Base Building is a benchmark of our grant making.  We recognize community-based organizations aiming to have state and regional impact as the core of social movements, which, in the U.S., have been critical to significant social change.  We believe that no social change on behalf of the poor and exploited comes without such organizations.

We encourage democratic processes within organizations.  This is a major area of activism for The New World Foundation based on our belief that organizations of the working poor and poor can in fact be led by indigenous leaders as well as outside leaders.  We focus on two levels of democratic processes:  democratic conditions and democratic practices.  In the first area, we’re concerned with racial and gender equality and leadership transmission.  In the second area, we’re concerned with structures of accountability, indigenous leadership, participatory planning, political advocacy, and collaborative styles of work.

Regional and cluster grant making.  The Foundation identifies areas where it can make a cluster of grants among complementary and collaborating organizations.  We aim to make grants that can help parallel organizations increase complementary activity and compounding impacts.  Within these clusters, the Foundation supports anchor organizations to help build networking capacity and technical assistance.  We also look at where grants can help connect labor and environmental justice issues with concerns for the environment, human rights, racial and gender equality, sustainable economic development, the welfare of families, and the civic character of our society.

General support grants.  The Foundation strongly favors general-support grants over project-specific grants because the former strengthen organizations and enable leaders who are closest to the issues to decide how funds can best be used.  Our goal is to encourage continuity and development, to encourage organization growth beyond immediately pressing issues to the establishment of strong, community-based organizations.

Multi-year grants.  The New World Foundation is committed to funding groups for several years at a time in order to provide greater stability to fragile organizations to free leaders from unnecessary paperwork and meetings.

We make three primary types of grants:

In addition, we sometimes make small discretionary grants to support convening amongst grantees, to deal with cash-flow emergencies, to pay for travel, and to help organizations promote themselves to new donors.

Evaluation of grantees.  The Foundation assesses grantees every year and evaluates its overall program every three years.  Evaluation takes place through extensive site visits by staff and consultation with colleagues.