Key Takeaways
- • Foundation Identity & Scale: The Freedom Together Foundation (formerly JPB Foundation) operates as a private foundation headquartered in New York with 51-200 employees and approximately 90 listed staff members, focusing on philanthropic fundraising services in the nonprofit sector.
- • Mission Pivot: Originally established in 2011 by Barbara Picower with a mission centered on medical research, poverty reduction, and environmental protection, the foundation has reoriented toward building democratic power and systemic change for working-class and marginalized communities.
- • Strategic Focus on Organizing Investment: Leadership, including board member Mary Kay Henry (former international president of SEIU), emphasizes that sustained financial commitment to grassroots organizing is critical to movement success, citing the Fight for $15 campaign as a case study demonstrating the high cost and outsized impact of labor organizing.
- • Pro-Democracy Movement Architecture: The foundation explicitly targets building a "deeper and broader pro-democracy movement" with organizations led by working-class people from diverse backgrounds positioned as central to its grantmaking strategy.
Summary
The Freedom Together Foundation is a New York-based private foundation created by philanthropist Barbara Picower in 2011, operating under a refined mission to support communities historically denied access to institutional power. Originally conceived with a broader mandate encompassing medical research, poverty reduction, and environmental protection, the foundation has evolved into a specialized funder focused on democratic participation and systemic change.
The foundation's current strategic framework centers on enabling low-income and marginalized populations to build collective power and challenge unjust systems. This represents a deliberate repositioning toward social and economic justice work, with particular emphasis on funding organizations led by and accountable to working-class communities across diverse demographic backgrounds. The foundation employs approximately 90 staff members and operates with a team-based structure designed to manage philanthropic capital allocation.
Recent institutional messaging from foundation leadership, notably through board member Mary Kay Henry's public commentary, underscores the financial intensity required to sustain successful grassroots movements. Henry's essay on the Fight for $15 campaign highlights a critical lesson for institutional funders: the extraordinary financial commitments and risk-taking necessary to launch and sustain one of the most significant labor movements of the past five decades. This framing positions the foundation's grantmaking as venture-style investment in democratic infrastructure, requiring patient capital and sustained organizational support rather than episodic project funding.
The foundation's positioning within the philanthropic ecosystem reflects a growing institutional commitment to movement-building as a lever for structural change, prioritizing long-term organizing capacity over short-term programmatic interventions.
The foundation's current strategic framework centers on enabling low-income and marginalized populations to build collective power and challenge unjust systems. This represents a deliberate repositioning toward social and economic justice work, with particular emphasis on funding organizations led by and accountable to working-class communities across diverse demographic backgrounds. The foundation employs approximately 90 staff members and operates with a team-based structure designed to manage philanthropic capital allocation.
Recent institutional messaging from foundation leadership, notably through board member Mary Kay Henry's public commentary, underscores the financial intensity required to sustain successful grassroots movements. Henry's essay on the Fight for $15 campaign highlights a critical lesson for institutional funders: the extraordinary financial commitments and risk-taking necessary to launch and sustain one of the most significant labor movements of the past five decades. This framing positions the foundation's grantmaking as venture-style investment in democratic infrastructure, requiring patient capital and sustained organizational support rather than episodic project funding.
The foundation's positioning within the philanthropic ecosystem reflects a growing institutional commitment to movement-building as a lever for structural change, prioritizing long-term organizing capacity over short-term programmatic interventions.
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