Fund for Inclusive Recovery

Driving Investments to Create a Pathway for Inclusive Recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic has made plain the harsh realities that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities have faced for centuries. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated challenges facing our community including racial inequities, political violence, and economic devastation.

The Fund for Inclusive Recovery is a pooled fund, guided by a Community Advisory Group, that will help meet the critical needs of people most impacted by the pandemic. The Fund will drive investments to BIPOC organizations, movements, and communities, creating a pathway for Greater Seattle’s inclusive recovery. 

The Fund builds on the important lessons harvested from the COVID-19 Response Fund—where we witnessed how deeply Black, Indigenous, and communities of color were hit by the pandemic after generations of oppression and discrimination. The COVID-19 Response Fund helped meet acute, direct needs, infusing hundreds of organizations with critical funding.

Now we aim to change the systems that created and intensified these needs in the first place.

Launched in 2021, the Fund for Inclusive Recovery aims to raise $50 million over a five-year period and make investments that will lay the groundwork for reinventing our region as we move through the current crisis to a reimagined, more equitable future.

Evolution of our Community’s COVID-19 Response

Guiding Principles

The Fund for Inclusive Recovery’s efforts will accelerate our region’s ability to overcome the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 and rebuild towards a more just society. It is guided by the following principles.

• BIPOC Community Investment: This pooled fund will invest in further building the capacity of BIPOC-led organizations and movements and increase the civic influence and power of BIPOC communities as a pathway to a more equitable region. It will support communities as they tackle all challenges—including housing and homelessness, education, mental health, food security, criminal justice, and more.
• Community-led Change: In the early days of the pandemic, we saw how organizations led by and rooted in communities most impacted by the virus were critical to meeting local needs. With this in mind, a community advisory group, consisting of BIPOC leaders with deep community insights, is guiding our grantmaking for the Fund for Inclusive Recovery.
• Rethinking Philanthropy: As our communities build back from the COVID-19 pandemic, we face an important decision. We can maintain the status quo of deepening inequities, or we can reimagine our region as a better, stronger, and more equitable place.

Initial Phase of Investment

In this first phase of investment, the Fund for Inclusive Recovery is supporting Community Power and Base Building approaches that create the necessary foundation for meaningful systems and policy change. We seek to fund BIPOC-led and rooted strategies aimed at transforming racist systems that perpetuate inequities.

In April 2022, the Fund announced the first round of grantees.

Funds are flexible and can be used to support project, program, or general operating costs necessary to support the applicant’s community power and base building efforts. We see these resources as critical investments in supporting organizations, movements, and/or coalitions capacity and infrastructure to take on deeper base building and future policy work. 

Stay tuned for any upcoming rounds of funding. For additional questions, please email [email protected] and a member of our grantmaking team will respond.

Funding Opportunity

We aim to raise $50 million over a five-year period through a cross-sector network of funders. Early contributors include the following (alphabetical order): Norm and Lisa Bontje, The Butler Community Foundation, Deloitte LLP, Delta Dental of Washington, DOWL, Orion and Jackie Hindawi, The Raikes Foundation, The Seattle Mariners, Tableau Foundation, and Umpqua Bank. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Sunderland Foundation have made recent contributions alongside more than 100 individual donors.

A contribution to the Fund for Inclusive Recovery will:

• Deepen investments in organizations and efforts that will make a meaningful difference in our region’s future.
• Lift the burden from small, under-resourced organizations by enabling them to apply for support through a single, streamlined fund.
• Track collective progress, holding our region accountable for greater impact.
• Spotlight the collective efforts of philanthropy to respond to structural inequities in a thoughtful, meaningful way
• Inspire others to help create systemic change.

The Fund for Inclusive Recovery has the potential to uplift the missions of BIPOC organizations and movements – directly supporting historically underserved communities.

Why Seattle Foundation? 

Seattle Foundation has decades-long, deep relationships with the communities most impacted by the pandemic. They have asked us to do more and do better.

• We bring together cross-sector partners to collectively tackle our community’s challenges—and create meaningful impact. It’s the only way for our region to reach shared prosperity and belonging for all individuals and families.
• We have access to localized data that give us a unique understanding of community context, priorities, and impact.
• When we look around our region, we see how traditional government, private, and nonprofit silos have yet to generate lasting solutions, and philanthropy has yet to reach its potential for transformative change. We need a new model of philanthropy and Seattle Foundation is ready to be part of the solution. 

The Fund for Inclusive Recovery is managed by Seattle Foundation and partners. For investment information and general inquiries, contact Kris Hermanns, Chief Impact Officer, Seattle Foundation.

For additional information, download the one-pager on the Fund.