The J.M. Kaplan Fund has announced the recipients of the 2021 J.M.K. Innovation Prize in the fields of social justice, the environment, and heritage conservation.

Ten visionary early-stage organizations will each receive $150,000 over three years and an additional $25,000 in technical assistance in support of projects with the potential to make a significant, lasting impact on the nation’s most pressing challenges. Recipients also join a resource network designed to support them through the challenges of a start-up organization, are invited to participate in convenings, and benefit from peer learning, mentoring, and strategic counsel throughout their prize term and beyond.

Selected from 2,826 applications — more than double the number in the 2019 cycle — the recipient organizations and their leaders are Black Women Build – Baltimore (Shelley Halstead), Cambium Carbon (Ben Christensen and Marisa Repka), Co-op Dayton (Lela Klein and amaha sellassie), Every Campus A Refuge (Diya Abdo), Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (Sara Sindija and Brandon Smith), Freedom Community Center (Mike Milton), HEARD (Esperanza Dillard and Talila “TL” Lewis), Nuns & Nones (Brittany Koteles), Respond Crisis Translation (Ariel Koren and Fernanda de Oliveira Silva), and Wikitongues (Daniel Bögre Udell and Kristen Tcherneshoff). Now in its fourth cycle, the biennial prize this year focused on healing trauma, protecting the planet, and racial justice.

According to a report about the 2021 prize, Building Pathways to Collective Power (32 pages, PDF), 31 percent of applications crossed multiple focus areas, up from 15 percent in 2019; 39 percent cited serving communities of color; and 18 percent specifically referenced Black Lives Matter. Among other things, the analysis found that social justice is reshaping environmental practice, multilayered new models center race-based trauma, and Black women are catalyzing large-scale change.

“This year saw far and away the most applications and volunteer participation in the Prize to date, and the submissions we received were more integrated and layered across our three program areas than ever before,” said J.M. Kaplan Fund board chair Peter W. Davidson. “These ten J.M.K. Innovation Prize awardees are incredible standouts, and they are just a fraction of the inspiring ideas shared by leaders of trailblazing nonprofit and mission-driven for-profit organizations in all fifty states.”