Giving Projects

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Want to learn more before applying? Check out the Info Session recording for more information and important details. 


The 2025 Giving Project will focus on Immigration Justice, funding movements led by immigrants, refugees, and migrant workers most affected by an immigration system built to dehumanize the people caught in its cyclical violence. This Giving Project will make grants to support community organizing work that aims to build collective power and undo the overlapping and intersecting systems of oppression and domination, including colonialism, imperialism, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, ableism, classism, and xenophobia. For SJF’s definition of community organizing, please click here

This grant seeks to support organizations working to end the systemic discrimination, criminalization, detention, deportation, and harassment of immigrant, refugee, and migrant communities to build a future where borders do not dictate where and how people live, thrive, love, access joy, heal, and make community and family.

Immigration Justice work can include, but is not limited to, building capacity and knowledge for collective resistance, public advocacy and litigation, gender-based and sexual violence prevention, abolition work, equitable access to healthcare and housing, farmworkers organizing, labor organizing, and policy making at the local and statewide levels.

In 2025, our **in-person** Giving Project will be based in Seattle. It will start in February and focus on funding grassroots organizing in our five state region: Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.

Application for BIPOC folks.

Application for white folks.

If you have any questions please email us at [email protected].

Don’t have capacity to join in person for this GP but want to give a meaningful financial gift? Sign up to be an easy ask for our participants!


What is a Giving Project?

Giving Projects are a unique, participatory model of funding that provides significant financial resources to grassroots organizing for long-term progressive social change. Giving Projects bring together a diverse group of people of varied class identities who are passionate about social change and want to strengthen their skills in fundraising, grantmaking, and community building. Participants work together to deepen their understanding of social justice principles and engage in collective giving and fundraising to support grassroots organizations.

  • Cohorts consist of a cross-class, multiracial group approximately 15 volunteers who commit to the entire process.
  • Each person makes a meaningful gift — whatever that means for you.
  • We develop a shared analysis of race, class, and the issue area of this Giving Project (Environmental Justice) through workshops and trainings.
  • Each person commits to fundraising within their community, including friends and family. Giving Project facilitators will train you in grassroots fundraising and support you along the way through regular 1:1 coaching sessions.
  • Participants will be trained on Social Justice Fund’s democratic grantmaking process. You will read and score proposals, make collective decisions, and grant money to some of the most inspiring, effective social change work in the region.

All Giving Projects follow roughly the same process:

  1. Community building, including personal storytelling and setting personal & collective goals.
  2. Political education about racism, classism, Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, and the grantmaking issue area for the project (Environmental Justice).
  3. Grantmaking training about social justice philanthropy, SJF’s grantmaking criteria, and decision-making processes.
  4. Fundraising training focused on grassroots fundraising skills and learning how to make an ask.
  5. Ongoing fundraising with support from SJF staff and other Giving Project members.
  6. Reading and scoring grant applications.
  7. Collective decision-making process to decide together which organizations will receive grants.
  8. Celebration of our successes and evaluation of the process so the next Giving Project will be even better.

What kind of organizing do Giving Projects fund?

The Giving Project participants will use Social Justice Fund’s grantmaking criteria to select grantees. We fund grassroots community organizing led by the people most impacted by injustice and working for systemic change. Giving Projects fund organizations throughout SJF’s funding region: Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.

More specifically, we give grants to groups that:

  • Are led by the people most directly affected by the issues the organization is working on
  • Continually build leadership from within their own membership, base, or community
  • Work to understand and address the root causes of the issues, not just the symptoms
  • Bring people together to build power they wouldn’t have individually
  • Use that power to create systemic change, which includes altering unjust power relations
  • See themselves as part of a larger movement for social change, and works towards strengthening that movement

SJF Giving Project COVID-19 Protocols

The 2025 GP will be SJF’s first in-person GP since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As an organization committed to disability justice, SJF recognizes our role in mitigating the spread of airborne viruses like COVID-19 and we aim to take all possible actions towards hosting COVID-safer public events, including our GP.

Here are the protocols that we will be following during the entirety of the GP: 
(1) Well-fitting masks/respirators such as a KN95, KF94, or N95 will be required for all participants to wear when not eating or drinking. SJF will provide adequate respirators for all participants.
(2) Air purification will be provided, either through HEPA filtration via the venue or portable air purifiers adequate for the square footage of the meeting space, provided by SJF.
(3) Participants will be asked to take a rapid COVID-19 test at home before entering each session. SJF will provide rapid tests for all participants. If their rapid test is positive, participants will inform facilitators who will offer alternative ways to engage in session programming.
(4) If sick or feeling any symptoms of illness, participants are required to stay home and will be offered alternative ways to engage in session pro

Schedule ( All meetings will be in person unless otherwise noted below. Food will be provided at each in person evening session.)

Session 1
Session 1: Introductions

Wednesday, 2/5
5:45-9pm PT

Session 2
Session 2: Issue area orientation with guest speakers

Wednesday, 2/12
6-9pm PT

Online via Zoom.

Session 3
Session 3: Racial justice & class analysis, part 1

Saturday, 3/1
10am-4pm
(1 hour lunch break – breakfast and lunch provided)

Session 4
Session 4: Racial justice & class analysis workshop, part 2

Saturday, 3/15
10am-4pm
(1 hour lunch break – breakfast and lunch provided)

Session 5
Session 5: Fundraising training

Wednesday, 3/26
5:45-9pm PT

Session 6
Session 6: Issue area panel

Wednesday, 4/9
6-9 pm (online via Zoom)

Session 7
Session 7: Grantmaking training

Wednesday, 4/23
5:45-9 pm

Session 8
Session 8: Fundraising support & continued training

Wednesday, 5/7
5:45-9pm PT

Session 9
Session 9: Collective decision making training

Wednesday, 5/21
5:45-9 pm PT

Session 10
Session 10: Fundraising & grant reading support

Wednesday, 6/11
5:45-9 pm PT

Session 11
Session 11: Decision Making Day #1

Saturday, 6/28
9am-3pm (1 hour lunch break – breakfast and lunch provided)

Session 12
Session 12: Decision Making Day #2

Wednesday, 7/2
5:45-9 pm PT

Session 13
Session 13: Celebration!

Saturday, 7/12
TBD

“One thing that sticks with me is how much I enjoy and get energy from these issues. I came in tired, and now feel energized.”

Brittany Alsot Economic Justice Giving Project member, 2012

Meet Our Giving Project Members

Tracy Gagnon

Economic Justice Giving Project 2017-2018
Joining a Giving Project was a way for me to take action after the haze of the election. I wanted to be a part of the...
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Mike Beebe

Native-led Giving Project
This Giving Project is my third (Environmental Justice in 2011/Movement Building Giving Project in 2015) and each time I find them highly educational, rewarding, and inspiring....
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Lilliane Ballesteros

Intergenerational Giving Project
I signed up for a Giving Project because I wanted to learn more about who was leading change in our communities in the Pacific Northwest. I...
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Maxx Tomlinson

LGBTQ Giving Project twice, Gender Justice GP, Criminal Justice GP
I always wanted to figure out a way to be active in social justice issues and what my action would be. I am not the kind...
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Saara Ahmed

2015 Gender Justice Giving Project
One of the most important things I learned about gender justice work is that we need both organizations with proven strategies AND organizations coming up with...
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Carol Brown

Intergenerational Giving Project
SJF’s focus is on organizations led by and communities most affected systemic racism, organizations addressing the root causes of oppression and racism, and organizations that are...
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Chieko Phillips

2018 Immigration Justice Giving Project
An interview with Chieko Phillips, Immigration Justice Giving Project member. Why did you sign up for a Giving Project?  Immigration has never been “my issue” and...
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Margaret Weihs

2015 Next Generation Giving Project
In addition to expanding my personal analysis of race and class, the giving project positively challenged my understanding of how social change happens. I came into...
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Jasmine Fleenor

Gender Justice Giving Project
I am so amazed at how much I learned during this process. One of my main takeaways from this project is the importance of a broad,...
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Sanne Stienstra

Portland Economic Justice Giving Project
Social Justice Fund NW provided me with an opportunity, as a white cisgendered person, to play a role in the movement that felt appropriate and fulfilling...
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Andrew Johnston

2015 Spring Momentum Giving Project
Asking people to support this work required that I be vulnerable, and sometimes voice strong opinions that might differ from the opinions of my family, friends,...
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Emiko Badillo

Giving Projects in Portland in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017
We as individuals are so powerful. An action makes such a huge impact when we are working together with other dedicated individuals.
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Callie Lambarth

Economic Justice Giving Project 2017-2018
The entire Giving Project process was an incredibly powerful experience. One of the most meaningful takeaways for me was being able to engage with the discomfort...
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Jose Vazquez

2018 Immigration Justice Giving Project
As an undocumented individual who received the opportunity to join the professional workforce thanks to DACA, I wanted to be part of the solution to address...
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Vinnie Tran

Economic Justice Giving Project 2017-2018
I learned about the Social Justice NW Fund through a random search online and was intrigued by the organization’s social justice lens to philanthropy. I joined...
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