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Open Call for Creative Social and Environmental Initiatives

Sponsors:
J.M. Kaplan Fund
Amount:
$175,000
External Deadline:
04/30/21
Opportunity Information:

The J.M. Kaplan Fund is pleased to announce the launch of the 2021 J.M.K. Innovation Prize.

In recent years, America has been reshaped by seismic social and environmental forces. A worldwide pandemic has laid bare deeply-rooted inequities. Communities from coast to coast have been upended by growing climate impacts. And efforts to dismantle democratic institutions have struck at the bedrock values of our nation. These compounding crises — affecting communities both rural and urban, from historically underrepresented voters to undocumented immigrant farmworkers — have forced social-impact organizations to reimagine how they respond to systemic societal challenges. In short, we need social innovators like we never have before.

The J.M.K. Innovation Prize seeks to respond to this moment. Since 2015, over three biennial prize cycles, the fund has supported thirty wildly creative social and environmental initiatives, ranging from neighborhood-led youth justice councils to researchers using wastewater to pinpoint COVID-19 hot spots. Leveraging a legacy of catalytic grant-making at the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the prize seeks out visionary nonprofit and mission-driven for-profit organizations that work within, across, or in a manner related to one or more of the fund’s three program areas:  

Social justice — buttressing democracy, voter education, and reforms to the criminal justice and immigration systems.

The environment — slowing the pace of climate change and mitigating climate impacts.

Heritage conservation — conserving the places that communities care about most.

In 2021, the fund will award up to ten prizes, with each prize including a cash award of $150,000 over three years, plus $25,000 in technical assistance funds (for a total award of $175,000).

Individuals or teams representing nonprofit or for-profit organizations are eligible to apply. Prizes will be awarded to projects or ideas that represent a game-changing answer to a clearly identified need; are innovative within one or more of the fund’s three program areas; demonstrate the potential to develop an actionable pilot or prototype with prize funding; and hold out the promise to benefit multiple individuals, communities, or sectors through a clearly articulated theory of change.

A first-round application will be made available on the JMKFund.org website on February 3 and will be open until April 30. Select applicants will be invited to submit a more detailed second-round application in late spring. Finalists will present their ideas to the trustees of the J.M. Kaplan Fund in the fall, with awardees formally announced in November 2021.

The fund will host an informational webinar on March 30. (Registration required.)

For more information and the online application forms, see the J.M. Kaplan Fund website.

ASU Information:

Submissions to this sponsor/donor are managed by the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations. Please contact your unit-assigned ASUF Director of Development or Research Advancement Specialist at your earliest convenience to ensure ASU's strategic coordination and management of funding applications.

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