The Peace Development Fund makes grants to community-based organizations working for social justice.

The Peace Development Fund is committed to supporting organizations and projects that recognize that peace will never be sustained unless it is based on justice. They understand peace to be a consequence of equitable relationships—with the fellow human beings and with the natural environment of which they are a part and on which they depend.

Funding Priority

New or emerging organizations; efforts that have difficulty securing funds from other sources; community organizations working on climate change issues at the local policy level; groups that have a genesis in Occupy, MeToo or Movement for Black Lives; collaborative peace initiatives led by women; or issues that are not yet recognized by progressive funders.

Funding Information

The average grant is $5,000.

What PDF Funds:

• Organizing to Shift Power:
  • Groups that are creating a power base that can hold leaders accountable to the people who are affected by their decisions.
  • Groups that let their membership or constituents take the lead in collective action-planning and decision-making.
  • Groups whose leadership comes directly from the people who are most affected by the issues you are organizing around.
• Working to Build a Movement:
  • Groups that organize in the local community, but make connections between local issues and a broader need for systemic change.
  • Groups that provide a space for members to develop their political analyses at the same time as taking action for change.
  • Groups that break down barriers within the progressive movement, by building strategic alliances between groups of different cultural or class backgrounds or different issue areas.
  • Groups that explore the root causes of injustice and have a long-term vision for the kind of social change they are working for.
• Dismantling Oppression:
  • Groups and projects that are proactively engaged in a process of dismantling oppression, confronting privilege and challenging institutional structures that perpetuate oppression (both internal and external to the organization).
  • Groups that are proactively making connections between the different forms of oppression (racism, heterosexism, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, etc.), and its connections with injustice.
• Creating New Structures:
  • Groups that have alternative organizational structures that allow power to flow “from the bottom up.”
  • Efforts to create new, community-based alternative systems and structures (economic, political, cultural, religious, etc.) that are liberating, democratic, and environmentally sustainable and which promote healthy, sustainable communities.

PDF does not fund:

• Programs with a primary geographic focus outside of the United States, U.S. Territories, Mexico and Haiti.  If an organization is U.S.-based but works mostly outside of these areas, it should consider filling out an LOI for a Donor Advised Fund grant, which are reviewed on a rolling basis.
• Organizations not directly engaged in community organizing.
• Social services that are not linked to a clear organizing strategy.
• Individuals, or organizations with strong leadership from only one individual.
• Conferences, trainings, and other one-time events.
• Audio-visual productions and distribution – TV, radio, publications, films, etc. (PDF does fund media work or audio-visual production as part of the general expenses of groups engaged in grassroots organizing).
• Research that is not directly linked to an organizing strategy (PDF does fund research as part of the general expenses of groups engaged in grassroots organizing).
• Academic institutions and scholarships.
• Other grantmaking organizations (unless they are your fiscal sponsor).
• Organizations with budgets larger than $250,000.
• Lobbying activities.

For more information, visit PDF.