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We are Honored to Present Our 2024 KABF Grant Recipients!
Heartland Fund
“Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
— Sydney J. Harris (American journalist)
— Sydney J. Harris (American journalist)
Sarah Jaynes is a strategic political organizer and a long-time friend to the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation. She reached out in the summer of 2024 to see if we could again support the work she’s doing through a grant to the Heartland Fund. Heartland Fund not only supplies grants carefully chosen to support voter-engagement nonprofits in rural America, but they also help leaders and organizations through their research and communications.
KABF was happy to do our part to support Heartland’s recent $30 million goal to continue to support our democratic systems, advance policies that improve the lives of all rural people and combat the lies that threaten our democracy.
Click here to read more about Heartland Fund.
Stewardship Utah
“The secret of our success is that we never, never give up."
— Wilma Mankiller (Native American activist and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom)
— Wilma Mankiller (Native American activist and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom)
The Kelly Ann Brown Foundation didn’t hesitate when deciding to offer a third grant to the nonprofit originally called the Rural Utah Project (RUP). Their efforts to register voters throughout the Navajo Nation (located in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah) made all the difference in the 2020 presidential election. Political pundits agree that the Navajos delivered President Biden the win he needed in Arizona.
KABF can’t wait to hear more about Stewardship Utah.
Click here to learn more.
Vote at Home
“Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity and worth of cultures and peoples." — Rigoberta Menchú Tum (K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1992)
In 2024, KABF Chair Debra Hannula spoke to Barbara Smith Warner, Executive Director of the National Vote At Home Institute (NVAHI), whose nonprofit works nationally to promote mail-in voting, or as NVAHI calls it, voting from home.
Though just in its infancy, NVAHI has already been successful. As Ms. Warner told Debra: “When the National Vote At Home Institute started in 2018, only three states automatically sent ballots to voters’ homes. Today, every active registered voter in eight states and D.C. automatically gets a ballot delivered for every election. Dozens more states now allow voters to request a ballot with no excuse, but rules vary across states and even counties. Voting at home significantly increases voter turnout, especially among 18–34-year-olds.”
Click here for more info on Vote at Home.
Law Forward
“We successfully defended voting rights for the disabled, the elderly, college students, and other vulnerable groups in multiple cases, and we helped restore the option for communities across the state to use absentee-ballot drop boxes.”
— Jeff Mandell (President & General Counsel of Law Forward)
— Jeff Mandell (President & General Counsel of Law Forward)
Jeff Mandell, President and General Counsel, Law Forward
Kelly Ann Brown Foundation first gave a grant to the democracy-saving nonprofit, Law Forward, in 2021. Founded in 2020 by two attorneys, KABF was impressed by the legal work they were doing in Wisconsin to push back in the courts on Republicans’ voter suppression tactics, including gerrymandering.
In June of 2024, KABF chair Debra Hannula received an email from Law Forward’s Executive Director Jeff Mandell eager to share their latest accomplishments. Mandell’s summary of the work they’ve been doing inspired KABF to give another grant in 2024.
Law Forward fought in court for new legislative maps to stop the Republicans extreme gerrymander that had a stranglehold in Wisconsin for over a dozen years and won. Mandell shared that victory alone has revived his state’s democracy. “This past week, candidates filed paperwork to get on the ballot, and the evidence shows greater participation and more contested races in districts the length and breadth of Wisconsin than we have seen in a generation. This marked increase in contested races – based entirely on the reality that fewer district lines are drawn in ways that make a mockery of the election process – is a testament to our work repairing democracy and ensuring fair representation.”
Click here to learn more about Law Forward.
Move On Education Fund
“Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.” — Albert Moravia (Italian novelist and journalist)
In November of 2023, KABF director Katy Jo Steward heard a passionate presentation given by Rahna Epting, the executive director of Move On, a nonprofit that works on behalf of Americans covering an array of equality and justice issues including voting rights. Move On’s efforts to defend our democracy convinced Katy Jo that KABF needed to support their work. The KABF board agreed and gave a grant in 2024.
Ms. Epting shared with KABF their plans for the future: "Move On’s long-term goal is to build a democracy that works for everyone, where all people have the chance to thrive, free from systemic racism, misogyny, violence, and deprivation. To drive us toward those goals, we’ve prioritized democracy reform, including work to specifically counter the reemergence of white Christian nationalism, and cross-movement collaboration."
Click here to learn more about the Move On Education Fund.
Ms. Epting shared with KABF their plans for the future: "Move On’s long-term goal is to build a democracy that works for everyone, where all people have the chance to thrive, free from systemic racism, misogyny, violence, and deprivation. To drive us toward those goals, we’ve prioritized democracy reform, including work to specifically counter the reemergence of white Christian nationalism, and cross-movement collaboration."
Click here to learn more about the Move On Education Fund.
Pathstar
“I firmly believe we as people — and I mean all people of all beautiful races — must stand together in each of our individual personal pursuits of a better quality of life. We must not only dream of positive change, but we must take action — with every step we take, every challenge we meet, every event we promote, every person that we involve, every individual, group, and community. The key to a healthier future is to keep succeeding in opening one door at a time and to never give up, because this is a never-ending process.” — Terry Mills, Oglala Lakota, six-time PATHSTAR Alcatraz Swim Week participant
October 14, 2024, marked the 21st anniversary of the first Pathstar swim by Richard Iron Cloud and Armando Black Bear. Their initial swim from Alcatraz to the South End Rowing Club located in San Francisco began an annual adventure now shared by many Indigenous people.
Pathstar’s event begins the week prior to the swim. The founder, Dr. Nancy Iverson, rents a beautiful home for the participants to share where they learn to cook nutritious recipes that will be easy to replicate when they return home. Yoga and meditation, as well as other wellness techniques, are taught by experts hoping to help fulfill their mission, which states:
PATHSTAR is committed to inspiring and revitalizing sustainable health and well-being practices within Native American communities by providing experiential learning opportunities.
Click here to learn more about Pathstar.
October 14, 2024, marked the 21st anniversary of the first Pathstar swim by Richard Iron Cloud and Armando Black Bear. Their initial swim from Alcatraz to the South End Rowing Club located in San Francisco began an annual adventure now shared by many Indigenous people.
Pathstar’s event begins the week prior to the swim. The founder, Dr. Nancy Iverson, rents a beautiful home for the participants to share where they learn to cook nutritious recipes that will be easy to replicate when they return home. Yoga and meditation, as well as other wellness techniques, are taught by experts hoping to help fulfill their mission, which states:
PATHSTAR is committed to inspiring and revitalizing sustainable health and well-being practices within Native American communities by providing experiential learning opportunities.
Click here to learn more about Pathstar.
RAZE
“Our nation is asking to hear your voice because November is coming and so is your choice. Do not throw away your shot.”
— Lin-Manuel Miranda
— Lin-Manuel Miranda
KABF was excited to give a fifth grant to Rural Arizona Engagement (RAZE), an Arizona nonprofit. It was founded by two committed activists, Pablo Correa and Natali Fierros Bock, who understand that voters in southern rural Arizona need to feel empowered.
Correa and Fierros Bock shared with KABF in 2019, when we gave our first grant, that rural Arizonans have often felt that they don’t matter. Both government and nonprofit resources never seem to reach them. RAZE’s mission is to fill that void.
Click here to learn more about RAZE.
El Centro de la Raza
"It is for the children and the young that we work, for they are the ones that know how to love, for they are the hope of the world." — Roberto Maestas, co-founder of El Centro de la Raza
KABF gave a fourth grant to Seattle nonprofit El Centro de la Raza, whose mission includes building unity “across all racial and economic sectors, to organize, empower, and defend our most vulnerable and marginalized populations and to bring justice, dignity, equality, and freedom to all the peoples of the world.”
El Centro offers a large array of services. There are fourteen programs geared to children and teens, which include bilingual childcare, after school tutoring and mentoring programs, workshops that teach Latino history and Hip Hop and the Arts as a medium for social change and community activism. They offer DACA scholarships and immigration services, as well as housing and economic programs.
Click here to read more about El Centro de la Raza.
El Centro offers a large array of services. There are fourteen programs geared to children and teens, which include bilingual childcare, after school tutoring and mentoring programs, workshops that teach Latino history and Hip Hop and the Arts as a medium for social change and community activism. They offer DACA scholarships and immigration services, as well as housing and economic programs.
Click here to read more about El Centro de la Raza.
