PEACE DEVELOPMENT FUND AWARDS $80,000 TO GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS Published on July 11, 2023

AMHERST, MA – The Peace Development Fund (PDF) announced grant awards from their Seeding the Movement Fund to 22 social justice organizations in every region of the United States, as well as Haiti and Mexico.  Each organization received grants of varying amounts for a total of $80,000 granted this spring.  Seeding the Movement Fund (SMF) grants support social justice grassroots organizing led by people from their communities. Several of the grants are renewals, reflecting PDF’s commitment to investing in the ongoing work of transformative grassroots organizing.  The grant award decisions are made by the Peace Development Fund’s volunteer board of directors that reflects marginalized communities drawing on their community experience. 

“This year’s grantees represent a wide array of critical social justice issues. Each group is dedicated to shifting power, dismantling oppression, working to build a movement, and creating new structures in their communities and beyond. We are humbled to fund such exemplary organizations,” shared Emily Szerafy-Cox, PDF Foundation Officer. 

Organizing for justice involves a myriad of issues with the recognition that oppression is interconnected. This year’s grantees are organizing around environmental issues, economic inequity and labor rights, racial justice and Indigenous rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s issues. They are on the frontlines of change in the United States. 

“Dignity Power challenges an inequitable criminal justice system through collective engagement, base-building, organizing, and policy work that shifts political power into the hands of women and girls+. PDF’s support allows us to sustain a grassroots movement by actively divesting from a punitive carcel state, centering the liberation and healing justice of women and girls+ of color,” commented Cortes Maria Lewis James, Executive Director of Dignity Power.  

2023 SMF grant awardees include:   

• The Alyssa Rodriguez Center for Gender Justice*, Calabasas, CA 
• Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Lactation Collaborative of California, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 
• Bantu Safe Haven, Philadelphia, PA 
• Best Practices Policy Project, Morristown, NJ 
• Beyond Trenches, Sanford, NC 
• Center for Social Sustainable Systems, Albuquerque, NM 
• Communities for Clean Water, Taos, NM 
• Dignity Power, Orlando, FL 
• Healing Communities PA, Philadelphia, PA 
• Home Roots Foundation*, Haiti 
• La Colectiva, Mexico 
• Manasseh Ministry*, Black Jack, MO 
• Marijan, Haiti 
• Montana Two Spirit Society, Missoula, MT 
• NYCHA Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Arverne, NY 
• Root Cause Research Center, Louisville, KY 
• Tight Lipped*, Richmond, CA 
• Tranzzlation, Seattle, WA 
• UnHarming Ohio, East Liverpool, OH 
• Washington Fair Trade Coalition Education Fund, Seattle, WA 
• Whiteswan Environmental*, Bellingham, WA 
• yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective,  Seattle, WA