Blog : Opportunity Fund

OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $1,390,000 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $1,390,000 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

CONTACT: 
Jake Goodman, Opportunity Fund Executive Director 
jgoodman [at] theopportunityfund.org, 412-362-1300

PITTSBURGH, PA, November 13, 2026 — Opportunity Fund announces grantmaking support in the total amount of $1,390,000 to 64 partners in the second half of 2026. The foundation reviewed 211 requests for funding, requesting almost $2.9 million. This year the foundation increased its payout from 6.0% to 6.5% of total assets.

“We are proud to work with grant partners who are doing so much for our community. As we near the end of 2026, we are all aware of changes on the horizon that will affect benefits, services, and arts funding for people of the Greater Pittsburgh community,” says Jake Goodman, Executive Director of Opportunity Fund. “As ever, philanthropy must partner with local organizations to quickly and effectively distribute resources where they are most needed.“

This cycle, 77% of Opportunity Fund’s awarded grants offer general operating support. 15 grant awards provide funding over multiple years. “These grants reflect the confidence we have in our partners and the respect we hold for their knowledge, leadership, and lived experience,” says Ti Wilhelm, Program Officer/Operations.

Opportunity Fund continues to honor its commitment to offer transparency in their racial and demographic grantmaking data: 44% of this grant cycle’s funding went to Black-led organizations, 12% to Asian or Latino/a/e-led organizations or teams with multiracial leadership, and 43% to white-led organizations.

A complete list of awarded grants can be found below and on Opportunity Fund’s website.

Since Opportunity Fund’s inception in 2015, the foundation has awarded 1489 grants totaling over $23 million. Grant cycles take place twice per year. The deadline to submit an initial application to be considered for a grant for the next cycle is January 15, 2027. Opportunity Fund encourages organizations focused on the arts and/or social and economic justice to reach out or submit by the deadline.

Full information about applying for grants is available in the “For Applicants” area of the foundation’s website.

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Why We Fund the Arts

by Jake Goodman, Executive Director

At Opportunity Fund we value artistic expression and champion artistic freedom. We partner with small-to-midsize arts organizations to support the work that inspires their passion and the ideas they are most excited to bring to fruition. We liken artists to alchemists whose craft involves a skillful manipulation of materials: body, earth, language, shape, sound, color, time, texture, and tradition. We strive to be a partner artists trust with their most daring and cherished work.

We fund the arts for the same reasons that authoritarian leaders fear and suppress them: because we know their power. When rising to prominence these leaders move quickly to dominate the cultural landscape, employing artists willing to tell prideful nationalistic narratives and pushing out those who refuse to curtail their expression. Joseph Stalin in the U.S.S.R., Adolf Hitler in Germany, Mao Zedong in China, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile all imposed heavy restrictions on the arts. We now see Vladimir Putin in Russia and Donald Trump in the United States following this same playbook. They know a public that is free to express itself is one that is difficult to control.

We fund the arts because art brings us into relationship with the unknown. A force for connection, art helps us grow in empathy and makes plain what we cannot readily see. It builds the muscle of imagination and expands our conception of the possible. Art stands us before beauty, and ourselves.

Across the funding landscape there seems to be an impulse to ask what art does for us and to measure the worth of creativity. Perhaps this urge stems from a desire to rationalize allocating any funds to the arts when so many other urgent and material needs are present. While arts advocates have offered answers to these inquiries, from revenue generation to neurological benefits and public safety, these factors are not our motivation for funding the arts. We know that the value of art lies far beyond the quantifiable and we do not ask art to justify itself.

As arts funders we have three goals:

  1. Nurture the conditions that free artists to push the boundaries of their creative practices and fields, as they strive to develop their work over a period of time;
  2. Resource organizations to function as thriving culture houses for the production, presentation, and experience of art at the vanguard; and
  3. Activate people to develop their own passionate habits of art-chasing and art-going.

In our efforts to realize these goals, we remain vigilant of the tendency for funders to impose control and restrictions on artists, however well-meaning our intentions may be. If we truly wish to support artistic freedom and free expression, we cannot mandate that artists be justice workers, social commentators, or world-fixers, nor can we ask them to hide their political beliefs at the risk of offending their funders. We must not force artists to contort themselves to fit into ever-changing themes and initiatives.

As arts funders we have the power to steer the momentum of culture. We have historically wielded this power inequitably, systematically building white culture while leaving all other culture to sustain itself or wither in the shade. How much richer would our culture be if, for example, Black, Latine, or queer artists and arts organizations in Pittsburgh had received equitable investment since the industrial boom years? How much richer would American culture be if this had taken place nationally? We have long reflected on these questions and consider them in our practice of arts funding.

The Opportunity Fund team works to continually grow as partners to artists and arts organizations, and in doing so we reflect on our own lived experience as artists. We know every life is made richer by creating and engaging with art. It is our hope that when partnering with us, artists will feel supported. We hope they will see a future for themselves as artists and feel that what they do matters. We hope they will be inspired by the work of others and push or expand their own practices. As their ambition grows, their imagination of the possible will grow as well. It is our mission as funders to bring these possibilities within reach.

Meeting the Moment: A Rapid Response Funding Opportunity

A collective funding effort hosted by the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania

In today’s rapidly changing environment, nonprofits face unprecedented challenges from federal funding cuts, emerging crises, and evolving community needs. Traditional grant-making timelines often cannot match the urgency these situations demand. In partnership with The Heinz Endowments, The Pittsburgh Foundation, McAuley Ministries and Opportunity Fund, the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania is taking a collective approach to addressing these emergent needs through the Meeting the Moment rapid response grant program.

Launched in February 2026, Meeting the Moment rapid response grants provide support to keep essential services running during natural disasters, community crises, policy changes, and other local emergencies. These grants are reserved for time‑sensitive, last‑resort needs where a delay in support would directly interrupt essential services.

If your organization is facing these challenges we encourage you to apply for a Meeting the Moment grant. Applications are reviewed on a monthly rolling basis. The next application cycles close July 31 and August 28, 2026.

To Apply for a Meeting the Moment Grant: 

Please reach out to Sara Noel at Sara.Noel [at] unitedwayswpa.org if you have questions about the application process.

Meeting the Moment 2026 Grant Recipients (as of July 13, 2026)

FEBRUARY 2026

Catapult Greater Pittsburgh ($25,000) Bridge Support for Catapult Greater Pittsburgh’s Essential Services

Young Black Motivated Kings and Queens ($25,000) YBMKQ University Emergency Stabilization and Continuity Support

YouthPlaces ($15,000) YouthPlaces After School Meal Program

MARCH 2026

Ayudate Incorporated ($25,000) Mental Health in Spanish

Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh (BCAP) ($20,000) Immediate Support for Immigrant and Refugee Community

Creative Citizen Studios ($20,000) Creative Citizen Studios Programming

I AM FOUNDATION ($20,000) Stabilizing Homewood: Rapid Harm Reduction Response

Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse ($8,000) Virtual Therapeutic Arts Activities for Latino Community of Pittsburgh

Willissae’s Agency for Vision and Empowerment ($25,000) Recognizing Everything Ain’t Done Yet (WAVE’s READY PROGRAM)

Women for a Healthy Environment ($20,000) Environmental Health Program Stabilization Following Facility Damage

APRIL 2026

Pittsburgh Conservation Corps (D/B/A Landforce) ($25,000) Landforce Financial Stabilization and Planning

The Open Door, Inc ($25,000) Bridge Support for Staffing Needs

MAY 2026

Café Momentum Pittsburgh ($25,000) Maintaining Continuity of Care for Justice-Impacted Youth

Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern PA ($12,000) Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania/Fayette Safe House Updates

Ebenezer Outreach Ministries ($25,000) EOM Pharmacy Technician Workforce Training Program; Neighborhood Learning Alliance Summer Youth Program; Learn & Earn Summer Youth Program

Fayette County Community Action Agency Inc ($25,000) FCCAA Aging Department Meeting the Moment Project

Latino Community Center (LCC) ($25,000) Emergency Basic Needs Assistance & Youth Outreach

Mosaic Community Development Center ($7,500) MCDC Summer Transportation Bridge Initiative

JUNE 2026

Bridge to the Mountains ($25,000) Emergency Support for Street Outreach

Civically, Inc. ($20,000) Safe to Serve Security Upgrades

Garfield Community Farm ($25,000) Wicklow Street 160’ Retaining Wall Rebuild

JULY 2026

Alumni Theater Company ($11,500) Keeping Alumni Theater Company’s Young Artists Safe, Supported, and On Stage

ARYSE ($25,000) Bridge Funding to Account for Federal Funding Gaps

Balafon West African Dance Ensemble ($24,600) Bridge Funding for Rehearsal Space, Artist Compensation, and Essential Administrative Capacity

Black Political Empowerment Project ($25,000) Bridge Funding for Operations and Staff

Calliope House Inc ($10,000) Mainstage Series Venue Change Costs

Heritage Community Initiatives ($25,000) Emergency Roof Repair

The Allegheny Front – Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corp ($25,000) Bridge Funding for Staff and Environmental Journalism Programming

Tree of Life Open Bible Church ($7,500) Funding to Support Commercial Kitchen Updates

America at the Crossroads

Reflections on America’s 250th Anniversary by rev. yvette shipman, Program Officer/Repair, Opportunity Fund

On July 4, 2026, America turns 250 years old. This feels less like a celebration and more like a crossroads, and I have learned to trust crossroads. Crossroads are not comfortable, and approaching them means something is shifting. Crossroads are an invitation to choose. 

I am a Black woman and I have made peace with the fact that this holiday was not created with me in mind. America, while formed with lofty ideals, was built on the forced removal of Indigenous people and the theft and forced labor of Black bodies. We are witnessing our country continue the worst parts of its legacy in its slide towards authoritarianism, through mass deportations, detention centers, and surveillance. We are learning together what was always true for so many people, that the democracy currently being grieved by some was never fully real to begin with. It was a myth, one some of us were allowed to believe in longer than others. Yet today, with our eyes fully open, we are able to look past the myth and see the possibilities.

The America that once inspired the world, that beacon of possibility and collective care, we didn’t inherit that. We are that. This country’s founding documents may not have included me, but I was never waiting for an invitation. Neither were my ancestors. They dreamed futures into existence from the middle of nightmares. They bent time. They planted seeds in soil they would never rest in, for children they would never meet, who would one day stand here, transformed, still rising, tuned to something the architects of exclusion could never touch.

Our teachers know this. James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Dr. Bruce Purnell, Audre Lorde – together they remind us that we have the power to transform emotional pain into purpose, to release the traumatic narrative, not forget it, but release it, and open our hearts to what comes next. They remind us that we are entangled. What diminishes you diminishes me. What liberates me clears a path for you, whether you know it or not. Collective care is not charity. It is the only way through.

In my work at Opportunity Fund my intention is to walk alongside the organizations doing this sacred work; those on the frontlines of social and economic justice, and the artists who, as Marc Bamuthi Joseph reminds us, “are the architects of a post-fear economy”.

So on this 250th year, approaching the choice this crossroads offers, I choose divine frequency. I choose truth, love, liberation, and living in my inherent dignity. I am venerating the dreamers. I am honoring the ancestors who held the future in trust for us.

America is also my home. I was born here, I can trace my ancestry back to the 1700s and I’m still working out what it means to me to be an American. And sitting in this complexity I mean it when I say: God bless America.

rev. yvette shipman, Program Officer/Repair, Opportunity Fund

OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $1,339,000 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $1,339,000 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

CONTACT: 
Jake Goodman, Opportunity Fund Executive Director 
jgoodman [at] theopportunityfund.org, 412-362-1300

PITTSBURGH, PA, June 2, 2026 — Opportunity Fund announces grantmaking support in the total amount of $1,339,000 to 74 partners as part of its first grant cycle in 2026. The foundation reviewed 187 requests for funding, requesting over $3.5 million. This year the foundation increased their payout from 6.0% to 6.5% of total assets.

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OPPORTUNITY FUND ANNOUNCES IAN-JULIAN WILLIAMS AS PROGRAM OFFICER/ARTS

OPPORTUNITY FUND ANNOUNCES IAN-JULIAN WILLIAMS AS PROGRAM OFFICER/ARTS

National Endowment for the Arts specialist brings equity-centered approach and commitment to artistic freedom to Pittsburgh-based foundation.

PITTSBURGH, PA, January 7, 2026 — Opportunity Fund is excited to welcome Ian-Julian Williams as Program Officer/Arts. Williams will guide the foundation’s arts grantmaking strategy with emphasis on its three priorities of arts funding: nurturing conditions that free artists to push boundaries in their creative practices, resourcing organizations to function as thriving culture houses, and activating people to develop passionate habits of art-going.

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2025 End of Year Reflections

2025 End of Year Reflections

Hello Everyone,

2025 has been a pivotal year for Opportunity Fund, for Pittsburgh, and for the nation at large. This year challenged us to grow as a philanthropic organization and as individuals.

We celebrated our ten-year anniversary, honoring ten years of working alongside brilliant grant partners and fellow foundations supporting the arts and social and economic justice – ten years of getting to know so many of you so well. Truly, it is the best part of our jobs. To date, Opportunity Fund has distributed a total of $20,382,786, 93% of which specifically benefits the Greater Pittsburgh region.

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OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $968,000 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $968,000 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

CONTACT: 
Jake Goodman, Opportunity Fund Executive Director 
jgoodman [at] theopportunityfund.org, 412-362-1300

PITTSBURGH, PA, November 7, 2025 — Opportunity Fund announces grantmaking support in the total amount of $968,000 to 71 partners as part of its second grant cycle in 2025. The foundation reviewed 176 requests for funding, requesting over $3.4 million. 

“Our guiding values have always included social justice, racial justice, queer liberation, and valuing of the arts and artists,” said Jake Goodman, Opportunity Fund’s Executive Director. “While the current political moment features a federal government that employs intimidation tactics to scare people with resources away from directing them to specific populations and issues, we will not be deterred by political threats. As this cohort of grant partners exemplifies, we will move forward as we always have.

At a time when immigrants and refugees are being targeted and terrorized, the cycle’s largest grant ($150,000) joins other regional funders to pool support for the Collaborative for Immigrant Impact, a coalition of 18 organizations, to fuel a rapid, collective response to address the immediate impacts of policy changes on immigrant and refugee families in southwestern Pennsylvania.  

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OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $933,489 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

OPPORTUNITY FUND PROVIDES $933,489 IN GRANTS TO THE ARTS AND SOCIAL & ECONOMIC JUSTICE

PITTSBURGH, PA, April 18, 2025 — Opportunity Fund announces grantmaking support in the total amount of $933,489 as part of its first grant cycle in 2025. The foundation reviewed 164 requests for funding, requesting over $2.7 million. 

Opportunity Fund aspires to nurture reciprocal relationships with its partners that are built on trust. The majority of all grants that Opportunity Fund awards provide unrestricted general operating support, which empower partners to use grant funds as they best see fit to meet their goals. This cycle, 89% of all the grant funds offer general operating support. 40% of the funding went to Black-led organizations, 44% to white-led, and 16% to Asian or Latino/a/e-led organizations or teams with multiracial leadership.

A complete list of awarded grants can be found below.

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The Moment We Are In

The Moment We Are In

Note: This is an excerpt of the speech given by Jake Goodman, Opportunity Fund’s Executive Director, at the foundation’s 10-year anniversary celebration on February 28, 2025.

I want to talk about the time we’re living in right now. It’s just February. Our country has elected a president whose administration is actively expanding its power, authoritarian in nature, dismantling so very much, wreaking devastation left and right.  We’ve all been touched by it – some of us more than others. “And then they came for me” has never felt so resonant in my lifetime.

At Opportunity Fund we are asking: What do we do? What can we do? And with whom?

Here’s what I’m thinking:

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