The Crisis Charitable Commitment (CCC)—a project of the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund’s WhyNot Initiative—has announced an effort to raise $41.5 million in charitable donations from foundations and wealthy donors to support Black-led organizations, safeguard voting rights, and raise awareness of wealth inequality.

CCC, which encourages wealthy donors to give sooner rather than later—a counterpoint to the stored wealth of untapped donor-advised funds and the open-ended obligation of the Giving Pledge—has created three pooled funds: the Black Liberation Pooled Fund managed by the Solidaire Network, a progressive donor collective; the Healthy Democracy Fund managed by the Tides Foundation; and Tax the Ultra Rich Now managed by the Amalgamated Foundation. The funds will offer professional management, issue-area expertise, the capacity to create and track metrics, and the ability to move funds quickly as needs change.

According to CCC, nonprofit organizations across the country have struggled during the pandemic to meet the increasing needs of communities as their funding has declined or been redirected. Since 2020, signatories to the Crisis Charitable Commitment have increased their giving by a total of $690 million, including $185.4 million to efforts for racial justice and $164.6 million to safeguard democracy.

“We have an opportunity with this pooled fund to draw attention to how much more wealthy individuals and foundations could be doing to address these needs by moving more resources to the front lines of social change,” said Amalgamated Foundation executive director Anna Fink.

“There’s a lot of work to do to address the multiple crises facing our country, and there are billions of dollars sitting unused in private philanthropic accounts that could improve the lives of millions right now,” said Alan S. Davis, president of the Davis Fund and director of the WhyNot Initiative. “These pooled funds are designed to facilitate grantmaking for those who say that they want to donate more of their wealth to help causes and communities, but don’t know where to send donations.”

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