Greetings and Happy new year to all of you,
I hope that you were able to take some time out to enjoy the beginning of the year and felt renewed by the limitless possibilities of the year ahead.
The Board and Staff of Social Justice Fund are pleased to announce that we met our financial goals in 2005. We were able to raise $1,480,000 and to grant $820,000 to over 130 organizations. To realize this goal, we organized 18 house parties and our annual fundraising dinner and recruited over 120 new members. Social Justice Fund members continue to give generously of their time and talent as well as money. In 2005, almost one third of the membership volunteered in the grant-making, fundraising, event planning and administration of Social Justice Fund. Social Justice Fund truly is an informed, involved and inspired community.
2005 was an incredible year of change for our organization as we changed our name to Social Justice Fund after 27 years of doing business as ATR. Our goal with the name change has been to dramatically increase our visibility in progressive communities and to continue to raise and grant as much as possible. We now have new colors, logo, look and feel about our organization. We have also put a lot of energy and work in to expressing more clearly who we are and being able to reach new communities, new generations, and new donors.
Our commitment to build a diverse and truly democratic community was enhanced by a two year grant from the Kellogg Foundation this year. We are honored to be recognized amongst a handful of other foundations who are truly dedicated to working across the boundaries of race and class to build an effective and democratic organization. We organized a number of events this year to increase our visibility amongst communities of color and recruited many new members of color. This work will continue to gain a lot of positive momentum and visibility in 2006 and 2007.
Thank you to all of the members, volunteers, grantees and other partners in the community who made 2005 an amazingly successful year. Join Social Justice Fund in 2006 as we continue the fight for social justice and real democracy.