In May, the Henry Luce Foundation issued a call for ideas from potential partners around the world to help the Foundation shape a new initiative. The Foundation’s goal is to learn from the eventual grantees as it designs a multi-year grantmaking effort.

Focused on the challenges of building just, equitable, and inclusive societies, the call for ideas was intentionally framed very broadly in order to encourage as diverse a group of respondents as possible. 265 organizations from around the world responded to the call, with particular emphases on seven areas:

  • Developing trustworthy institutions 
  • Building trust and a sense of shared purpose among and within communities
  • Building public trust in democracies
  • Creating and piloting new models of community organization, empowerment, and governance
  • Exploring and developing alternative relationships among people, place, space, environment, and the non-human 
  • Expanding our collective imaginative capacity to envision new structures and processes for social relations 
  • Using the expressive arts to inspire and shape alternative social, economic, and technological relations 

Respondents hailed from Brazil, Myanmar, Kenya, and Ecuador, among other nations. They included universities, arts centers, media organizations, and grassroots movements—conducting research, advocating for policy solutions, organizing communities, and supporting artists.

The responding organizations were asked to provide two pages of text and were encouraged to seek general operating and planning support. These parameters were meant to encourage less well-resourced applicants and to provide funds for the respondents’ on-going work.

42 organizations have been invited to submit full proposals in September. The Foundation expects to select 12-16 grantees which will receive $150,00-$300,000 each.