The Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund is now accepting proposals for our 2025 grant cycle! We’re looking for practitioners organizing within and across movements, especially those whose work builds power, deepens solidarity, and shapes new ways of being. The deadline for proposals is July 24th at 11AM PST / 2PM EST. We are hosting an RFP info session on June 18th at 12PM PST / 3PM EST. A recording of the session will be sent to all registrants.
All of the RFP information–including funding details, the kinds of partnerships we seek, how to apply, and more about the REACH Fund–can be found below. If you still have questions after reading the RFP, or require accommodations to complete the application please email reach@borealisphilanthropy.org.
About Borealis Philanthropy
Borealis Philanthropy is a social justice philanthropic intermediary working to resource grassroots movements for transformative change. From Black-led movement-building, to queer and trans liberation, to disability justice and inclusion, our work is rooted in the understanding that in order to upend oppressive systems, we must support the people most impacted by those systems. Founded in 2015, Borealis has grown into a powerhouse of collaborative funds working to enhance our collective impact within and between movements across the country.
About the Racial Equity to Accelerate Change Fund
The Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund has always understood that the force for advancing racial equity lies within our communities: with skilled social change practitioners who can dream beyond the limits of existing models and help us envision, nurture, and build the new. REACH is a home for movement weavers who connect wisdom and action between freedom movements. The Fund partners with capacity builders, organizational strategists, field builders, and other racial equity practitioners who understand that our work is stronger when we build together across issue areas, geographies, communities, and generations.
Our fund, and name, reflect our role: we accelerate change by investing in people and organizations leading expansive, strategic, and interconnected work to advance social change. Many of our longtime grantee partners straddle multiple ecosystems of complex change. They come from 501c3 structures and beyond, and include individuals with deep roots in communities and movements.
2025 RFP: Accelerating Change Through Practitioner Organizing
For this year’s RFP, the REACH Fund will continue our approach to accelerating change, with a focused eye toward supporting not just practitioners, but practitioner-led organizing.
In order to build power, take collective action, and nurture communities of care and solidarity, we must resource architects of new ways of being and working together: strategists, field builders, network weavers, healers, communicators, litigators, somatic practitioners, and more. This is how we co-create liberatory futures and more rapidly dismantle harmful systems of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, ableism, transphobia, and other forms of domination and oppression.
What do we mean by practitioner-led organizing?
As REACH shifts to supporting the organizing work of practitioners, it is important to be clear about what we mean. Practitioner-organizers serve as the connective tissue between movements: they build and define leadership and accountability, develop shared analysis, and take collective action within and beyond their respective fields. They see themselves and their roles as fostering connections between ecosystems in order to deepen solidarity across differences, organize in ways that build power, and help accelerate change across systems. Practitioner-organizers are often multi-hyphenates: they hold varied skills and talents–from creative and healing disciplines such as visual arts, movement, or healing justice; to a range of roles and fields such as programmatic, legal, or communications work.
Some examples of the types of roles grantee partners may hold include:
- Liberatory tech and data strategists building and expanding tools that return control of data to communities, and training organizers on counter-surveillance to ensure that policies and practices make movements and communities safer.
- Mutual aid ecosystem builders scaling mutual aid during crises, creating opportunities for cross-regional learning, and building/sustaining systems rooted in care and reciprocity.
- Storytellers, cultural workers, and media creatives using narrative disruption to shift culture and spark collective action.
- Community of practice organizers infusing power-building, political analysis, and shared narrative strategies into existing networks of fellowship and kin.
- Healers, somatic practitioners, and movement chaplains centering collective care, grief support, sustainability, and other healing modalities that help change the nature and purpose of movement work and make organizing efforts sustainable for the long-run.
- Land stewards, climate justice organizers, and agrarians rematriating land through land back initiatives, cooperative farming, and environmental restoration.
- Health workers, doulas, reproductive justice advocates, and disability justice practitioners expanding accessible, community-defined health care.
Funding Ranges and Purpose
REACH is committed to providing sustained support for practitioner-led organizing. We recognize that change does not happen in a single grant cycle and that practitioners need stability to deepen their impact.
We are offering a range of funding amounts so practitioners can request what actually makes sense for where they are. Applicants may apply for anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000 over two years. An applicant who is in an early exploration phase may choose to apply for funding at the lower end, whereas an applicant who is ready to deepen their practitioner-organizing may request more.
Total funding awarded for this round will be approximately $1M. Proposals should align with REACH’s goal of supporting practitioner-led organizing in order to build power, take collective action, and nurture communities of care and solidarity. Proposals will be reviewed against our description of practitioner-led organizing, with a focus on supporting efforts that work across issues, communities, and geographies to help accelerate change across systems.
Eligibility Criteria
- We accept grant proposals from a variety of entities including 501c3s, fiscally sponsored projects, cooperatives, social enterprises, LLCs, and other legally incorporated organizations.
- If you are not a IRS 501(c)(3) organization or fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) organization, Borealis Philanthropy abides by expenditure responsibility guidelines.
- Grants to non-501c3’s are restricted to projects with a charitable purpose.
- Organizations that are based in the U.S or U.S. territories.
- U.S. Territories Include: American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, United States Virgin Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, Bajo Nuevo Bank, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, and Palmyra Atoll.
Priority considerations – do I fit?
Practitioner-organizers shape our work and our world, cross-seed the complexity that is reflected when we look beyond silos, and build a future that serves all of us. Practitioner-organizers build power and fortify movements in ways that are often relational and outside the box. Therefore, they may be harder to identify immediately.
As with our participatory grantmaking committee members, the REACH seeks to support practitioner-organizers who are reshaping the ways we strengthen and sustain movements, and bring their critical voices together to drive change. We encourage applicants who see their work as contributing to broader ecosystem shifts and are actively organizing in new ways that build solidarity and resilience.
What REACH does not fund
- Universities and colleges
- Organizations that are non-U.S. based or not based in a U.S. Territory
- Hospitals
- Government agencies
- Organizations or projects that only provide direct service (i.e., Personal Care Attendants, durable medical equipment, behavioral or medical care, employment supportive programs, adaptive sports, etc.) Organizations or projects that provide direct services are eligible only if they also engage in community organizing, advocacy, and/or policy work.
- Organizations or projects that only provide research. Organizations or projects that provide research are eligible only if they also engage in community organizing, advocacy, and/or policy work.
How to Apply!
To submit a proposal, please use Borealis Philanthropy’s online application system, Form Assembly. The first step is to complete a short eligibility quiz to ensure you meet the criteria for eligibility. If eligibility is confirmed, you will then be taken to the full application form. We strongly encourage you to gather all the information you will need ahead of time and draft your answers in a separate document in case there are any technical issues or you are timed out of the system.
Contact Us
- For questions related to the RFP, please email reach@borealisphilanthropy.org.
- For technical issues, please email grants@borealisphilanthropy.org.