Foundation Giving

Tides partners with foundations to expand their capacity, extend their reach, and amplify their impact within communities at the forefront of justice.

A Tides staff member giving a presentation.
A Tides staff member giving a presentation.

Deepen Your Philanthropic Impact

Communities historically denied power possess the knowledge and solutions to build a just society. Tides works with foundations who share our vision, serving as a collaborative thought partner for funders seeking guidance and resources on effective and equitable grantmaking. 

Tides helps our foundation partners: 

  • Make long-term investments that support their philanthropic strategies
  • Collaborate with like-minded funders to fuel social movements and transform policy 
  • Nimbly respond to community needs through rapid-response grantmaking 
  • Leverage a variety of grantmaking practices backed by our in-house legal and grantmaking teams, including counsel on giving to non-501(c)(3)s and providing international grants

Ways to Partner

Our charitable advisory services help foundations transform their grantmaking into a more effective and sustainable tool for change.

  • Donor Advised Funds

    Tides helps our foundation partners direct dollars that support innovative social justice solutions, including 501(c)(4)s, small or international grantees, and charitable work within for-profit organizations.

  • Collective Action Funds

    Originated by Tides, collective action funds enable multiple foundations or organizations to come together to advance a common cause: justice.

  • Strategic Advising

    Our advisors are experts in philanthropic giving and are highly connected across the social impact landscape, providing foundation advising that helps organizations refine their strategy, test new initiatives, and ignite change.

  • Impact Investing

    Tides aligns foundations’ philanthropic strategies with an impact investment portfolio, deepening the impact of foundation dollars.

Why Tides?

Tides helps our partners build a clearer path to impact, one that combines the foundation’s mission with our shared goal of strengthening the power of proximate leaders.

Nimble

Tides can help traditional foundations move more quickly, enabling our partners to continue supporting the issues they care about through strategies like rapid-response grantmaking and international giving.

Supportive

Our designated advisors are an extension of our foundation partners’ teams, making it easy to maintain existing grantmaking programs or build new ones without sacrificing capacity or compliance.

Connected

Foundations come to Tides to tap into our extensive network of social justice leaders. Those connections allow our partners to pilot strategies like participatory grantmaking, supporting charitable work within a broad range of grantees, including 501(c)(4)s or for-profits, or supporting public interest litigation.

Personalized

Many roads lead to social justice. Tides helps funders support emerging social movements, education-based advocacy work, and more — while giving foundation staff the peace of mind that comes from our due diligence and expertise.

Community Stories

Celebrate the ingenuity and tenacity of the bold visionaries working with Tides to foster change.

  • The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation collaborated with Tides to strengthen its Postsecondary Success strategy focused on advancing equitable student outcomes. Discover how our partnership united organizations from across the US to improve policies and practices dedicated to building more inclusive learning environments and improving graduation rates, especially among students from underrepresented communities.

    Learn More
A Latine woman and girl potting plants together. Photo credit: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Frontline Justice Fund grantee A Black muslim mother and her son at Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights' bustling community hub in southeast Nashville. Photo credit: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrants Belong Fund grantee A group of people with Native Renewables standing in the desert next to a solar panel. Photo credit: Native Renewables, Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund grantee
A Latine woman and girl potting plants together. Photo credit: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Frontline Justice Fund grantee A Black muslim mother and her son at Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights' bustling community hub in southeast Nashville. Photo credit: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrants Belong Fund grantee A group of people with Native Renewables standing in the desert next to a solar panel. Photo credit: Native Renewables, Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund grantee

Interested in Partnering with Tides?

There’s no greater force than the collective power of people united for justice. Join us to fuel lasting change.

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