Human Rights

On July 4th 2005, a group of foundations and individual donors launched the U.S. Human Rights Fund, a collaborative funding initiative dedicated to the full realization of human rights in the United States. The U.S. Human Rights Fund provides strategic, field-building support to the U.S. human rights movement, with a primary emphasis on capacity building, networking, communications and applied legal and policy research. The Fund focuses in particular on domestic social justice groups actively engaged in U.S. human rights work and their links to each other and to the U.S. rights, legal and policy communities more generally. It also offers a range of services to donors interested in learning about and funding in this area. Initially, the Fund will be a 5 year effort with a minimum fundraising goal of $10 million. To date, more than $5 million has been raised.

The U.S. Human Rights Fund arose out of a shared sense that greater U.S. adherence to the principles of human rights and humanitarian law benefits not only the wider world but the United States as well. Current members are the Ford Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Otto Bremer Foundation, the Overbrook Foundation, the Shaler Adams Foundation and an anonymous donor. Current Steering Committee members include Jay Beckner, Larry Cox (Chair), Steve Foster, John Kostishack, John Kowal, John Taylor and Dorothy Q. Thomas. The Fund is housed at Public Interest Projects, a 501 (c)(3) public charity that operates grantmaking, technical assistance and strategic planning programs for institutional and individual donors interested in social justice and human rights issues.

The U.S. Human Rights Fund will make its first grants in April 2006. A request for letters of inquiry will be circulated in late September 2005. For additional information about membership in the Fund or its grant making process, contact Michele Lord, Executive Director, Public Interest Projects, 80 Broad Street, 16th floor, New York, NY 10004, 212 764-1508 X207.