The Public Welfare Foundation supports efforts to advance justice and opportunity for people in need. These efforts honor the Foundation’s core values of racial equity, economic well-being and fundamental fairness for all.
Public Welfare Foundation seeks to catalyze a transformative approach to justice in the United States that is community-led, restorative, and racially just by supporting the creation and implementation of an alternative vision of justice that is rooted in communities.
The Foundation looks for strategic points where its funds can make a significant difference to advance an alternative vision of justice through criminal justice and youth justice reforms that result in transformative change.
In its 70-year history, the Foundation has distributed more than $570 million in grants to more than 4,800 organizations. With current assets of more than $480 million, Public Welfare makes grants nationwide and focuses its grant making in some difficult, and often overlooked, social justice areas where it believes it can serve as a catalyst for reform.
To bolster grantees’ staying power, the Foundation often gives multi-year and general support grants. In its program areas, the Foundation clusters grants under targeted strategies to achieve longer term goals that can be sustained over time.
The foundation does not fund individuals, scholarships, direct services, or international projects.
The True Reformer Building was the first in the nation to be designed, financed, built, and owned by the African-American community after Reconstruction.Over the years, the building has housed numerous civic and cultural institutions. The legendary jazz musician Duke Ellington gave performances here.
The True Reformer building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The Public Welfare Foundation purchased it in 1999.
Today it operates as Public Welfare Foundation’s headquarters and a community hub to advance social good.
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We recommend this sentence be removed as it is covered on other pages and sets a 'stricter' tone than may be desirable on an About page:
"The foundation does not fund individuals, scholarships, direct services, or international projects."