Bezos Day One Fund Gives $98.5 Million to Address Homelessness in 23 States (Grants Roundup)

By M.J. Prest
Senior Editor, Solutions

Catholic Charities Eastern Washington is one of 32 organization to get support from the Bezos Day One Fund. Its Rising Strong program serves families at risk of being separated because of substance abuse. Catholic Charities Eastern Washington

December 11, 2019 | Read Time: 2 minutes

Here are notable new grant awards compiled by the Chronicle:

Lego Foundation

$100 million to the International Rescue Committee for PlayMatters, a play-based learning program that the charity will deliver to young refugees whose education has been interrupted because of the humanitarian crises in Ethiopia and Uganda. (Read more in this Chronicle article about this grant.)

Bezos Day One Fund

$98.5 million to 32 organizations to support meaningful, high-impact work to provide shelter and support for young families experiencing homelessness in 23 states. Each recipient was awarded between $1.2 million and $5 million.

Goizueta Foundation

$30 million to Emory University’s Goizueta Business School to augment its endowment and to establish an innovation center, a virtual classroom, and an institute for business and society. Roberto Goizueta was the CEO of Coca-Cola for 16 years until his death in 1997. The university named its business school for him in 1994.

David and Lucile Packard Foundation

$5 million to Hispanics in Philanthropy to back its efforts to help migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Gilead Sciences

$4.5 million to 15 groups working with transgender people through its TRANScend Community Impact Fund. Among the grantees, Destination Tomorrow is receiving $1 million to boost economic empowerment for trans people, and Transgender Strategy Center has been granted $1 million for capacity building.

CFG Bank

$3 million to the National Aquarium to expand its Baltimore campus to include a floating wetlands ecosystem along its waterfront property. Additional grants for the project include $2 million from the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company and $1 million from Constellation.

SunTrust Foundation

$1.5 million to Junior Achievement of Greater Washington to support JA Finance Park, an experiential education program working with middle-school students in Fairfax, Va., and Prince George’s County, Md., to develop financial-management skills.

Ray Charles Foundation

$1 million to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to endow a new neurosurgery scholarship program.

New Grant Opportunity

The Lilly Endowment is accepting proposals for grants in its Enhancing Opportunity in Indianapolis program, to help the 180,000 people living in or near the poverty line in the city build up their own economic self-sufficiency. Grants in the range of $50,000 to $10 million over five years will be awarded, with a total of up to $50 million funded in 2020. Proposals are due August 31.

Send grant announcements to grants.editor@philanthropy.com.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy subscribers also have full access to GrantStation’s searchable database of grant opportunities. For more information, visit our grants page.

M.J. Prest has been writing about major gifts, grant making, and executive moves for the Chronicle since 2004. Email M.J.

Correction: A previous version of this article said part of the Goizueta Foundation’s gift is going to a classroom, instead of a virtual classroom.

About the Author

M.J. Prest

Senior Editor, Solutions

M.J. Prest is senior editor for solutions at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where she highlights how nonprofit leaders navigate and overcome major challenges. She has covered stories on big gifts, grant making, and executive moves for the Chronicle since 2004. Her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Slate.com, and the Huffington Post, and she wrote the young-adult novel Immersion. M.J. graduated from Williams College and after living in many different places, she settled in New England with her husband, two kids, and two rescue dogs.