WE InitiativeOpen Call for Proposals
Cultivating Belonging in Oakland and San Francisco
Twenty-five organizations will be selected to receive $100,000 annually as general operating funds over a five-year period, totaling $500,000 each.
Grantees will not need to reapply during the five-year period to continue receiving funds.
We welcome applications from eligible nonprofits and fiscally sponsored projects through June 27, 2025.
The Walter & Elise Haas Fund does not anticipate another open call until 2030.
Introduction & Purpose
Vision
The antidote to othering is belonging.
“[Belonging is] both a feeling and a practice—something we experience personally and something we create collectively … [an] ever-expanding circle that keeps growing to recognize the dignity and humanity of all people, where every voice matters and where everyone thrives together.”
~Othering & Belonging Institute
The WE Initiative is a new grantmaking strategy under the Walter & Elise Haas Fund’s recently launched Social Well-being program that focuses on activating and sustaining a sense of belonging among Bay Area residents. It builds upon our purpose to support community well-being in Oakland and San Francisco so that all people can reach their fullest potential with dignity and joy.
We-Making, a term coined by culturalist Carole Bebelle, states that “we have known in our gut for decades and decades that arts and culture are fabulous and magnetic ways to unite people.”
This grantmaking strategy will support organizations that celebrate culture and bring people together in solidarity to work towards positive community-led change. The WE Initiative imagines a future where Oakland and San Francisco pulse with vitality, where communities are deeply interconnected across generations, identities, and issue areas, and hope and possibility feel close. This vision restores a true sense of belonging, creating a Bay Area where every person sees themselves reflected and celebrated.
We are in a critical moment wherein post-COVID isolation, increasing polarization, and widespread despair have deeply affected the social fabric of our communities. In the Bay Area, as elsewhere, loneliness and fragmentation are urgent public challenges. We believe this is a moment of opportunity to bridge divides, rekindle joy, and rebuild our sense of we. Through this initiative, we hope to uplift community-led spaces where belonging, celebration, and collective care are the norm.
Opportunity Overview
What We Are Looking For
We seek nonprofit organizations and fiscally sponsored projects committed to collaboration and community-building, as WE Initiative grantees will participate in a cohort experience — a learning and relationship-building journey designed to deepen exchange, expand networks of care, and spark collective impact with each other over the funding period. Organizations will commit to a series of meetings in the first year, with the intention of co-designing proceeding years with grantee-informed feedback in an iterative process that supports grantee insights.
Pathways
Organizational vision and mission should align and embody the north star of the Fund’s Social Well-being program—activating and sustaining belonging in the Bay Area. Proposals should address at least one of the following pathways:
Pathway 1. Cultural Identity, Visibility, & Celebration
- Cultivate opportunities and spaces where joy, healing, and culture may thrive.
- Uplift stories that proactively and boldly take up space in the face of othering, bigotry, and polarization.
Cultural identity is a powerful force for justice and inclusion. We are looking for organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that use creative, joyful, and artistic approaches to promote community, cultural inclusion, and representation in the Bay Area. Ideal applicants foster a sense of belonging, particularly in response to challenges posed by such forces as racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and all forms of bigotry and polarization. We seek organizations and fiscally sponsored projects whose work celebrates shared dignity and helps diverse communities feel a sense of belonging. By investing in cultural celebration, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund recognizes that joy, healing, and shared experiences are essential to social well-being.
Examples include, but are not limited to, the following. Important note: These are shared for inspiration only and are not meant to be prescriptive.
- Multicultural festivals that celebrate diasporic traditions and visibility.
- Community storytelling projects that center voices often excluded from dominant narratives.
- Public art that reflects local histories and cultures in the face of gentrification or erasure.
- Programming within cultural anchor spaces, ensuring they remain rooted and resourced.
- Responding to hate and violence with healing-centered, creative interventions that affirm dignity and unity.
Pathway 2. Collective Action and Solidarity
- Actively power-build to identify and enact community-led solutions.
- Bring people together across issues, identities, and communities to build solidarity, foster healing, and create shared belonging.
This pathway supports diverse groups working together. We are seeking organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that build meaningful connections across lines of difference (including but not restricted to race, faith, disability, sexual orientation, class, or immigration status), and utilize collaborative approaches to address community-identified challenges happening at the intersections. True belonging is realized through shared ownership of community-driven solutions. We aim to fund organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that build solidarity, empower people to work together to change systems and shape their future, and create positive, lasting, community-led transformation.
Examples include, but are not limited to, the following. Important note: These are shared for inspiration only and are not meant to be prescriptive.
- Intergenerational, interfaith, cross-racial, or cross-issue coalitions organizing around shared purpose.
- Community hubs or “third spaces” like cultural centers, civic forums, or neighborhood drop-in sites that assemble people to identify and enact solutions to community challenges.
- Programs that strengthen community influence and resources, like leadership development for historically marginalized people, democratic deliberation and decision-making, participatory budgeting, or community-led public safety alternatives.
- Mutual aid networks, food sovereignty initiatives, housing or economic security efforts, healing justice initiatives, or grassroots capacity-building that meet the immediate needs of a people while building long-term community power.
We recognize that organizations may work in both pathways and we do not expect anyone to discount or downplay the ways in which your organization may uplift both. However, we encourage you to think of which pathway best speaks to your organization’s mission, values, and programming and apply under one.
These two pathways recognize and build upon the Bay Area’s legacy of creativity, mutual aid, and collective leadership. They reflect our belief that true progress is made not through isolated efforts, but through the power of people collaborating, honoring histories, and imagining new possibilities together.
How to Apply
Application
Our application process will span 12 weeks, starting with an open call for a Letter of Inquiry (LOI), followed by an invitation to submit a full proposal.
Eligibility
- STATUS: Applicants must possess 501(c)3 status or be fiscally sponsored by one.
- PURPOSE: One’s organizational vision and mission align and embody the Walter & Elise Haas Fund’s north star of activating and sustaining belonging in the Bay Area through the two pathways.
- GEOGRAPHY: We are prioritizing organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that are serving, rooted, oriented, focused, or based/headquartered in San Francisco or Oakland.
- BUDGET: Our priority will be organizations or fiscally sponsored projects with operating budgets equal to or less than $5,000,000 annually.
Desirable Attributes
Our selection process aims to identify partners whose work and vision align with our values while demonstrating the potential for meaningful impact. We carefully review each application through an assessment that considers multiple dimensions of organizational and project strength. We are looking for the following key attributes in successful applicants:
Place-Based Commitment to Belonging
We seek to support organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that actively foster belonging within Oakland and San Francisco communities and demonstrate genuine love and reverence for these cities. Our funding prioritizes partners who share our commitment to these specific places, their diverse residents, and their collective futures. Ideal applicants can clearly articulate their definition of belonging and demonstrate how they use this concept as a framework for creating meaningful structural change.
Forward-Looking Vision, Values, & Practices
We seek to collaborate with organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that envision and actively work toward a more inclusive and equitable future. These partners go beyond responding to current needs by reimagining possibilities and pathways forward for their communities and society. We prioritize organizations that embody community principles throughout their operation, integrating artistic and cultural strategies, healing practices, and joy as essential components of bringing communities together and strengthening collective bonds.
Community Engagement
Our ideal partners have leadership and staff who are representative of and deep rooted in their communities with practices centering local voices in their decision-making. They effectively serve historically marginalized and under-resourced Bay Area populations, with particular attention to communities most affected by systemic inequities. Their collaborative nature extends beyond their immediate work, making them valued contributors to the broader local ecosystem of community organizers, artists, culture-bearers, advocates, bridge-builders, healers, wellness practitioners, educators, storytellers, and community historians.
Community Learning
The partners we value most approach our relationship with a genuine openness to learning. They actively engage in mutual knowledge exchange and are committed to participating within a collaborative cohort model led by the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, where shared insights strengthen everyone’s work. One’s ability and willingness to cultivate a rich and expansive cohort ecosystem will be considered as we make our selection.
Timeline
- May 19, 2025: Open call for LOIs
- May 29, 2025: Applicant Information Session Recording and Slide Deck
- June 5, 2025: Ask Us Anything Session
- June 18, 2025: Ask Us Anything Session
- June 27, 2025 | 6 PM PT: LOI deadline
- Mid-July 2025: Selected candidates invited to complete full applications
- Mid-August 2025: Application deadline
- August-December 2025: Review process
- December 2025: Notification of Award and first payment
- January 2026: Grant announcements
Applicant Information Sessions
Grantseekers are invited to view the recording of the online applicant information session. Viewing is not mandatory, but the recording walks through the WE Initiative and its priorities, grantseeker eligibility, and the steps to apply, which many grantseekers find helpful.
If you still have questions about the application, check our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) area below for updated insights and register for an Ask Us Anything Session to connect with Fund staff.
Glossary
Social cohesion has been defined as “the extent of connectedness and solidarity among groups in society.” Essentially, it means that individuals feel, and act as, part of a group that is oriented toward working together.
(Laurie Mazur)
We-Making, a term coined by Carol Bebelle, maps the relationship between place-based arts and cultural strategies, social cohesion, and increased equitable well-being. We-Making affirms what we know intuitively: that place-based arts and culture strategies can strengthen the ties that hold communities together—with benefits for individual and collective well-being. More fundamentally, arts and culture help us transcend our subjectivity, encounter the interior lives of others, and see our obligations to one another more clearly—reminding us that…’we’ is not plural of ‘I.’
(Laurie Mazur)
Belonging is both a feeling and a practice—something we experience personally and something we create collectively.
It happens in structures when all social groups are included in the critical institutions and communities that shape their lives, recognized and made visible within these spaces, empowered to have a real voice in shaping these spaces, and able to report a sense of connection and belonging.
It happens within relationships when there is openness to connection, recognition of each other’s humanity, and a practice of reaching out to others, even those who may seem different.
At its heart, belonging can be seen as an ever-expanding circle, one that keeps growing to recognize the dignity and humanity of all people. Instead of encouraging zero-sum thinking, belonging invites us to embrace the perspectives and gifts of all groups. By doing so, we create a richer and more flourishing community—one where every voice matters and where everyone thrives together.
(Othering and Belonging Institute)
Othering is a set of dynamics, processes, and structures that engender marginality and persistent inequality across any of the full range of human differences based on group identities. Dimensions of othering include, but are not limited to, religion, sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (class), disability, sexual orientation, and skin tone. Although the axis of difference that undergird these expressions of othering vary considerably and are deeply contextual, they contain a similar set of underlying dynamics.
(Othering and Belonging Institute)
Frequently Asked Questions
It summarizes the most frequently asked questions from our May 29 applicant information session.
Any organization that sees itself serving, rooted, oriented, focused, or based/headquartered in San Francisco or Oakland may apply but please be aware that funding organizations in the cities of San Francisco and Oakland remains our priority.
Organizations may still apply if their annual budgets are within close range of $5M, as we understand that budgets may fluctuate from year to year but please be aware that funding organizations whose annual budgets are $5M and below remains our priority.
While sustained funding is beneficial for an organization of any size, W&EHF believes our five-year $500,000 commitment can be most impactful for organizations with budgets under $5M.
Download the application in Word format to review the questions asked in the letter of inquiry online form.
Download the application in Word format to review the questions asked at the proposal stage.
We suggest you attend the Applicant Information Session on May 29 to learn more. You can sign up for the Applicant Information Session here.
This process is manual and may take up to 24 business hours to complete. Please register your organization early if you plan to apply. Remember to check your spam folder first for email from [email protected] or from the domain haassr.org and add those addresses to your safe sender list.
If it’s been more than 24 business hours use this contact form and someone from the team will get back to you to assist.
Draft letters of inquiry can be accessed from the left hand navigation menu under Requests > Draft Requests.
We do not anticipate future rounds of funding from the WE Initiative until at least 2030.
Yes, it is possible to be a fit for other funding opportunities at W&EHF. However, we anticipate that opportunities for other W&EHF grants will be invitation or nomination based.
The WE Initiative accepts letters of inquiry from any eligible organization. Select applicants will be invited to submit full proposals. W&EHF does not otherwise accept unsolicited proposals.
The WE Initiative cohort experience will be co-designed by W&EHF staff and WE Initiative grantees as a collective learning journey over the five-year span of the grant. We look forward to a generative, collaborative, and expansive experience. In 2026, we ask that grantees participate in a series of cohort meetings, with future cadence to be co-developed together.
The grant is for general operating support, and use of funds is therefore determined by the organization. This might include program services, staff wages and compensation, professional development, organizational resilience, and more, in support of your organization’s ability to operate for your mission and community.
LOIs will be reviewed as they are received. LOIs and proposals will be reviewed with the WE Initiative guidelines and criteria as named above.
W&EHF does not require written reports. Instead, we aim to learn from and with grantees through 1-1 learning conversations or check-ins, and by gathering to share space with other W&EHF grantees. Specifically, W&EHF is interested in learning:
- How WE Initiative grantees activate and sustain belonging in the Bay Area
- How WE Initiative grantees enrich and positively transform the community
- How WE Initiative grantees strengthen their ability to sustain and expand their impact
Absolutely. Use the form here to ask us your questions. A member of the team will be in touch with you within 48 business hours.
If your organization is one of the 25 WE Initiative grantees, the first year payment of $100,000 will be awarded by December 2025. Future payments can be scheduled according to your organization’s budgetary preference.
The LOI window is open for six weeks and the deadline will remain 6:00PM on Friday, June 27, 2025. We have heard from past grantseekers that you want us to be clear so you can plan accordingly.
While we do not know how many organizations will apply, 25 grants will be awarded in December. We anticipate a high volume of LOIs.
For your reference, a separate open call held in 2024 by W&EHF resulted in 177 applications and ten grants.
No financial attachments are required at the LOI stage.
If a full proposal is invited, W&EHF staff will research the financial health of the organization (or their fiscal sponsor) using publicly available documents from the organization’s website, from the charity databases at the State of California, the Internal Revenue Service, Guidestar, and from Candid’s Foundation Directory. If you are fiscally sponsored, we will reach out to your fiscal sponsor as is standard.
When we research financial health, we use a trend analysis to answer two specific questions:
- Is the organization likely to be stable through the end of this grant? We scan for new or longstanding challenges that are accompanying an organization as it does its best to maintain programs and operations.
- Is the Walter & Elise Haas Fund able to partner with the organization’s other funders for learning and impact? Grantseekers are a well-spring of network connections for us, and we use information about who is funding your organization to make our own connections to them, share our work, and explore how to collaborate in support of our shared grantees.
Yes, if you are a previous grantee and aligned with the eligibility requirements for WE Initiative, you can apply for this grant.