Democratic Philanthropy in Action
SPF is a public foundation created to serve southern community organizations seeking racial, economic, and environmental justice by providing them with financial resources, technical assistance and training, and access to information and power systems.
Summer 2026 Newsletter
This June marked 57 years since the Stonewall Uprising, and we entered Pride Month under circumstances that would have been hard to fathom even a few years ago. Across the country, Pride celebrations are being cancelled—not because the will to gather has faded, but because the ground beneath organizers has shifted. Read More
Spring 2026 Newsletter
There is a phrase that gets used a lot in social justice spaces—the work—and if you pay attention to who is actually doing it, the pattern is hard to miss. Women, and disproportionately women of color, are the backbone of the nonprofit industry and the engine of most social movements. They are the majority of the sector’s workforce, the majority of frontline organizers, the ones who absorb the administrative load, hold the relationships, and stay when the funding runs out. And yet, as organizations grow larger and better-resourced, they remain underrepresented in the most powerful and best-paid roles. They are asked to carry the movement. The credit goes elsewhere. Read More
Inside Philanthropy: Toward a More Equitable South: Meet a Funder Where Rural Grassroots Leaders Call the Shots
Inside Philanthropy’s Mike Scutari published a feature article, saying “Atlanta’s Southern Partners Fund is one of those unique grantmakers working at the intersection of a few of the more urgent themes animating philanthropy today. The first involves geography. SPF, which has moved more than $15 million to grassroots community organizations in the rural South since its inception in 1994, is among a group of funders working to close the longstanding philanthropy gap in the region, and it’s poised to be an even bigger player moving forward.” Read More