 1) Reduce incarceration rates through the reform of sentencing laws and parole and probation systems, including the use of diversion and alternatives to incarceration; 2) Reduce jail populations through the reform of pretrial detention policies and practices; 3) Develop and promote innovative strategies to reduce the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in the criminal justice process.
Juvenile Justice: Supports groups working to end the criminalization and over-incarceration of youth in the United States. In particular, the program makes grants to groups that are working to advance systems reforms that will: 1) Reduce youth incarceration rates in the juvenile justice system (through policies that, for example, limit the use of incarceration, expand the use of community-based alternatives to incarceration, reduce lengths of stay, and/or decriminalize minor misbehaviors or otherwise divert youth from the juvenile court system); 2) End the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth as adults; and 3) Promote more fair and equitable treatment of youth of color by the juvenile justice system.
Workers’ Rights: Supports groups seeking policy and system reforms to improve the lives of low-wage working people, with a focus on securing their basic legal rights to safe, healthy, and fair conditions at work. Specifically, the program makes grants to groups seeking reforms that will do the following: 1) Make Work Safe and Healthy– by preventing illness, injury, and death on the job, and improving workers’ compensation; 2) Make Work Pay– by empowering workers to hold low-road employers accountable for wage theft, misclassification, and contingent work abuse, particularly through policies that create or improve private rights of action and fee-shifting; and 3) Build Workers’ Advocacy Power– by improving the ability of low-wage workers to act collectively for policy and system reform. Additionally, the Program supports investigative journalism, national broadcast news coverage, and other high-profile media and public education about workers’ rights issues.
Type of Funding/Funding Restrictions: Grants are awarded for general support and project support. The Foundation does not fund individuals, scholarships, direct services, international projects or endowment campaigns.
Application Instructions: LOI instructions available online.
