In 2015, Catalyst grantees worked on the ground in 39 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, addressing over a dozen distinct RJ-related issues of great importance to their constituents. The Catalyst Fund Evaluation is the largest data set that exists for the U.S. RJ movement.
The Catalyst Fund supports organizations that are using grassroots organizing to advance reproductive justice policy and systems change. It centers efforts led by women of color while also supporting work led by low-income white women and transgender people, who together make the up the constituency who experiences the greatest reproductive health disparities and the largest barriers to reproductive freedom in the U.S.
Catalyst awards grants directly to grassroots organizations, including matching grants designed to bolster organizations’ efforts to raise new money from other sources. Particular attention is paid to organizations building cross-movement alliances between reproductive justice efforts and other social justice organizations, including labor, environmental and economic justice. Catalyst also awards matching grants to public foundations and women’s funds who make grants to organizations led by women of color and transgender people of color. Catalyst grantees are the main participants in Groundswell’s two flagship capacity building programs aimed at boosting the grassroots power of the field: the Integrated Voter Engagement Program and the Grassroots Organizing Institute. Catalyst has a strong track record of galvanizing new money for RJ from foundations and individual donors. Since 2008, Catalyst and its partners have invested a total of $26.6M in RJ organizations.1
The Catalyst Fund has one primary grantmaking round in the fall of each year. Its annual docket provides Groundswell donors with an extensive analysis of the RJ movement and the organizations that comprise it.
When identifying groups to support through the Catalyst Fund, Groundswell looks for organizations with:
- A highly engaged and growing membership/constituent base comprised of people directly impacted by the conditions that they seek to transform;
- Organizational leadership that reflects the diversity of this base;
- Clear mechanisms for leadership development;
- The ability to mobilize a base to win concrete policy changes;
- A strategic direction with clear goals and objectives that are driven by the membership/constituency;
- Ability to forge inter- and cross-movement alliances and to work well in coalition;
- Innovation in framing and thought leadership;
- A clear timeline for achieving goals and objectives and organizational capacity to achieve these;
- An integrated racial, gender, and class justice analysis;
- Connections to intermediary support organizations that build the capacity and collective; power of the RJ movement;
- A strong track record of policy wins or strong strategy towards future wins; and
- System for measuring the impact of the work, including clearly defined benchmarks for success.
Groundswell Fund defines strong grassroots organizing capacity as organizations with:
- A grassroots base of at least 50 volunteers who can be consistently mobilized to take action in-person (not counting online actions);
- Clear goals and systems for tracking the growth of their relationships with their base, leaders, allies and elected officials;
- A sophisticated analysis of the political landscape, including clear power maps that inform strategic campaign plans;
- A functioning leadership ladder;
- Leadership in key coalitions; and
- A demonstrated ability to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of policy decisions on their communities.
Catalyst provides the following types of support: General operating grants, capacity building grants and project grants, with grant sizes ranging from $5,000-$150,000.
To apply: Proposals are by invitation only. However, interested organizations are encouraged to contact Groundswell at info@groundswellfund.org with a brief summary of their work and where possible/appropriate, staff will schedule a call to discuss.
1 The Catalyst partners referred to here include: Grantmaking Partners (women’s funds that receive matching grants from Catalyst, fundraise with their donors to raise the match, and then re-grant dollars to women of color-led RJ organizations) and direct matching grantees (women of color-led organizations who receive matching grants directly from Catalyst and raise a dollar for dollar match).
2017 Current Catalyst Fund Grantees
ACCESS Women’s Health Justice
ACT for Women and Girls
Afiya Center
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Audre Lorde Project
Black Women for Wellness
California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
Chicago Foundation for Women
COLOR
Forward Together
Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health
International Indian Treaty Council
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative
Mothering Justice
Ms. Foundation for Women
National Advocates for Pregnant Women
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
National Network of Abortion Funds
Native American Community Board
New Voices for Reproductive Justice
New York Women’s Foundation
Positive Women’s Network
Power U Center for Social Change
Project South
Raising Women’s Voices
Service Women’s Action Network
Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous People
SisterSong
SURGE
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Third Wave Fund
Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity
Western States Center
Women Engaged
Women’s Foundation of California: Women’s Policy Institute
Women’s Voices for the Earth
West Virginia FREE
Women With a Vision
Young Women United