The Edward W. Hazen Foundation closed in 2024 and does not accept unsolicited proposals or letters of inquiry.

The Edward W. Hazen Foundation supported two categories of organizations: those that organized for educational justice and those that engaged young people in middle and high school to organize for racial and social equity. Where there was overlap between these two groups, i.e. those in which young people were focusing on education as the target of their action, groups that fit either category may have been eligible for consideration.

The Foundation was national in scope, with organizations in the West, Midwest, and Southwest considered in the spring and those in the East and Southeast in the fall of each funding cycle. Only those invited by the Foundation to apply would be eligible to submit proposals.

All prospective grantees had to ground their action in the leadership and experiences of those closest to the issues, young people of color, their families and communities. They articulated an understanding of structural oppression based on race and class and engaged in campaigns that had the potential to fundamentally shift policy and discourse on racial and social equity.

The Foundation sought to support organizations that:

• Engaged in substantial organizing campaigns with systemic objectives;
• Demonstrated evidence of effectiveness at increasing power by building a broad and diverse base, partnering with key stakeholders and had a cogent analysis of the landscape including decision makers, allies, experts, opposition and strategic opportunities;
• Showcased a history and trajectory of accomplishment in pursuing racial justice goals in education (for adult and/or youth constituencies) and/or other issues affecting youth of color (for youth constituencies);
• Developed a strategic analysis of structural racism and the underpinnings of racial oppression and its intersections with factors such as gender, gender identity, economic class, and age;
• Demonstrated an ability to identify measurable policy objectives that were ambitious and reflected that analysis and the needs and interests of young people, their families and communities;
• Had a strategy for building power and developing authentic leadership among constituents;
• Showed potential to engage in a long-term learning agenda that deepened the impact of racial justice organizing;
• Had the financial and human resources sufficient to carry out the work described and financial projections that were reasonable in the current funding environment

In order to determine how an organization put its racial justice/structural racism analysis into practice externally, we looked for organizations with practices that:

• Framed issues or shifted the paradigm to include a structural racism or racial justice analysis:
  • Explicitly communicated issues with a structural racism analysis;
  • Racial analysis included an understanding of the relationship between history, culture and politics;
  • Tied their power analysis to their racial analysis;
  • Challenged multiple/interlocking institutions;
  • Practiced new ways of highlighting the racial dynamics of social issues.
• Used a structural racism analysis in its policy campaigns:
  • Organization’s understanding and articulation of issues rested on an analysis of institutional and structural racism and defined demands for external and policy change that communicated that understanding.
  • There was a plan for racial equity advocacy;
  • There was a strategy for deflecting external demands to prove that racial discrimination is intentional, focusing more on impact than intent, or to push race neutral policies such as those that use poverty as a proxy for race;
  • Organization collected data by race and/or disaggregated data by race whenever possible; and
  • Organization used racial equity impact assessments to anticipate what might be the racial justice impacts of proposed policies.
• Focused on and was accountable for racial justice outcomes. Outcomes may have been identified by behavior changes – individual actions that collectively showed evidence that they were contributing to changes in culture, systems, etc.
• Was a member of cohesive, cross-racial alliances that prioritized leadership in communities of color. The Organization had both tactical allies focused on specific short-term goals, and strategic allies based on a shared worldview and long-term goals.