Bread & Roses Community Fund

What Bread & Roses Community Fund does

Bread & Roses Community Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community foundation founded in 1977 and headquartered in Philadelphia. It operates as a participatory grantmaking intermediary that raises money annually from individual donors and then redistributes 100% of community-raised funds as grants to grassroots organizing groups working on racial, social, and economic justice in the Philadelphia region. The organization reported distributing over $1.3 million across 100+ grants in 2024, organized into thematic funds including the Racial & Economic Justice Fund, Gender Justice Organizing Fund, Future Fund, Phoebus Criminal Justice Initiative, Media Justice Fund, Climate Justice Organizing Fund, Opportunity Fund, and Environmental Justice Fund.

The core operating model is the Giving Project, a six-month intensive program that brings together cross-class, multiracial, gender-diverse, intergenerational cohorts of 18-25 participants who are trained in fundraising, grantmaking, and political education before collectively raising and distributing funds to grassroots groups. All grant decisions are made by community members rather than professional staff, and at least 50% of Giving Project participants are people of color. The organization supplements this base fundraising with institutional partnerships — including the Phoebus Fund for criminal justice, Independence Public Media Foundation for media justice, the City of Philadelphia Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity for COVID recovery, and Kensington Community Partners for neighborhood resilience — and runs the annual Tribute to Change event as its primary brand and donor-acquisition vehicle.

Bread & Roses has no proprietary technology platform; operations rely on human-centered community organizing, a website, email newsletter, social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn), and an online donation portal. Revenue is sourced exclusively from philanthropic contributions, including individual donations, monthly sustainer giving, workplace giving through multiple employer campaigns, donor-advised funds, planned giving/bequests, and stock donations. The organization operates with a small (1-10 person) staff, is governed by a Board of Directors, and has no parent company or external institutional ownership.

Name

Bread & Roses Community Fund

Legal name

Bread & Roses Community Fund

Website

https://breadrosesfund.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1977

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Bread & Roses Community Fund is a Philadelphia-based 501(c)(3) that uses a participatory Giving Project model to raise money from individual donors and redistribute it as grants to grassroots organizing groups working on racial, economic, and social justice in the Philadelphia region.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Community Philanthropy

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Community Foundations (BPAGAKAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

Social Justice & Human Rights Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAN), Public Charities & Grantmaking Intermediaries (BPAGAKAE)

Keywords

• Community grantmaking
• Grassroots organizing funding
• Donor philanthropy
• Social justice grants
• Participatory grantmaking

Headquarters

HQ city

Philadelphia

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Individual Donations: The organization raises money annually from individual donors who give what they can to support movements for justice. Donors can give online, by cash/check, by phone, or through stock donations. Monthly sustainer giving programs allow donors to contribute on an ongoing basis.
2. Workplace Giving: Donors can designate Bread & Roses as recipient of payroll deductions through Bryn Mawr College Combined Giving, City of Philadelphia Combined Campaign, Drexel Dragon Drive, Penn's Way Workplace Giving Campaign, and United Way of Greater Philadelphia.
3. Planned Giving/Bequests: Individuals can leave a legacy for justice by designating Bread & Roses Community Fund as recipient of a specific amount or percentage of their estate.
4. Donor-Advised Funds: Individuals or small groups can create donor-advised funds to direct money to particular social justice issues or areas.
5. Stock/Securities Donations: Donors can contribute securities held for over a year to take a tax deduction for full market value without capital gains obligations.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Bread & Roses Community Fund is a 501(c)(3) community foundation that pools donations from individual donors and re-grants those funds to grassroots organizing groups working on racial, social, and economic justice in the Philadelphia region. Its flagship offering is the Giving Project, a six-month intensive program in which cross-class, multiracial cohorts of 18-25 participants collectively fundraise and decide how to allocate grants to movement organizations.

Product overview

Bread & Roses Community Fund is a nonprofit philanthropic organization, not a technology company. It operates as a single integrated platform for community-driven grantmaking and movement building rather than a software product. The core offering is the Giving Project—a six-month intensive program combining donor training, grassroots fundraising, and democratic grantmaking—alongside multiple thematic grant funds including Racial & Economic Justice Fund, Gender Justice Organizing Fund, Future Fund, Phoebus Criminal Justice Initiative, Media Justice Fund, Environmental Justice Fund, Opportunity Fund, Equitable Public Space Fund, Neighborhood Equitable Recovery Fund, Kensington Community Resilience Fund, and the Solidarity Fund for COVID-19 Organizing. The organization also hosts the annual Tribute to Change event and provides various donor services. The Giving Project serves as the flagship program that trains participants in fundraising and grantmaking, while the various grant funds support specific justice causes; together they form a comprehensive ecosystem for mobilizing and distributing resources to grassroots organizing movements in the Philadelphia region.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Giving Project: A radical approach to fundraising for justice movements that uses transformative training to build a community crossing differences of race, class, age, and gender to collectively raise and distribute grants to grassroots organizing groups.
• Tribute to Change

Products and services

• Giving Project A six-month intensive program that brings together a cross-class, multiracial, gender-diverse, intergenerational cohort of 18-25 people to collectively raise and distribute grant money to grassroots justice groups. Members are trained in fundraising, grantmaking, and political education.
• Racial & Economic Justice Fund Core grant fund that moved $240,000 to grassroots groups engaged in direct-action community organizing to promote racial and economic justice.
• Gender Justice Organizing Fund

Quantifiable outcome

• Over $1.3 million distributed to 100+ grantees in 2024 alone
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Artists for Immigrant Rights (AIR)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerArtists for Immigrant Rights formed as a group of artists, photographers, and activists who partnered with Bread & Roses to raise funds for immigrant communities. Through art sales and town halls, AIR activated hundreds of people and partnered to make $100,000 in rapid response grants to local immigrant-led groups.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• North Star Fund: New York City-based public foundation funding grassroots organizing for social, racial, and economic justice. Highly comparable as a participatory, community-led fund that pools donor dollars to redistribute to movement-building groups.
• Liberty Hill Foundation: Los Angeles progressive community foundation funding grassroots organizing for social change. Directly comparable as a regional, donor-organized foundation supporting racial, economic, and gender justice movements.
• The Foundation for a Just Society: Private foundation supporting organizations advancing the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQI people. Comparable as a grantmaker exclusively focused on social-justice movement infrastructure.
• Resist: Long-running progressive foundation funding grassroots organizing for social change, peace, and ecology. Comparable mission and grantmaking model centered on small, radical community groups.
• Borealis Philanthropy: Philanthropic intermediary that pools resources from multiple foundations to advance racial justice and movement-building. Comparable as a pooled, multi-funder model supporting grassroots organizing infrastructure.
• Common Counsel Foundation: Foundation partnering with donors to support movements for racial justice, economic equity, and democratic participation. Comparable multi-fund grantmaking structure and donor-advised program design.
• Hill-Snowdon Foundation: Family foundation supporting progressive organizing for racial, economic, and gender justice through multi-year grants. Comparable donor-organized grantmaking model focused on building movement power.

Broad incumbents

• Tides Foundation: Large US progressive public charity that incubates social justice projects and runs donor-advised funds at scale. Comparable grantmaking function, but operates nationally at substantially greater scale and breadth.
• Marguerite Casey Foundation: National foundation supporting movements for economic and social justice with multi-year grantee relationships. Comparable focus on grassroots organizing but operates with a larger endowment and multi-state footprint.

Emerging players

• Kataly Foundation: Foundation directing resources to women of color-led organizations and movements for racial justice, with strong participatory grantmaking features. Comparable emphasis on community-led grant decisions.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCRI-mUU9WHve707QFL5UCNA
• Facebookfacebook.com/breadandroses
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/breadrosesfund
• Instagraminstagram.com/breadrosesfund
• Xx.com/breadrosesfund

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Bread & Roses Community Fund