Isabel Allende Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Isabel Allende Foundation seeks organizations that empower women, secure their reproductive rights, and protect them from violence.
IP TAKE: While this foundation awards grants to some large international rights organizations, it leans toward smaller, grassroots outfits serving women in the areas of reproductive justice and economic empowerment. Recent grantmaking has also expanded geographically to include organizations serving women in developing nations across the world. This funder does not award many grants each year, and it does not accept unsolicited proposals. It does, however, provide an email address for the foundation’s executive director, Lori Barra.
PROFILE: Chilean novelist Isabel Allende established the Isabel Allende Foundation in 1996 in honor of her daughter Paula Frias, who passed away in 1992 due to complications from porphyria. The foundation, which is based in Sausalito, California, awards grants to organizations investing in “the power of women and girls to secure reproductive rights, economic independence, and freedom from violence.”
Grants for Women and Girls
This funder conducts all grantmaking through a gender lens, which invests in women and girl’s human rights, reproductive health and rights, economic development and gender-based violence prevention. Support also addresses refugee women and girls. The foundation funds two separate programs.
Grants for Reproductive Health, Refugees, Gender-Based Violence Prevention, Economic Development and Human Rights
Its Esperanza grants support organizations and projects in the areas of reproductive rights, women’s economic empowerment and gender-based violence prevention. Past grantees include the Center for Reproductive Rights, Immigrant Legal Defense and Love Welcomes, which helps refugee women earn money through the manufacture and sale of upcycled home products.
The Espíritu Award recognizes a single organization annually for “exemplary work in the Foundation's areas of interest.”
This acknowledgement includes all areas related to focus areas.
Grantmaking prioritizes Chile and the state of California, but has broadened in geographic scope recently.
Important Grant Details:
The Allende Foundation gave away about $1.7 million in a recent year. Esperanza Grants range from $1,000 to $10,000, while the Espíritu Awards ranges from $25,000 to $80,000.
All grantmaking centers on women’s rights, with recent grantmaking focusing on reproductive justice and care in the U.S.
The foundation, which traditionally supports organizations in Chile and California, appears to be broadening its geographical scope to include organizations operating in many developing nations in Africa, Asia and South America.
For a broader sense of the types of organizations the Allende Foundation supports, explore its past grant recipients listings.
The Isabel Allende Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant requests or proposals, but general inquiries may be addressed to the foundation’s executive director, Lori Barra, via email.
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