On July 27, the MacArthur Foundation announced roughly $80 million in grants centered on advancing racial and ethnic justice.
The Equitable Recovery grants are funded by MacArthur's social bonds, issued in response to the crises of the pandemic and racial inequity.
MacArthur is supporting work in four areas:
Racial Justice Field Support, with a focus on combatting anti-Blackness, supports building Black power by supporting Black-led and -focused philanthropic organizations. MacArthur also will take a leadership role in positioning reparations and racial healing as issues that philanthropy helps to meaningfully address.
Self-determination of Indigenous Peoples supports uplifting Indigenous communities to enable autonomous pursuit of a recovery guided by their priorities, cultures, and practices.
Public Health Equity and COVID-19 Mitigation and Recovery supports improving access to resources for immediate health challenges while advancing new policies, models, and structures to support a more equitable and resilient public health sector in the future.
An Equitable Housing Demonstration Project supports restoring communities and reducing incarceration and housing instability by generating an array of housing solutions that can help to permanently end the use of jails and prisons as housing of last resort.
Almost two-thirds of the awards represent new grantee relationships, and most of the organizations are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)-led or -serving. The grants also reflect MacArthur's global reach: Forty-five percent of the new funding supports work outside of the United States, including 12 percent in India and 14 percent in Nigeria, where MacArthur has offices.
Among the awardees is The Barack Obama Foundation, which will receive $5 million to develop programming space within the Obama Presidential Center that will focus on leadership training, racial healing and civic engagement on Chicago's South Side.