About Us

At the end of 2012, the U.S. Human Rights Fund, a donor collaborative that provides strategic field-building support to social justice organizations engaged in human rights work within the United States, will close. Its grantmaking and related programmatic activities will be phased out over the next 21 months.

Background

The Fund was launched in 2005 with a mission to promote dignity, equality, and opportunity for all people by advocating for the U.S. to uphold international human rights values and standards within its borders. Because the human rights frame encompasses diverse concerns, the Fund supports work across a spectrum of issues, regions, and types of organizations. Envisioned as a five-year initiative, the USHRF will not only have exceeded its anticipated lifespan, it will have raised more than twice its original goal of $10 million. Most important, the Fund has witnessed significant growth in the number and capacity of advocates who find that human rights furnish greater protections than civil rights alone, and can enable vulnerable people to define and lead their own struggles.

Why the USHRF Is Closing

The financial downturn took a significant toll on the Fund and its partners. It stretched the resources of existing members. Several long-term donors even ceased operations or closed their human rights portfolios. Opportunities for new fundraising became all the more challenging. To operate effectively and undertake the necessary grantmaking, capacity building support, and fund leveraging efforts inherent in a complex multi-donor, multi-campaign initiative, the USHRF required longer-term and greater commitments from its members than could be secured beyond 2012.

What You Can Expect

USHRF donors and staff are committed to using the next 21 months to exit responsibly and to help the field remain as robust and sustainable as possible. We know this requires great care - especially in light of significant reductions to our anticipated budget. We will be seeking advice from grantees and allies about how best to wind down the Fund's work. Especially for our grassroots partners, we understand the challenges intrinsic to this announcement. During this transition, we promise to be as communicative, collaborative and transparent in our decision making and operations as we can.

Ongoing Support

The decision to close the Fund is not a reflection on the domestic human rights field or its funders' enthusiasm. Advocates are boldly using human rights strategies to win changes in policy and practice. These successes have attracted new adherents among more traditional social change groups. Powerful alliances have been forged by a diverse cadre of activists. A number of USHRF donors remain committed to funding this work unilaterally and perhaps bilaterally. While the USHRF is ending, some Steering Committee members are actively exploring ways to provide support going forward. We will share such developments as they emerge.

Important Victories

There is much to celebrate in what the field and Fund have accomplished together. Human rights work has taken hold and is flourishing. Significant new money has been raised by grantees, donors and staff for key priorities outside the mechanism of the USHRF. There is a broader and more active constituency for U.S. accountability to human rights than ever before. On behalf of the Fund's donors and staff, we are grateful for these many years of collaboration and the impact of this approach. Moreover, we remain inspired by these efforts and believe that human rights will prevail at home.

The U.S. Human Rights Fund is a partnership of donors who provide strategic field-building support to social justice organizations engaged in human rights work within the U.S. The Fund's mission is to promote dignity, equality, and opportunity for all people by advocating for the U.S. to uphold international human rights within its borders.

The Fund is housed at Public Interest Projects, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Donor Education

Besides domestic grantmaking and operational support, the Fund educates donors about human rights as an effective approach to social justice advocacy.

The goal of the Fund is to strengthen connections, diversify legal and advocacy strategies, and to link domestic human rights efforts to the rest of the world. The Fund does not seek to create a U.S. human rights movement parallel to the civil rights, women's rights, or LGBT rights efforts that are already active in this country. Rather, it aims to bolster these movements by infusing human rights values standards and strategies.

U.S. Human Rights Fund Grantmaking Strategy

Human rights are now a proven method of effecting social and political change in the United States.  But the domestic human rights movement faces serious challenges with respect to capacity and coordination. The Fund addresses these needs through four major areas of grantmaking:

Human Rights Training and Education

Multi-issue and Cross-Sectoral Networks

Coordinated Communications and Shared Messaging

Strategic Thinking and Advocacy

USHRF also supports donor education on effective domestic human rights grantmaking. Most recently, the Fund released Perfecting our Union: Human Rights Success Stories from Across the United States. This report, released in March 2010, describes how USHRF grantees and other advocates are using human rights values, standards and strategies to build alliances; change policies and practices; and hold the U.S. government accountabile for meeting international human rights standards.

Where We Work

The U.S. Human Rights Fund currently supports organizations in 15 states and the District of Columbia. For more information about our individual grantees, please see our Grantees page.