We periodically publish quick overviews of grantmakers on our radar, looking at recent developments and key details about how they operate. Today, we’re taking a look at Unbound Philanthropy, a dedicated backer of immigrants and refugees that we cited as one of 10 funders to know in our white paper on giving in that space.
Founded in 2003 and based in both New York and London, this progressive funder seeks to build a vibrant, welcoming society and just immigration system as part of a pluralist and inclusive democracy. Its holistic approach covers a lot of ground: examining how migration influences social and political dynamics in host countries, helping arrivals acclimate to their new communities, cultivating immigrants and refugees for leadership roles in fields like advocacy and community organizing, and dispelling harmful stereotypes in pop culture. It’s also taking a lead in helping philanthropy address mass displacement as climate change disrupts livelihoods and societies, and threatens to make large swaths of the planet inhabitable.
“One of the reasons we focus on immigration is because responses to immigration are litmus tests for healthy societies, with immigration at the crux of inclusion versus exclusion,” said its executive director, Taryn Higashi. “In our work, we put emphasis on both individual opportunity and on shared community, so refugees, immigrants and their children have the chance to flourish and contribute to society alongside people already living in communities.” Here are a few things to know about Unbound Philanthropy.
It listens to a “broad set of voices”
Unbound Philanthropy’s cofounder is William Reeves, a financier who cofounded the British-American hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management. From 2005 to 2021, Unbound awarded 845 grants together totaling over $100 million. A review of its most recent Form 990 shows that its end-of-year assets stood at $222 million for the fiscal year ending December 2021. Thus far in 2023, it has awarded 41 grants to U.S.-based organizations totaling $4.6 million and 14 grants to U.K.-based groups totaling £1.7 million ($2 million).
The foundation provides multi-year general support as well as project-specific grants. It also supports grantees by facilitating collaborations and alliances, and provides fundraising and other capacity-building support. Grant proposals are by invitation only, which the foundation says is due to limited staff capacity.
As it goes about its work, Unbound seeks to listen to what Higashi calls a “broad set of voices, because advancing our vision requires participation by people and organizations outside of immigrant justice movements in the U.S. and U.K. and those who may not fully embrace the movement’s priorities.” That includes immigrants, refugees, BIPOC and women leaders who have experienced climate disasters and displacement, as well as policy experts, researchers, cultural and political strategists, and stakeholders from business, labor, education and other social justice movements.
It’s shining a light on climate-driven migration
Last year, IP’s Michael Kavate looked at emerging opportunities for funders concerned — rightly! — about how climate change could displace between 200 million and 1.2 billion people within the next 30 years. (For reference, the total human population only passed that 1.2 billion figure well into the 1800s.) He cited Unbound Philanthropy’s report on the topic, titled “On the Frontlines of the Climate Emergency: Where Immigrants Meet Climate Change,” which examined several promising projects working at the intersection of climate change and migration, and how funders can respond moving forward.
Later in 2022, Higashi penned a post for the Center for Effective Philanthropy drawing attention to climate-driven displacement. “We at Unbound Philanthropy are an example of a non-climate funder that has recently entered the climate space,” she wrote, “seeing that climate change is inextricably connected to our mission: to contribute to vibrant, welcoming societies and just immigration systems in the U.S. and U.K.”
A little over a year later, Higashi laid out the challenging work ahead in an email to me. “Even if emissions were reduced to net zero tomorrow,” she wrote, “many people will continue to be forced to move because so much climate damage is already locked in.”
Compounding matters is the fact that climate change is not recognized by the United States — or by multinational treaties — as a legitimate reason to admit displaced people. Instead of welcoming the safe and lawful movement of affected people, “governments throughout the world are militarizing their borders,” Higashi said. “This is resulting in deaths at sea and in deserts, and violent pushbacks and shootings. Xenophobia disrupts the unified focus from societies needed for climate mitigation and adaptation to succeed, and it empowers authoritarian leadership.”
It wants to navigate an era of climate-driven migration in an intersectional way
Unbound Philanthropy has laid out a long-term vision to address this complex challenge — to “reinforce self-determination and normalize migration as one of the solutions, and help the public and policymakers understand its importance to adapting to climate change,” Higashi said. “The option to migrate legally gives front-line communities the best chance at withstanding climate change, and helps ensure that the opportunities that migration can bring do not just privilege the wealthy.”
For Unbound, the on-the-ground work plays out across four areas: building narratives to reinforce self-determination and advance the idea that moving is a necessary response to shrinking zones of livability; developing new and expanded legal policies that will ensure humane, just and transparent pathways for people who are moving; empowering immigrant and allied communities to mitigate climate change; and supporting relationships and alignment between social justice movements, people who have migrated, and their new neighbors.
Again, readers will note the foundation’s holistic approach. This idea of interconnectivity extends to Unbound’s goal of investing in an ecosystem of leaders, organizations and movements that are working across climate, migration, race and democratic governance. “These leaders are convinced that we can only get so far by tackling climate, migration, racism and democracy as separate issues,” Higashi said. “Addressing these deep challenges requires a united front with the alignment, power and agility to resist authoritarian impulses and win solutions to community climate challenges.”
It’s working to change narratives around immigration
As noted above, Unbound wants to foster the narrative that individuals should be able to move to more hospitable areas so they can live productive and dignified lives. This work reflects its efforts to develop what Higashi calls “narrative and communications infrastructure” within the immigrant justice field. “In the U.S.,” Higashi said, “we have made a targeted effort to build narrative ecosystems that reach mass audiences, that recognize and honor the humanity of immigrants and advance freedom and justice for all.”
Unbound was a founding member of the Pop Culture Collaborative, now a multimillion-dollar donor collaborative that harnesses the power of pop culture to seek narrative change around people of color, immigrants, refugees, Muslims and Native people — particularly those who are women, queer, transgender and/or disabled — through grantmaking, convening, narrative strategy and research. Unbound was also an early funder of various organizations seeking to transform narratives and culture, including Harness, the Butterfly Lab at Race Forward, Yes, And…Laughter Lab and Define American.
Another example of Unbound’s work in the narrative space is its support for the Four Freedoms Fund, a project of NEO Philanthropy. Launched in 2003 after the state of Arizona passed a draconian anti-immigration law, the funder collaborative works toward the full integration of immigrants as active participants in democratic governance, with a focus on grassroots organizing, policy advocacy and civic engagement. Other contributors to the fund include the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the JPB Foundation. In 2022, the Four Freedoms Fund distributed more than $18.7 million to 115 organizations across 26 states and the District of Columbia.
It’s fostering cross-Atlantic collaboration
Higashi said Unbound’s U.S. and U.K. team members share best practices, which “has led to some powerful relationships and learning.” For example, cognizant that community organizing is more prevalent here in the states, Unbound has supported exchanges over the last 10 years to accelerate its development in the U.K., especially in immigrant and refugee communities.
Unbound provides support to a new U.K.-based funding intermediary, the Civic Power Fund, which is working to improve the quality and quantity of funding for grassroots organizing across the Atlantic. This November, the fund will host a learning exchange in New York, bringing together 15 organizing groups it supports, plus four U.K.-based funders eager to invest in organizing and pick up some pointers from their U.S.-based peers.
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