The Sparkplug Foundation is a family foundation, funded and administered in the US. We are guided by community voices, and prioritize grassroots organizing and innovation as the key for creating change.
We try not to make demands of applicants and grantees that get in the way of their work, and are aware that many groups doing great work are new to grant applications. We offer assistance and supportive feedback along the way, as best we can with a small staff. We're continually looking for new ways to bring community direction to our grantmaking.
ANNOUNCING SPRING 2021 SPARKPLUG FOUNDATION GRANTEES
ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY SERVICES ($10,000) – People with disabilities and current and former nursing facility residents to organize a multi-facility group enabling them to have a voice in the policies that affect them, as well as improve health, safety and autonomy.
BALADNA YOUTH ($20,000) – Hawiya, Baladna’s youth project, enabling Palestinian youth to explore their identity, history and the political forces that deprive them of their individual and collective rights, will include workshops, training of educators, development of 10 youth leaders, and creation of educational videos and virtual tours.
CHANGE COMES NOW ($15,000) – 175 formerly incarcerated women in Change Comes Now’s project, the Clemency Quilt Tour, will bring the quilt to all of Florida’s 63 legislative districts for display in offices of state representatives in order to focus on clemency issues, train women inside prison as point people, and reduce the number of women in prison.
COPWATCH MEDIA ($15,000) – A community-based project to publish articles and videos about law enforcement's effects on New York City's hyper-policed Black, Latinx and non-white communities, as well as serving as a media watchdog to highlight reporting deferential to law enforcement (copaganda) and building a grassroots-based police misconduct database.
DONKEYSADDLE PROJECTS ($8,000) – Abolition Learning Circles, a political education series created by Donkeysaddle Projects, about prison, police and death penalty abolition utilizing virtual workshops, will guide artists, cultural workers and cultural organizers. Post-workshop collaborations will design creative community offerings.
GATHERING GROUND THEATER ($15,000) – As part of the Gathering Ground Theater’s work, The ArtsReponders project, a team made of people impacted by homelessness in Austin, TX, will devise and perform relevant and timely interventions for housing justice advocacy events, using craft (writing, improvisation and facilitation), scholarship, and art.
JUSTICE FOR MUSLIMS COLLECTIVE ($15,000) – For Justice for Muslims Collective’s project “Internalized Islamophobia: Unlearning the Oppression from Within,” which will include trainings designed to help Muslims understand and dissect the ways that they have been impacted by external Islamophobia.
DAVE MEDER ($6,800) – For “Unamuno Songs and Stories,” a jazz chamber music album of original compositions inspired by the works of Spanish Civil War-era philosopher and poet Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), aiming to musically recount social and political context and spark critical thought and dialogue on the importance of maintaining our American democratic institutions during a tenuous period in our nation’s history.
NEW PROFILE MOVEMENT FOR THE DEMILITARIZATION OF ISRAELI SOCIETY ($15,000) – To digitize New Profile’s Counselling Network’s extensive information—which has assisted more than 20,000 youths since 2001-- into a secure, accessible, and free online format for public use, supporting a diverse group of Israeli youth seeking military exemption.
ORGANZING NEIGHBORHOOD 3 (ONE DC) ($15,000) – To support Organizing Neighborhood Equity (ONE DC)’s project, DC Cancel Rent Campaign, launching in August, 2021, with the formation of the DC Cancel Rent Coalition, a partnership with ten organizations.
PORTLAND EMPOWERED ($20,000) – For Portland Empowered’s Youth Engagement Projects, a student program in Southern Maine that advocates for anti-racism in schools, specifically to engage educators, community partners, and students to reimagine harmful school discipline and mental health policies and practices.
RAFAH LIFE MAKERS ($15,000) – For start-up costs to re-establish the Life Makers Center, particularly teacher workshops, on-site activities, field trips, after-school programs including group therapy sessions, educational materials and supplies and children’s trauma and healing workshops.
RURAL WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION ($20,000) – A project in the South Hebron Hills of the Rural Women’s Association to protect the environment through education and practical trainings with children, youth, and women that will create awareness about the environment, challenge harmful environmental practices of the local community, enhance initiative and innovation, and educate and train the community.
SYMBIOSIS PDX ($15,000) – For Symbiosis PDX to create Rose City Radical, a monthly, locally based, cooperatively operated newspaper for and by working class community organizers in Portland, OR to fill a gap for a centralized space for dialogue, critique and inspiration among local organizers
USPCN - US Palestinian Community Network ($10,000) – The U.S. Palestinian Community Network’s (USPCN’s) Palestinian Political Prisoners Advocacy Group will educate, organize, and mobilize Palestinian, Arab, and solidarity communities in the U.S. to pressure the State Department to demand that Israel release the close to 5,000 Palestinians who have been jailed by Israel for their human rights work.
WOMEN AGAINST MASS INCARCERATION ($15,000) – For Women Against Mass Incarceration’s work to build a coalition of diverse women to use their voices and lived expertise to raise awareness of the collateral consequences and discrimination women living with violent convictions experience on a daily basis, thus changing policies, programming and perceptions through a public education, advocacy, and social media campaign.
We highly encourage Black, Indigenous, People of Color, people with disabilities, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, queer and other queer-identifying communities, organizations or organizers to apply.
