About

We value,
in ourselves and others,
integrity and initiative, openness and teamwork, transformation and sustainability.

About Us

The Mitchell Kapor (KAY-poor) Foundation is a private foundation with the mission to ensure fairness and equity, especially in low-income communities of color. We support organizations and activism which illuminate and mitigate the conditions and dynamics of inequality.

Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Mitchell Kapor in 1997, the Foundation's grants program focuses on funding organizations which are working to ensure justice and equity for vulnerable and underserved communities, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nearly all of our grant work focuses on environmental, educational, and civic issues. We have three grant portfolios:

  • Core Grants provide ongoing support to organizations founded by one or both of our trustees, Mitchell and Freada Kapor Klein: Level Playing Field Institute, Open Source Applications Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
  • Targeted Grants respond to community-driven programs and projects focusing on environmental and civic participation issues. This is the only one of the three portfolios for which we accept grant requests from the public. Learn more about our targeted grants.
  • Special Opportunity Grants support trustee or staff-initiated efforts that may more broadly address fairness and equity. These grants provide the flexibility to proactively deal with issues and opportunities as they arise, even if outside our targeted grant areas. We rarely consider external solicitations and requests for these grants.

Our Vision

Through Mitchell Kapor Foundation grantmaking, we seek to:

  • Include the perspectives and interests of people of color, their communities, and other marginalized groups when addressing concerns, insuring that neither subtle nor overt racism shapes the definition of issues;
  • Correspondingly, afford opportunities to and have a positive impact on all communities, especially low-income communities of color;
  • Help people develop empathy, understanding, and connection across lines of class, race, ethnicity, and religion;
  • Enhance opportunities for average people, especially in low income communities of color, to renew democracy by participation in and influence on political and decision-making processes at all levels; and
  • Render social and political issues more understandable so that people can make informed decisions and advocate for courses of action.