Advancing Disability Justice Grants

The Advancing Disability Justice Grants, offered by the Northwest Health Foundation, aim to empower disabled BIPOC leaders and organizations in Oregon and parts of Washington. Grants range from $5,000 to $10,000 to enhance community building, civic engagement, and leadership development. The program emphasizes projects led by those most impacted by disability injustices, fostering equity and inclusion. NWHF also allocates additional funds for accessibility costs to ensure all community members can participate meaningfully.

NOTE: NWHF encourages all interested organizations to speak with our team before submitting an application. You must register by creating a user account. It can take up to two business days to activate new user accounts. If you register the day before the application is due, you may miss your submission deadline.
Disability Justice is a movement framework that centers queer and transgender disabled people of color. It has ten principles: intersectionality, leadership of those most impacted, anti-capitalist politic, cross-movement solidarity, recognizing wholeness, sustainability, commitment to cross-disability solidarity, interdependence, collective access and collective liberation.
Disability Equity at NWHF
In 2017, Northwest Health Foundation and the Collins Foundation convened the Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative (DJLC). The DJLC brought 16 disabled BIPOC together to build relationships, learn about the disability justice framework, and discuss how the voices and experiences of people with disabilities are (or aren’t) represented by decisionmakers in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Members of the DJLC worked together to create a set of recommendations for supporting disability justice and addressing barriers faced by disabled leaders of color: Recommendations for Advancing Disability Justice in Oregon and SW Washington.
These recommendations led us to launch our Advancing Disability Justice program with the Collins Foundation, which includes disability justice workshops for BIPOC-led and racial justice organizations, coaching, and Advancing Disability Justice Grants. During the 2021 grant cycle, six grants were awarded totaling $46,600.
Funding
The Advancing Disability Justice Grants will support disabled BIPOC leaders and groups in our region to build their capacity for community building and civic engagement. This can include, but is not limited to, leadership development, organizational or group capacity building around disability justice, cultural programming, movement building work, community organizing and/or policy advocacy. Funds can be used for staff time, stipends, food, gatherings, accommodations, travel, childcare, etc.
NWHF will provide one-time project grants for up to $5,000 or up to $10,000. Applicants will be asked to state their requested amount. We welcome applications with requests below $5,000 or $10,000. Grants can be for new or existing projects and can support short-term, long-term or one-time projects.
Grants up to $5,000 could be a good match for new or shorter term projects, such as hosting a one-time event or gathering for community members, planning for a larger project, a project for a targeted geographic area, or a short-term need. There are four grants at $5,000 to award for this cycle.Grants up to $10,000 could be a good match for longer term or larger scale projects, maybe to implement or accelerate a plan, or to reach out to more communities or regions. Examples could include a multi-day conference or training for larger community or statewide groups, or implementing disability justice goals for a program or organization. There are two grants at $10,000 to award for this cycle.
Accessibility Costs
NWHF has set aside additional funds to support accessibility costs above and beyond your grant award. While these additional funds are limited, we hope to allocate these funds to the awarded projects based on the information included in your application and budget.
For example, this might include:

• live captioning for an event,microphone and speakers,an accessible meeting space, and so on.
• Funding Criteria and Decision Making
• Projects should be in alignment with the following priorities:

Projects should be led by and focus on disabled, neurodivergent and d/Deaf Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).Projects should focus on building capacity or work related to community building, civic engagement, community organizing, cultural work, leadership development, movement building or policy advocacy by disabled BIPOC.Building capacity can mean learning, adapting and strengthening the skills, knowledge and tools of people and groups in order to create and achieve their goals. This might include (but not be limited to) training, leadership development, and building alliances across communities.Civic engagement projects are those that work toward making a difference in the civic life of one’s community and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. Civic engagement improves the quality of life in a community through both political and non-political processes.Project values should align with the Disability Justice Principles. From Sins Invalid: longer descriptions and short descriptions.

Eligibility

Applicants must be affiliated, working in partnership with, or fiscally sponsored by an organization that can receive 501(c)(3) grant funds. If your project does not have 501(c) tax status or a fiscal sponsor, click here (under the Fiscal Sponsorship section) for more information.NWHF funding is available to those organizations within the state of Oregon, and Clark, Cowlitz, Pacific, Skamania, and Wahkiakum counties in the state of Washington.Organizations outside of these regional areas may be eligible to apply for grant opportunities, but the work of the proposed programming or project must take place within these geographic areas. The Advancing Disability Justice Grants are for BIPOC-led groups or organizations that are either led by disabled BIPOC and/or have disabled BIPOC leadership for the project.Applicants must agree to the following Statement of Non-discrimination: I certify that our organization does not discriminate in its leadership, staffing or service on the basis of race, creed, religion, color, sex, marital status, political opinion, familial status, national origin, age, gender, mental or physical disability, disability status, sexual orientation, military status, gender identity or source of income.Grant funds must be spent by the specified date.

Ineligibility

The Advancing Disability Justice Grants are not for individuals.