Journey to Justice

Surdna Foundation Impact Report

2018-2024

A group of people gather together to take a photo with an iPhone

"Surdna believes it can have the greatest impact in achieving a more just and sustainable society by addressing the historical and structural racial inequities at the root of the deeply embedded challenges that communities face across America."

–Surdna Foundation, September 25, 2018

This report explores the ideas, numbers, and lessons behind the past six years of grantmaking—and stories about grantee partners’ work toward more just, sustainable communities.

Grantmaking Snapshot

1,124
Grants made 2018–2024

$275K
Average grant size

$297.5M
Total in grants

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

Three themes have been central in our work:

A good quality of life for all in the US is linked to freedom
Wealth creation uplifts historically marginalized communities
We are more powerful together

From the President

A Message from Don Chen

In September 2018, Surdna announced new grantmaking strategies that “reflect the Foundation’s belief that racial justice must underpin social justice.” When I arrived later that year, I asked our colleagues what it would take to devote every aspect of the Foundation’s activities to this important mission. Over the years, as we navigated societal polarization, a global pandemic, a profound reckoning with racial injustices, and an ensuing backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), our staff and Board have taken a comprehensive approach to examining and transforming our grantmaking practices, operations, and investing to make progress toward Surdna’s racial justice goals.

This Impact Report includes a detailed account of how we made progress on this journey and what we’ve learned along the way. Drawing from six years of grantmaking data and examples, we offer stories, ideas, and lessons about grantee partners’ impactful work to foster more just and sustainable communities.

At the start of this journey, I was grateful to join a foundation—largely governed by the Andrus family for over a century—that has had a longstanding commitment to social justice. Today, Surdna is one of relatively few large foundations that seek to address the root causes of racial injustices in the United States. It’s encouraging to see growing numbers of funders making similar commitments to advancing racial equity and justice. Together, we understand that we have an opportunity and a responsibility to have an outsized impact.

Don Chen headdshot — **Don Chen**, President of Surdna Foundation

After careful consideration, we shifted several internal practices to streamline our grantmaking and make more meaningful contributions to the field:

We interrogated our grantmaking process and embraced trust-based philanthropy approaches, including eliminating unnecessary paperwork and procedural hoops, seeking grantee feedback and acting on it, and developing a new approach to financial due diligence that significantly lessens the burden on grant applicants.
We worked with grantee partners, issue experts, and fellow funders to co-create grant-related metrics and indicators, collect data, and analyze results as a way to contribute lessons and knowledge to the field.
We launched a new rapid-response grantmaking function to provide existing grantees with additional funding to help with pandemic-fueled challenges and other unanticipated difficulties, such as leadership transitions, unexpected shortfalls, and external attacks.
We shifted to a default approach of providing multiyear general operating support and raised our maximum grant duration from three to six years to provide grantee partners with long-term stability.

^$45M Increased spending for racial justice over three years (2020-2024)
64% Of Surdna’s total grantmaking is unrestricted
48 Hour turnaround for rapid response grants to existing grantees

Together, we understand that we have an opportunity and a responsibility to have an outsized impact."

–Don Chen, President

In addition, we sought to “meet the moment” in response to a number of acute and chronic challenges:

After the murder of George Floyd and the beginnings of a national reckoning with racial injustices, we surged Surdna’s grantmaking by a total of $45 million over three years—an increase of nearly 40 percent—to support grantees’ efforts to meet the moment.
As hate crimes against Asian Americans increased, we joined forces with Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) leaders to call for cross-racial solidarity and increased funding for AANHPI communities.
Recognizing the economic, environmental, and cultural importance of the South, we increased our total grants made to the region from 17 percent (2013–2018) to 24 percent (2018–2024) to help advance justice and sustainability efforts in this historically under-resourced part of the U.S.
We launched a Resilient Organizations Initiative (ROI) to provide cohorts of grantees with assistance with fundraising, financial management, leadership training, and technology systems.
When the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in higher education admissions, we reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to racial justice and have sought to deepen our commitment by engaging with external stakeholders and boosting our learning efforts.
As the world around us seemed to polarize and pull itself apart, I reorganized Surdna to foster a more collaborative culture in service of our mission.

In this report, we describe how we implemented our refined program strategies, reexamined and reshaped our internal operations, and reorganized the foundation to enhance collaboration and deliver greater impact. In 2025, we will also publish a comprehensive report on how Surdna fulfilled its $100 million commitment to impact investing, which was announced in 2017, the Foundation’s Centennial year.

Grantmaking

Four programs, one common goal:
Racial Justice

Racial Justice: The systematic fair treatment of people of all races through the elimination of policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race.

Andrus
Family Fund

A person with brown skin and black hair wears a yellow dress and speaks into a microphone in front of a yellow sign that reads

Inclusive
Economies

One person with brown skin and short hair sits in a chair on a stage and speak into a microphone. A person with brown skin and should-length curly hair sits next to her and listens.

Sustainable
Environments

Indigenous person wearing a yellow shirt speaks into a microphone to a crowd in the street

Thriving
Cultures

Six Years of Meeting the Moment

The pandemic, economic crisis, and our nation’s long-needed reckoning with racial injustices call upon all of us to do more and to do better.

Increased grants in the South, which is historically under-resourced despite its outsized importance and wide racial inequities;
COVID response: 97 rapid response grants between March 2020–June 2020, $2.8 million total;
Increased spending for racial justice: In 2020, millions across the U.S. stepped up in support of Black lives and against systemic anti-Black racism. To meet the moment, Surdna increased its grantmaking for racial justice by $45 million over three years.

Geographic Areas Served in Aggregate

2018–2024

Map of grantmaking across the US. 37% national funding, 24% in the south, 16% northeast, 11% midwest, 11% west, 1% Puerto Rico

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

Andrus Family Fund

Raul Botello: person with brown skin and black short hair. he is wearing glasses and a dark grey shirt. Jennifer Arwade: person with light tan skin and black wavy hair. She is wearing a blue shirt. — Raul Botello and Jenny Arwade, co-executive directors at Communities United

Free to Learn and Lead

Communities United

When Jennifer “Jenny” Arwade and Raul Botello joined Communities United as organizers twenty years ago, they couldn’t have predicted the huge impact the intergenerational racial justice organization would have on their lives and Chicago’s students. Jenny and Raul married several years later and became the organization’s co-executive directors in 2001. As conveners of the Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) alliance, they have been part of a successful youth-led movement transforming what safety means in schools and communities.

Raul recalls that, in 2005, Illinois had some of the highest suspension rates for Black students in the country, especially those with disabilities. Through VOYCE, young people shared stories and research about how harsh school discipline policies excluded them from learning in the classroom. They showed how suspensions and the presence of police in schools disproportionately affected students of color, weren’t making schools any safer, and increased the likelihood of students becoming involved with the juvenile justice system.

Years of advocacy helped lead to a groundbreaking law in Illinois in 2016 that ended harsh school discipline practices. In 2024, movement leaders encouraged the Chicago Board of Education to unanimously vote to remove police from public schools and reinvest over $3.2 million into holistic, proven approaches to school safety, such as hiring more counselors. Now the lead partner with a Chicago district phasing police out of its schools, Communities United ensures that youth and families who have been harmed by the former system of harsh discipline and policing are the ones defining what that change looks like.

This work is not just about policing. It's about public health; it's about education; it's about wellness; it's about the sustainability of lives. And if these lives are the next generation, what does it say when we excessively invest in incarceration and policing?"

–Raul Botello, co-executive director, Communities United

Students stand in a circle doing an exercise with one arm up and one arm in front of them. — Healing Through Justice is a community-led healing program that supports Chicago youth in developing leadership skills so they can advocate for changes at their schools, in their communities, and in city government. (*Photo courtesy of Communities United)*

Though energized by their wins, Jenny and Raul know there is more work to do. Recently, one of the high schools they work with lost two young people to violence within two months. A member of Communities United staff, during his free time, was a victim in a mass shooting and, thankfully, survived.

“It’s impossible to be too excited when we still see that kind of loss that is completely preventable and the direct result of racism and disinvestment in communities,” Jenny says. Still, they remain steadfast in the work, knowing that shifting to community-driven alternatives won’t come unless movement leaders demand and create them. That’s why Communities United continues to develop grassroots leadership and build organizing power to advance affordable housing, health equity, education justice, youth investment, and immigrant rights, as well as shift resources from the criminal justice and juvenile justice systems into restorative justice alternatives. They’re fortunate that over the years, many of their partners remain in the movement and community. 

“It’s powerful to see Communities United youth, parents, and partners lead community alternatives to policing systems—in their schools and neighborhoods,” says Mishi Faruqee, director of the Andrus Family Fund (AFF), a program of the Surdna Foundation. “All children deserve space to learn, live, and grow up without fear.”

AFF gave its first grant to Communities United in 2020, at a time when the country was witnessing how harmful—and fatal—U.S. policing systems could be, particularly for Black communities. Two years later, AFF launched a refreshed grantmaking strategy focused on community organizations building the power of BIPOC youth and families to abolish harmful systems like policing in schools, juvenile prisons, and a child welfare system that separates families instead of investing in them.

According to Raul, “it’s liberatory that folks on the ground can have conversations about visions of community and what they want to see changed. The key is to not let go of the dream of the young people.”

$3.2M Communities United and partners encouraged the Chicago School Board of Education to remove police from public schools and reinvest over $3.2 million into holistic approaches to school safety, such as counselors.

Rethinking Safety with Communities United

Building Youth Power to Transform Systems

$30.2M

In Grants

To youth justice organizations creating community alternatives to youth incarceration, school policing, and family separation since 2018.
25

States

Supported youth justice initiatives in 25 states since 2018.
7

States

Helped fuel a powerful youth-driven movement to end youth incarceration including funding successful campaigns to close youth prisons in 7 states.

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

A large group of students gather in front of a capital building to advocate for counselors instead of policing in schools.

The Andrus Family Fund

The Andrus Family Fund supports the self-determination, power, and liberation of Black, Brown, AAPI, and Indigenous youth impacted by the youth justice, child welfare, and other disruptive systems.

Photo: Urban Youth Collaborative

Andrus Family Fund

Inclusive Economies

Lauren Jacobs, executive director of PowerSwitch Action (photo courtesy of PowerSwitch Action)

Building Wealth for People and Communities

PowerSwitch Action

Born and raised in Harlem in the 70s and 80s, Lauren Jacobs, executive director of PowerSwitch Action (PowerSwitch), grew up in a neighborhood where Black and Latinx kids played stickball together. A true city kid, she took the New York City subway smushed up against all of humanity, she says, laughing, a thing any New Yorker can attest to.

“All of us can work together and get a sense of our shared destiny, even when we don’t know each other,” says Lauren, reflecting on her experiences growing up and how they led to her career organizing to improve working conditions with SEIU and now PowerSwitch.

PowerSwitch, (previously Partnership for Working Families), a national community of organizers, strategists, and leaders, has a 24-hour view of working people’s lives and what they care about—livable wages, health insurance, affordable housing, and opportunities for their children. Its network of 21 grassroots affiliates aims to take back control over our lives from corporations, so we can have good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy planet.

Lauren explains that a worker’s ability to organize is essential. It sows the seeds of democracy, asking difficult but necessary questions like, “How do we think about how those resources are getting deployed for the best benefit of everyone? There’s also the transit system, the water, the library, all the other systems that support elders and children, and all the other pieces of the community.”

All of us can work together and get a sense of our shared destiny, even when we don't know each other."

–Lauren Jacobs, executive director of PowerSwitch Action

Drivers stand in front of Uber headquarters and demand fair pay — Drivers gather in front of Uber headquarters to demand fair pay from the ride-sharing app. (*photo courtesy of PowerSwitch Action*)

She smiles broadly as she talks about how PowerSwitch’s affiliates went toe-to-toe with Amazon during its national request for proposals from local governments to host the corporation’s new “HQ2” headquarters in 2017. In New York City, PowerSwitch affiliate ALIGN helped forge a coalition that argued that Amazon hurts working-class neighborhoods and people of color because of the nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and subsidies offered by New York City and New York State–funds that otherwise would go to public resources such as schools and social services. PowerSwitch and Align’s efforts generated intense community opposition which forced Amazon to abandon its New York City plans. In retrospect, many New Yorkers are breathing a sigh of relief because Amazon is falling far short of its promises of job creation and economic development at its HQ2 headquarters in Northern Virginia, where it actually laid off hundreds of workers in 2023.

Don Chen, president of the Surdna Foundation, has worked with PowerSwitch since his days at the Ford Foundation. In May 2024, Surdna’s Inclusive Economies team awarded PowerSwitch a $900,000 grant, providing general operating support for three years, something grantee partners attest is essential to their work.

“General operating support is critical because the ability to pivot and adjust depending on what is happening in the field is critical, and sometimes project grants can be very rigid,” Lauren explains.

Patrice R. Green, vice president of programs at Surdna, notes, “By calling for fair pay and safe jobs, naming unchecked corporate greed, and bringing alliances together to organize locally and nationally, PowerSwitch Action is making the U.S. economy more inclusive, prosperous, and equitable for everyone.”

$7.25 The U.S. federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009 despite the Consumer Price Index increasing by nearly 50 percent during that 15-year period. Only 30 states and four territories have increased their minimum wage—while 20 states and one territory still rely on the federal minimum.

PowerSwitch and the National Employment Law Project recently issued the “Bully’s Playbook” on how app-based ride and delivery companies exploit drivers and riders for profit—and how workers fight for more for themselves, their families, and their communities.

PowerSwitch is also taking on abusive state preemption, which is used by state legislatures—often at the behest of corporate interests—to block local governments from adopting policies to meet urgent community needs, such as higher local minimum wages, housing affordability, and anti-discrimination protections. By exposing the ways corporations wield disproportionate influence on state and local policy and organizing communities to fight back, PowerSwitch and its affiliates are laying the groundwork to repeal these bans.

“What’s happening is things get preempted, and then nothing happens at the state level, Lauren expounds. “Who’s benefiting from deregulation, or the lack of regulation on these things—corporations.”

Lauren underlined the importance of speaking with people on the ground and asking questions like, “Why is the minimum wage in Pennsylvania stuck at $7.25?”

Twenty U.S. states still use the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which has not changed since 2009.

“How do we talk about this in a way that it just makes concrete sense to everyday folks?” The cost of not doing anything is too great,” she said. “We can’t be deterred because, then, you’re accepting economic tyranny.”

Forging an Economy That Works for All

$63.7M

In Grants

To economic justice organizations supporting businesses owned by people of color and increasing community voice in economic planning since 2018.
119

Policies Adopted

Advancing accountability and transparency in economic development and strengthening labor standards.
$426M

In Deals Secured

By entrepreneurs of color through financial deals to support and grow their businesses. Reported between 2022 and 2024 by grantees: CapEQ, Opportunity Finance Network, Washington Area Community Investment Fund, Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Higher Purpose, Rutgers Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, and Urban Manufacturing Alliance.

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

Sustainable Environments

Maria Lopez-Nuñez, former deputy director, organizing and advocacy at Ironbound Community Corporation (Photo courtesy of ICC)

Free to Breathe Clean Air

Ironbound Community Corporation

The Ironbound Community Corporation’s (ICC) Maria Lopez-Nunez grew up in a now-distant Bushwick, Brooklyn when you could still rent a three-bedroom apartment for $450.

A Honduran immigrant, Maria’s life changed when her family’s landlord died and the new building owner doubled the rent overnight, forcing them to leave. A young teenager at the time, Maria felt the injustice. Waves of her family had immigrated and shared space in that apartment throughout her childhood, and in an instant, an era ended.

Maria remembers, “I started learning about how race determined everything about you. That really captivated me as being the biggest injustice, that your race could dictate not just the food you eat, not just where you live, or if you were harassed by the police or immigration, but also the very air that you’re breathing.”

I believe in my people, I believe in my community, and I've seen us win. I know it's possible we can win.

–Maria Lopez-Nuñez, former deputy director, organizing and advocacy at ICC

Maria now works in the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, known for its great restaurants and cultural festivals. It’s a hardworking community of people from around the world who came to make better lives for themselves and their families. Despite its many cultural riches, the four-square-mile neighborhood faces some serious environmental challenges. It’s a place where factories are located next to homes and, as Maria explains, “None of the stuff in our neighborhood serves the city of Newark exclusively. We’re burning other people’s trash.”

Ironbound has three power plants, the state’s largest garbage incinerator, and one of the largest sewage treatment facilities in the country. Forty percent of trash processed in the neighborhood comes from New York and other municipalities in New Jersey. The sewage treatment facility processes waste from 12 different states.

The area is surrounded by the longest Superfund site in the country, the Passaic River, where a nearby chemical plant manufactured Agent Orange and dumped dioxin and other cancer-causing chemicals into the river. There are open pits of sewage that, by law, should be covered.

Community members join Ironbound Community Corporation's annual March for Clean Air, opposing a proposal to build a fourth fossil fuel power plant in Newark. — Community members join Ironbound Community Corporation’s annual March for Clean Air, opposing a proposal to build a fourth fossil fuel power plant in Newark. *(Photo courtesy of ICC)*

Landmark Law Ironbound Community Corporation and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance were driving forces behind the country’s first environmental justice law that limits new polluting facilities in overburdened areas.

“When it rains in the Ironbound, where there is less than five percent tree coverage, it floods,” Maria says. “That flood brings up sewage and toxic chemicals that kids wade through to go to school.”

“There is a chemical smell that, at first, resembles peppermint, until it doesn’t, and your eyes begin to fill with water,” Maria adds. “There is an acrid smell of dead animal flesh. There is a smell that resembles gasoline.”

“We think about all the poison in the food we eat and the water we drink.Everybody’s being impacted in some way or another, even if Black and Brown people are getting it worse.”

Still, Maria is as optimistic as ever.

“I believe in my people, I believe in my community, and I’ve seen us win. I know it’s possible we can win,” she says.

For 55 years, the Ironbound Community Corporation has been building community and organizing people toward a healthy, safe, and inclusive future. Clean Water Action and grantee partners Ironbound Community Corporation and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (NJEJA), were driving forces behind the passing of the country’s first environmental justice law that limits new polluting facilities in areas already overburdened with pollution. The law requires the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to take a community-first approach to planning and permitting certain pollution-generating facilities. First, it requires applicants to engage community stakeholders upfront and assess relevant environmental and public health stressors in overburdened communities. Second, it requires the NJDEP to deny or condition permits for facilities that cannot avoid or appropriately minimize the occurrence of disproportionate environmental or public health stressors.

The Sacrifice Zone (directed by Julie Winokur) follows Ironbound Community Corporation's Maria Lopez-Nuñez as she leads a group of environmental justice fighters determined to break the cycle of poor communities of color serving as dumping grounds for our consumer society.

When Governor Murphy announced the final adoption of the Environmental Justice law in 2023, Maria noted, “The EJ Law has been dreamed up and fought for by frontline communities historically excluded from the environmental protections that allow the rest of our state to be a garden. We are depending on this law to put a stop to a legacy of siting toxic industries in low-wealth, communities of color.” Melissa Miles, Executive Director for the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, said, “This is a decades-long struggle that has finally borne fruit. By raising the bar in overburdened communities, everyone will benefit. This is a victory for us all.”

Surdna’s Sustainable Environments program started funding Ironbound in 2018, having built a relationship with Maria through her notable work in New Jersey and alliances such as the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance and Climate Justice Alliance.

In 2021, Surdna’s Sustainable Environments team awarded ICC a three-year $450,000 general operating support grant, recognizing how ICC’s environmental justice work helps ensure environmental protections for low-income communities of color who make up the majority of residents in Ironbound.

Thanu Yakupitiyage, program officer for sustainable environments at Surdna says, “Ironbound Community Corporation is an exemplar of why philanthropy should invest in grassroots, frontline organizations working at the intersection of environmental and racial justice. Surdna was one of the first national funders to support ICC and six years later, Ironbound is part of an ecosystem of environmental justice groups that have shifted the narrative on environmental justice in New Jersey, making it a priority issue.”

Most recently, ICC stopped a $120 million dollar sludge facility—that would have burned more than 400 tons of waste a day—from being built in the Ironbound. The project getting shut down was a big win. But, ICC’s fight to prevent polluting facilities from coming into overburdened communities and ending fossil fuel infrastructure presses on. In recent years, ICC has organized hundreds of community members to speak out against the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) and their proposal to build a fourth natural gas power plant in the Ironbound neighborhood. ICC continues to strategize on ways to redirect the funds from PVSC’s polluting fossil-fuel infrastructure toward a renewable energy micro-grid. They exemplify that building power, supporting local campaigns, and investing in community-led environmental and climate justice solutions is beneficial for all.

“We’re all fighting for ourselves,” Maria notes, “for each other.”

Maria Lopez-Nunez left the Ironbound Community Corporation in December of 2024 after 10 years of service, though her contributions remain. This piece is shared in honor of Maria’s work with her and ICC’s permission.

Supporting Grassroots, BIPOC-led Climate Solutions

$64.9M

In Grants

To environmental and climate justice movements and organizations since 2018.
85%

Unrestricted Grants

To BIPOC-led organizations.
16,000

Farmers

Supported through technical assistance and/or legal support.

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

Five people stand on a stage holding banners that read

The Sustainable Environments Program

We support the creation of just and sustainable communities in which low-wealth and communities of color have the power to self-determine the ownership, control, and stewardship of land and its infrastructure assets.

Photo: Right to the City

Sustainable Environments

Thriving Cultures

Person with light skin and ginger hair wears glasses and a burgundy shirt. Bre Rivera center with brown skin and short black hair. She is wearing a white shirt. Person on the right with light brown skin and black hair worn in dreadlocks up in a bun. — The Black Trans Fund team from left to right: Rainier Miles, Bré Rivera, HunterDae “HD” Goodridge. *Photo courtesy of BTF*

Free to
Imagine

Black Trans Fund

The Black Trans Fund (BTF) is a labor of love for its founder and director Bré Rivera, an unapologetically Black trans femme person with disabilities, and long-time advocate for Black trans communities.

“I am proud to be a part of a rich and diverse lineage of Black trans and gender-expansive leaders who are dreaming of a world that centers joy,” says Bré. “Despite these trying times when trans-bodily autonomy and rights are under attack, we are still able to invest in and witness the glory and innovation of care work led on behalf of Black trans communities.”

Launched in 2020, the Black Trans Fund aims to shift the narrative of Black trans communities to joy and resilience. Bré dreamt the fund into existence after visiting New York City five years earlier and questioned why so many Black trans-led organizations were struggling to find funding in such a wealthy city. While many said it couldn’t be done, she now leads the first national fund led by and for Black trans people in the U.S.

Despite these trying times when trans-bodily autonomy and rights are under attack, we are still able to invest in and witness the glory and innovation of care work led on behalf of Black trans communities."

–Bré Rivera, Founder and Director of the Black Trans Fund

Nine people stand arm-in-arm on a board walk in front of the ocean and smile — The Black Trans Fund community: Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi & J Mase III (Black Trans Prayer Book), HD Goodridge & Bre Rivera (Black Trans Fund), Betun Warhol (Espicy Nipples), Omaria Sanchez Pratt (Writer), More and Sora (Espicy Nipples), FreeQuency (Artist)/Cultural Organizer). *Photo courtesy of BTF*

“What does it look like to celebrate our folks while they’re here?” Bré asks. “Because that’s important. I don’t want our folks to always see us in this position of lack and despair. But also, I don’t want to continue to have an organization that’s talking about joy and liberation, without fully being able to talk about the loss in our community and how it prevents that joy and liberation.”

The Black Trans Fund pools support from a group of funding partners. Surdna’s Thriving Cultures Program made a four-year $1.75 million grant for BTF’s Arts and Culture Pathways Fund, a first-of-its-kind arts fellowship and grantmaking program run by Black trans people supporting Black trans art, artists, and arts and culture organizations.

Five Black trans and gender-expansive artists participated in BTF’s inaugural Arts and Culture Pathways Fellowship in 2023, receiving funding for their own cultural work. The pathways—Explorative, Developmental, and Capacity Building—are defined and guided by BTF’s artist community and are shepherded with the support of artist liaisons Lady Dane and J Mase III of The Black Trans Prayer Book, and managed by J. HunterDae “HD” Goodridge. The five artist fellows, in turn, developed the funding criteria and supported the search and selection of the Arts and Culture Pathways Fund’s first four arts and culture grantee organizations.

One of those organizations was Comfrey Films, a North Carolina-based film training program and production house designed to launch Black trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex storytellers into independent filmmaking. Its name is an ode to the comfrey plant used for wound closure because storytelling and stories can heal wounds that have been open for far too long.

Comfrey Films—supported by Black Trans Fund's Arts and Culture Pathways Fund

“There is a level of relationship and trust and protection that we invest in that actually allows our folks to freely talk about their work, which is where possibilities happen,” says Bré.

“The Black Trans Fund and its grantees are part of a long tradition of Black artists and cultural workers at the forefront of social justice movements,” says Robert Smith III, Surdna’s senior program officer for thriving cultures, who first met Bré as he sought to deepen the foundation’s commitment to trans communities. “They are keepers of a culture that brings joy, creativity, and a transformative vision of a society where all can flourish despite ongoing attacks and violence. We could all use more of that.”

Bré’s hope is that the Black Trans Fund’s grantees will help us build a world that will be able to sustain joy. Because, as she says, “Joy work transforms conditions in the world. Not just for trans people, but for everyone.”

Joy work transforms conditions in the world. Not just for trans people, but for everyone."

–Bré Rivera, founder and director of The Black Trans Fund

$1.75 M Surdna's Thriving Cultures Program made a $1.75 million grant for BTF’s Arts and Culture Pathways Fund, a first-of-its-kind arts fellowship and grantmaking program run by Black trans people supporting Black trans art, artists, and arts and culture organizations.

Radical Imagination for Racial Justice

$64.6M

In Grants

To arts and culture organizations supporting cultural critics, researchers, and artists of color since 2018.
175

BIPOC Artists

And collectives funded to work with communities to imagine and build racially just systems since 2020.
$2.1M

Invested

In Black trans-led and serving organizations.

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

Four adults and three kids sit at a picnic table and make art.

The Thriving Cultures Program

We support organizations, intermediaries, and initiatives that are creating the conditions in which artists of color, guided by radical imagination, are leaders in the cultivation of a racially just society.

Photo: The Laundromat Project

Thriving Cultures

Impact Investing

Investing in a Just & Sustainable Future

Person with brown skin and a shaved head wears glasses and a blue button-down shirt. He sits at a table with a couple other people in front of computers and talks. — Daryn Dodson and the Illumen Capital team help investors address systemic inequity by reducing racial and gender bias in investing. (*photo courtesy of Illumen Capital*)

Free from Bias

Of the over $82 trillion in wealth managed in the United States, almost 99% is managed by firms led by white men – only 1.4% is managed by firms owned by women and people of color.

Yet there is a growing body of evidence suggesting the outperformance of diverse teams in the world of investing.

Daryn Dodson is very familiar with this research because it led him to establish Illumen Capital, a Black-owned and diverse-led impact fund focused on achieving racial and gender equity in investing while aiming for competitive financial returns for investors.

Illumen Capital CEO Daryn Dodson: Investors Let Racial Bias Cloud Their Judgment, Harm Their ROI

To get a better understanding of bias in the investment industry, the Illumen Capital team conducted and published research with Stanford SPARQ that found that race influences the decision-making of professional investors. The results show that, with all other factors being equal, close to 200 professional investors rated the expected performance of a white-led fund higher than a Black-led fund.

“It was especially surprising that when we tested for performance, the better the track record for Black managers, the more bias they faced,” says Dodson. “To us, that suggests that investors are leaving money on the table because they’re not able to properly evaluate opportunities led by underrepresented people of color.”

In 2018, Dodson launched Illumen Capital’s first fund, in which Surdna’s Impact Investing team invested an initial $1 million. Illumen Capital works closely with venture, growth, and private equity funds to better identify, evaluate, and ultimately invest in founders and entrepreneurs who have been overlooked and underestimated. By combining evidence-based strategies to reduce bias with investment capital, Illumen Capital aims to optimize financial performance while generating more equitable outcomes. Indeed, evidence shows that greater representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color in management is tied to higher cash flow, net profit, and stock performance.

We believe that bias in investing is a structural problem that needs a structural solution."

–Daryn Dodson, managing partner and founder of Illumen Capital

One person with brown skin and curly black hair sits at a table and speaks with a person with light skin and shoulder-length black hair. — Illumen Capital’s SVP of Product & Impact Joanna Kuang, and Impact Associate Leila Mengesha (*photo courtesy of Illumen Capital*)

“We often hear from our fund managers that they know the future is diverse and they want to do the work to better include a range of perspectives and lived experiences, but they don’t know how to do that,” Daryn explains, “So, we help them access and navigate that space.”

One of the companies in Illumen’s underlying portfolio companies, EarnUp, has helped over 3 million people pay down mortgages, student loans, and other debt faster, saving thousands in interest charges. Another example, Rebel Girls, has sold over 9 million books amplifying stories of real-life women to inspire a generation of girls.

“Illumen Capital is doing truly cutting-edge research and education about racial bias in the field of finance. They have the ability to influence the broader system beyond just the investments they make, and that is really exciting,” says Adam Connaker, director of impact investing at the Surdna Foundation.

In 2021, Surdna committed another $1 million to Illumen Capital’s second fund.

“One of the common denominators across our entire investor base is a deep commitment to racial justice and racial equity – and that is certainly true of Surdna,” says Dodson. “Having Surdna’s partnership early on was extremely catalytic for me as a Black, first-time fund manager with a thesis and strategy that didn’t look like anything else in the field.”

Now, in a time of growing backlash to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the investing industry and beyond, Illumen Capital’s deep network and research across the field showcase the power of investing in diverse fund managers.

References made to testimonials by any third party to invest with Illumen Capital Management, LLC are not indicative of future performance and do not imply any guaranteed level of service, skill, or training. Investors should not rely on endorsements for any purpose and should conduct their own review prior to investing. The Surdna Foundation was not compensated by Illumen either by cash or non-cash compensation in connection with the investor statements.

$170M

Invested

In line with Surdna’s social justice mission since the launch of the portfolio in 2017.
67%

Diverse-owned Firms

Two-thirds of Surdna’s impact investing portfolio is invested in diverse-owned firms. Over a third of the entire endowment is now invested in diverse-owned firms—up 17% since 2017.
+12.4%

Annual returns

The Mission Related Investment (MRI) portfolio returned more than 12 percent annually, outperforming the total endowment by over 5.5%.

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

Beyond the Money

Leaning into longstanding practice of trusting, authentic relationships and capacity building

One person speaks to another person in front of a poster with post-it notes — Surdna’s Resilient Organizations Initiative began with a simple question in 2020, “Whose needs are being served by our financial due diligence process?”

The Power of A Question

Surdna’s Resilient Organizations Initiative began with a simple question: “Whose needs are being served by our financial due diligence process?”

To help think this through, Jonathan Goldberg, Surdna’s vice president of learning and impact, connected with Rodney Christopher and Jennifer Pedroni of BDO—a nationwide accounting, consulting, and service firm (and Surdna’s auditor). They later joined forces to serve grantees.

“Our grantees, most of which are led by people of color, are doing excellent work, but often lack access to steady funding streams and reserves, which causes some funders to reject a grant application,” says Jonathan. “We partnered with BDO to find the causes and solutions to these financial challenges and offer tailored consulting so that our grantees can build a solid financial plan for the future.”

Today, BDO offers Surdna grantees financial planning and support for stabilizing and/or growing their organizations.

By investing in leadership development, organizational resilience, and financial health through ROI, these programs build the capacity for mission-driven organizations—particularly those led by people of color—to drive real, sustainable impact in their communities.”

–Sophy Yem, senior program officer for philanthropy at Surdna

Soojin Son, senior manager at BDO, describes how they begin working with grantees—asking questions and listening to understand an organization’s current state, challenges, and ways they need support.

“I think one of the things that come before these bigger changes is a sense of being heard,” Soojin says. “Smaller organizations sometimes feel like they’re alone in their challenges,” she continues. “But because we’ve worked with so many organizations across a spectrum of sizes and mission areas and geographies, we can tell them that what they’re going through, we’ve heard from so many other leaders of other nonprofits. Something that for us sometimes seems like every day, mundane, small changes, can have a really large impact.”

In addition to BDO’s offerings, Surdna’s Resilient Organizations Initiative (ROI), which launched in 2022, provides cohorts of grantees leadership training as well as fundraising and technology assistance. The initiative builds upon Surdna’s longstanding practice of “beyond the money” support as listeners, collaborators, capacity-builders, conveners, connectors, communicators, and helpers.

A group of people laugh and smile, holding a sign that reads,

Surdna’s Senior Program Officer for Philanthropy, Sophy Yem, co-created the Resilient Organizations Initiative with Jonathan. She’s particularly excited about the management training program.

“The Institute for Nonprofit Practice program is essential to ROI because it empowers leaders and organizations to thrive, not just survive,” says Sophy. “By investing in leadership development, organizational resilience, and financial health through ROI, these programs build the capacity for mission-driven organizations—particularly those led by people of color—to drive real, sustainable impact in their communities.”

At its heart, the Resilient Organizations Initiative is an effort to lead with our values and deepen trust-based and racial justice philanthropic practices by listening to grantees, asking questions, and evolving our grantmaking practices. To further this commitment, we are currently developing a comprehensive survey aimed at gathering feedback from grantees on the current services offered through the Resilient Organizations Initiative. This survey will not only assess which services grantees find most valuable but will also invite suggestions for new offerings that could better meet their needs, ensuring our initiative remains responsive and effective in fostering resilience and equity in their work.

32

Leadership Training Participants

Enrolled in the Institute for Nonprofit Practice’s Core Certificate Program for leaders and senior staff. The majority of participating Surdna grantees are leaders of color.
1:1

Financial Consulting

BDO has worked with eight of our grantee partners for 1:1 financial planning consulting ranging from coaching support to full-scale multiyear capacity support and establishing independent 501(c)3 status.
21

Fundraising Training Participants

Enrolled in Network for Good’s JumpStart Program that pairs nonprofits with a personal fundraising coach.

View more in-depth analysis on By the Numbers

What We’re Learning

We believe that learning with and in service of our grantees is essential to driving impact. We work closely with programs, grantees, and peer funders to streamline grant processes, build capacity, measure impact, and understand the trends, stories, and lessons behind the data. Here are a few things we’re learning:

Three people stand speaking to one another. The person in the middle is speaking and has brown skin and short natural hair wearing blue glasses. — Patrice R. Green, vice president of programs at Surdna, speaks with grantees and partners during a grantee partner convening.

Values are the best grantmaking guidelines. In 2018, we had a values-based mandate to put racial justice at the center of our social justice mission. The north star of making good on our racial justice mission in a deeply thoughtful and authentic way guided our work over the last six years. It’s also what led Surdna’s Board to increase our spending for racial justice in 2020 to meet the most important racial justice moment in our generation—through our grantmaking, policies, and practices.

When you want to meet the moment, you can’t anticipate how the moment will evolve. When we surged our funding for racial justice in 2020, we wanted to meet the moment and established a thoughtful, three-year increased spending plan totaling $45 million. At the time, we had no idea how the moment would evolve. Since then, we’ve witnessed a coordinated backlash against racial justice. As we concluded our time-limited spending increase, it felt challenging to return to our normal spending level given how the moment had evolved. Still, we are proud of how we stepped up in 2020 and recognize that returning to our normal spending levels will enable Surdna to support our partners for the long haul.

Impact investing is a good step toward the endowment of the future. Eight years ago, we made an initial allocation of $100 million to impact investing from our endowment—roughly 10 percent—and charted our journey to impact investing. The strategy for our initial pilot portfolio was simple: widen the aperture of acceptable risk through two new dedicated pools of higher risk-seeking capital with the goal to “graduate” new impact funds through these pools into the endowment over time. We sought to design a financially accretive and highly impactful portfolio that would guide us toward our endowment of the future. We used $20 million to invest in more nascent strategies and managers while committing the remaining $80 million to test larger sourcing, execution, and performance of the impact space.

Today, the portfolio is fully committed and still growing. Performance is among the best of our entire endowment, albeit still early. As we move from testing to scaling, we are now grappling with new questions. How do we move beyond carve-out and avoid the pitfalls it can bring? How do we deepen our authenticity to racial justice? How can we leverage this opportunity so others can learn from our experience?

Five people sit at a table in an office and talk. — Surdna grantee partners participate in the Institute for Nonprofit Practice’s Core Certificate Program for leaders and senior staff. *Photo credit: Nikki Bruce*

There’s no place for top-down learning in trust-based philanthropy. At times, we made the mistake of imposing top-down metrics. This led to irrelevant data and ineffective learning tools that did not work for our grantees. By not involving our partners, we created frameworks in isolation, resulting in metrics that did not align with their realities and needs. We’ve since taken an equitable approach to learning that engages our grantees, philanthropic colleagues, and other stakeholders to identify the most relevant metrics and indicators. This approach was challenging but necessary to build trust and obtain honest, valuable data. Strategic trust-based philanthropy may be slower, but it yields greater impact in the long run.

Beyond-the-money support only works when it works for the grantee. Our grantees are busy advancing racial and social justice every day in the face of precarious social, economic, and environmental conditions. To ensure our partners can better sustain their work and actually focus on their mission, we launched a suite of programs to offer technological and financial assistance, leadership training, and other beyond-the-money support. However, when a few grantees elected to drop out of the cohorts due to capacity and shifting priorities, we realized that we needed to be more clear about the commitment early on and ensure our offerings were flexible and aligned with our partners’ evolving needs.

To be effective on the outside, get right on the inside. Over the years, our programs have operated independently of one another and haven’t fully taken advantage of opportunities to share and learn across the Foundation. So in 2022, Surdna President Don Chen reevaluated our organizational structure for more collaborative and impactful work toward our mission. We rolled out the reorganization quickly in late 2022 and then spent half a year clarifying roles, responsibilities, and how we would collaborate for racial justice before announcing the change publicly.

A group of people stand together in a bodega and a man with a poster speaks to the crowd — The Andrus Family Fund and Surdna board and staff carve out time for shared learning on a site visit to grantee partner Lead By Example Reverse The Trend in Harlem, NYC.

Interested in more? Here are a few learnings we’ve shared over the past few years:

With Great Responsibility

A closing message from Don Chen

A group of twenty people stand and smile in front of two brick houses. — Surdna staff visit Montgomery, Alabama for tours of the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Sites and lunch at Brenda’s BBQ Pit, a historic community restaurant established in 1942 by the parents of the current owner, Larry Bethune.

Today, the need for values-driven leadership couldn’t be greater. Over 200 years of progress, there have always been attempts to subvert our democracy—be it through efforts that prioritize the needs of the powerful few over the many, attempts to subvert voting rights and spread mis- and dis-information, and other seeds that sow division. After years of extremism and polarization, we need leaders who can motivate people toward belonging and fairness rather than exclusion and prejudice. This is especially vital as public trust declines in institutions that advance democracy, freedom, and civil society—nonprofits, higher education, government, and foundations. We must restore that trust. As tax-advantaged civil society organizations, foundations have a responsibility to help protect these democratic institutions, push the envelope on social innovations, and support the civic participation of those who historically have been marginalized.

At Surdna, this sense of civic responsibility has driven us to be rigorously intentional about pursuing our mission, transparent about our decision-making and outcomes, and eager to share candid stories from our most important partners: grantee organizations. We hope that our willingness to share lessons will foster meaningful learning and contribute knowledge to the field.

A group of people sit on a low wall in a back garden area and look at a metal sculpture of a Black woman. — Surdna staff gather around the back garden of the More Up Campus in Montgomery, Alabama, to view “The Mothers of Gynecology” monument by Michelle Browder.

Looking ahead, we know that the landscape for progress on racial justice is uncertain. After the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action in higher education and the ensuing backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, many foundations are considering how to best support racial equity and justice initiatives, and some have pulled back from pledges made in 2020.

Fortunately, many have remained committed to fighting racial injustices, and several have sought to develop more effective approaches to making progress. PolicyLink, a longtime grantee partner, for example, recently launched a major campaign to frame the pursuit of racial equity within an embrace of “the all,” noting that “the ends of equity have always been ends for everyone: the transformation of our society—our laws, regulations, customs, institutions, and ways of relating—so that everyone can flourish.” Narrative change expert Trabian Shorters and the powerful team at the Perception Institute, also a grantee, have drawn from polling, focus groups, and mind-science research to champion the use of “asset framing” and “goal framing” as ways to organize people to support common societal goals, then address the ways in which our communities are falling short—unsurprisingly, with the evidence often pointing to racial disparities. Private sector leaders are reminding their peers about the decades of research that companies have amassed about how DEI initiatives have generated stronger financial performance, more inclusive corporate culture, and greater business opportunities.

Meanwhile, Surdna continues to focus on the fact that racial injustices—economic, cultural, and environmental—affect everyone. In the years ahead, we will remain steadfast in supporting organizations and initiatives that work with communities to surface solutions and improve people’s lives. We believe this is the path to a shared future where everyone has a sense of belonging, the power to participate fully in our democracy, and opportunities to prosper. In our privileged role as a philanthropic institution, we recognize that with great civic responsibility comes an imperative to make sure that—as our colleague Edgar Villanueva says—“we are using our power to ensure that we can all be powerful together.”

One question that I try to ask myself every day is, 'What can I do to make sure that everyone feels powerful?' It's not necessarily giving up our own power…but it is making sure that we are using our power to ensure that we can all be powerful together."

–Edgar Villanueva, author and principal of the Decolonizing Wealth Project

We are who we are because of others. Over 107 years ago, John E. Andrus, a businessman, public servant, and philanthropist, founded the Surdna Foundation. (Surdna is Andrus spelled backward.) His values moved him to put his wealth toward the public good and help those in need of opportunity. Since then, five generations of Andrus family members have governed the Surdna Foundation and, in recent decades, invited community members to its Board to help deliver on our mission. For over a century, the Foundation has been privileged to support thousands of nonprofit leaders, thinkers, and doers who listen to their communities and inspire collective action to help make society more just and sustainable. We stand on the shoulders of those who preceded us.

Thank you!

I’m grateful to be in this work together, sharing the challenges, heartbreaks, and joys of progress. Together, we are more powerful and effective on the journey to justice. On behalf of the Surdna Board and the team, thanks for all that you do.

Don Chen

President, Surdna Foundation

Together, we are more powerful and effective on the journey to justice. Thanks for all that you do."

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Journey to Justice
From the President
Grantmaking
Impact Investing
Beyond the Money
What We're Learning
With Great Responsibility

Journey to Justice

This report explores the ideas, numbers, and lessons behind the past six years of grantmaking—and stories about grantee partners’ work toward more just, sustainable communities.

A Message from Don Chen

Four programs, one common goal: Racial Justice

Six Years of Meeting the Moment

Geographic Areas Served in Aggregate

Free to Learn and Lead

Building Youth Power to Transform Systems

$30.2M

25

7

The Andrus Family Fund

Building Wealth for People and Communities

Forging an Economy That Works for All

$63.7M

119

$426M

The Inclusive Economies Program

Free to Breathe Clean Air

Supporting Grassroots, BIPOC-led Climate Solutions

$64.9M

85%

16,000

The Sustainable Environments Program

Free to Imagine

Radical Imagination for Racial Justice

$64.6M

175

$2.1M

The Thriving Cultures Program

Investing in a Just & Sustainable Future

Free from Bias

$170M

67%

+12.4%

Impact Investing

Leaning into longstanding practice of trusting, authentic relationships and capacity building

The Power of A Question

32

1:1

21

Resilient Organizations Initiative

Thank you!

By the Numbers

Four programs, one common goal:
Racial Justice

Free to
Imagine