CONTACT: Jake Goodman, Executive Director, jgoodman [at] theopportunityfund.org

PITTSBURGH, PA, May 31, 2022 — The Opportunity Fund announces support totaling $934,879 in the foundation’s eighth year of grantmaking. The Board of Directors, along with two community panels, funded 73 out of 106 requests that sought a total of $1,798,679. The majority of this funding, 72%, is for unrestricted general operating support that can be used flexibly, as needed. 47% of grant partners are BIPOC-led organizations or organizations with multi-racial leadership teams; 32% are Black-led organizations. A complete list of awarded grants can be found below.

Including this current grant cycle, the foundation has awarded 833 grants totaling over $11.4 million since its inception in 2015. Grant cycles take place twice a year. Letter of Inquiry deadlines are January 15 and July 15 each year. Full information about applying for grants is available in the “For Applicants” area of our website.

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CONTACT: Jake Goodman, Executive Director, jgoodman [at] theopportunityfund.org

PITTSBURGH, PA, December 13, 2021 — The Opportunity Fund announces support totaling $1,478,750, the largest cycle ever in its seventh year of grantmaking. The Board of Directors, along with two community panels, funded 81 out of 142 requests that were seeking a total of $2,516,525. A complete list of awarded grants can be found below.

Including this current grant cycle, the foundation has awarded 752 grants totaling over $10.3 million since its inception in 2015. Grant cycles take place twice a year. Letter of Inquiry deadlines are January 15 and July 15 each year. Full information about applying for grants is available in the “For Applicants” area of our website.

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CONTACT: Jake Goodman, Executive Director, jgoodman [at] theopportunityfund.org

PITTSBURGH, PA, December 7, 2021 – For some, the uprisings for racial justice in the summer of 2020 came and went. But for the Opportunity Fund and its Executive Director, Jake Goodman, the energy of that time offered “a precious moment of potential.” This moment “revealed the anti-Blackness that is baked into American life, which results in an ever-evolving and systematic devaluation of Black life that is designed to protect and grow the standing of white people. Once exposed, it is vulnerable.”

A subsequent evolution occurred within the Opportunity Fund, beginning with a recognition that, every grant cycle, proposals flow in to address problems existing within systems: housing, transportation, human services, criminal justice, social services. The vast majority of applicants report that these systems create the very worst outcomes for Black people. “If we truly do not accept the current status quo of many Black people living and dying under worse conditions than almost everybody else,” says Goodman, “then we need to change the way we generally go about business at the Opportunity Fund. Otherwise, we are tacitly accepting that status quo.”

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