DIF x Tech Fund

Overview

About Borealis Philanthropy

Borealis Philanthropy is a philanthropic social justice intermediary that works to resource grassroots leaders and social justice movements for transformative change. We help funders expand their reach and strengthen their impact through donor collaboratives that support a variety of issues, communities, and movements. Borealis is home to nine donor collaboratives, including the Disability Inclusion Fund and Disability x Tech.

DIF x Tech Fund

For the Disability Inclusion Fund at Borealis, part of our efforts for disability rights and justice includes the ways disability and technology are working towards shared goals in our movements. The DIF x Tech initiative, supported by the Ford Foundation’s Technology & Society Program and the MacArthur Foundation’s Technology in the Public Interest, invites proposals that are working to bring about transformational change at the intersections of disability, justice, and technology

About the Disability Inclusion Fund and DIF x Tech

The Disability Inclusion Fund (DIF) supports U.S.-based groups run by and for people with disabilities to lead transformational change. The Fund is supported by donors including the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy, which is comprised of foundation presidents who are committed to disability inclusion as part of improving diversity, equity, and inclusion within philanthropy.

Part of the efforts of disability rights and justice includes the ways disability and technology are working towards shared goals in our movements. This newly launched initiative is housed at the Disability Inclusion Fund (DIF) and supported by Ford Foundation’s Technology & Society Program and the MacArthur Foundation’s Technology in the Public Interest.

DIF x Tech Fund Values

All Disability x Tech award decisions will align with the DIF guiding values. The DIF guiding values are:

* Participation: Movement funding accountable to the disability rights movement. Those impacted by injustice/exclusion should be involved in strategies to advance justice/inclusion.
* Intersectionality: Acknowledging that disabled people have multiple and intersecting social and political identities that can influence their ability to have access and inclusion including race, gender identity, class, sexual orientation.
* Radical inclusion: Deeply committed to removing barriers and ensuring access so that those most affected by intersecting identities can participate, valuing lived experience.
* Leadership of those most impacted by ableism: Emphasis is given to organizations led by people subject to systemic bias and impacted by underrepresentation, particularly disabled people of color, queer, gender nonconforming and women with disabilities.
* Cross-movement solidarity: Intentional focus on collaboration and bridge- building amongst disability justice activists and across movements.

What we fund

DIF x Tech invites proposals that are at the nexus of technology, disability rights and justice. We believe that in order for a world where true technology and disability justice are realized, we must support disabled leaders, and disability-led organizations, working to ensure technology can be used by everyone in order to fully participate in our society. We also believe that such a world would be a place where technology is free from perpetuating ableist biases, algorithmic discrimination, and other forms of disparate treatment towards disabled people that contribute to further marginalization.

Disability justice principles and the DIF’s guiding values inform this RFP’s following areas of focus:

* To transform and identify the ways technology can/should be used to uphold disability rights and justice at the intersection of tech and civil rights.
* These initiatives may include:
* Policy advocacy initiatives to mitigate algorithmic bias in cross-movement areas such as abolition, climate justice, and the caregiving infrastructure, for example, through anti-discrimination statues;
* Strategies that center and are led by disability rights and justice principles, including recognizing wholeness, self-determination, autonomy, and collective access to improve data ownership and privacy protection;
* Programs that work to expand the consideration of disability rights laws in new tech policy development;
* Supporting the partnership and collaboration across disability justice, rights, and broader civil rights movement leaders to establish issue-area coalitions at the intersection of justice and tech – for example school-to-prison pipeline and reproductive health access;
* Opportunities to generate a deeper solidarity and relationship-building across disability justice and tech that moves beyond accessibility, compliance, and architectural barriers;
* Bridging a commitment between technology and disability justice groups to facilitate knowledge sharing, identifying content/technical gaps, and trust-building towards a more disability justice informed tech industry.
* To democratize tech development, provide collective and equitable access to digital infrastructure, and mobilize cross disability solidarity in the tech sector.
* This fund aims to support these efforts in ways that may include:  
* Innovative strategies, toolchains, and infrastructure that improve and promote open source, anti-ableist design and tech development, such as accessible dev tools and workflows;
* Programs that support technologists in ways of centering disability justice in the development of software in partnership with grassroots disabled leaders and disability justice activists;
* Programs that support technologists in ways of centering disability justice in the development of software in partnership with grassroots disabled leaders and disability justice activists;
* Efforts to broaden and implement cross-disability access tools, for example to housing and distributing multi-format accessible, plain language materials/instructions;
* Efforts to improve access to the tools and infrastructure that disabled communities need to bridge the digital divide;
* Programs to facilitate knowledge sharing in order to generate the development of curricula and lift up other ways to reframe tech in both traditional disability rights spaces and tech;
* To expand the participation, leadership, and thought partnership of overlooked and under-resourced people with disabilities in all areas of the technology sector.
* These areas of work may involve:
* Efforts to build inroads and pathways between disability communities and emerging tech;
* Strategies to remove barriers to participation for disabled people as developers, engineers, and technologists, particularly in the civil society and disability justice sectors;
* Programs to reframe tech education in disability-centered spaces and organizations;
* Deliberately convening conversations that foster relationship-building where marginalized disabled peoples’ experiences as technologists are amplified and elevated, such as workshops, conferences, maker and hackerspaces, and hackathons;
* Programs to expand education for a broad tech sector audience, on disability justice and anti-ableist approaches at the intersection of tech and disability;
* Broadening the representation of people with disabilities in tech through peer mentorships, professional networks, and other community engagement campaigns;
* Building and deepening the pipeline of professionals with experiences in both disability rights, justice, and tech expertise.

Funding

DIF x Tech will provide two-year grants to organizations working at the intersection of disability justice and technology. The grants will range in size from a total of $50,000 (or $25,000/year) – $100,000 (or $50,000/year).

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* Organization must be a U.S-based or U.S. territories-based 501(c)3, or fiscally sponsored.

Ineligibility

* Types of support we cannot provide:
* Organizations that are non U.S-based or non U.S. Territories
* Hardware and software product development
* Hospitals, medical research, direct services, individual / personal support
* For profit / LLCs