Ploughshares Fund Announces Over $1 million in New Grants Reflecting the Urgent Need for New Voices and Bold Thinking in the Nuclear Field

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ploughshares Fund, a global peace and security foundation dedicated to reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, today announced over $1 million in new grants through its Equity Rises Request for Proposals (RFP).

"Ploughshares Fund's vision is a world where nuclear weapons can never be used again," said Dr. Emma Belcher, President of Ploughshares Fund. "Unfortunately, decades of progress on nuclear threat reduction are under threat and solutions from the past are no longer adequate. We are at an inflection point and what we do today will have implications well into the future. Today's announcement reflects our goal to help meet this moment by focusing on leading the nuclear field into its next phase, challenging assumptions and status quo thinking, building power with allies, and catalyzing diversity and inclusion within the nuclear field – and at Ploughshares Fund – through Equity Rises. We believe Equity Rises will be a fundamental driver of change in the nuclear policy field in the coming years."

Equity Rises is an initiative that Ploughshares Fund has put in place across all its programmatic activities, transforming how the organization conducts its work and placing a values-based approach at the center of its theory of change. The goals for the Equity Rises RFP are to identify and foster transformational ideas, encourage experimentation, and support a stronger and more diverse pipeline of leaders who are new in their careers or to the nuclear field.

With the support of a generous $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ploughshares Fund is making sixteen grants totaling $1,042,000 through this RFP.  The majority of these investments are to women and non-binary-led as well as person of color-led projects or organizations and 88 percent are to emerging leaders in the nuclear field.

Senior Program Officer and Equity Rises co-lead Cara Marie Wagner said of the investments: "We emphasized emerging voices, grassroots and frontline community leadership, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in our final awards. These investments represent the most timely, transformational, and creative projects unearthed through the RFP process. Each grant will bring something new to Ploughshares Fund's overall portfolio of investments."

The RFP grants represent a strong mix of topics, demographics, inside- and outside-the-beltway projects (both domestic and international), and nuclear and non-nuclear organizations. Collectively, the grants support a diverse pipeline of new and current voices, promote women's and people of color's leadership, tackle difficult challenges facing the nuclear field, and develop alternative, intersectional frameworks that can cultivate new constituencies and aid a shift in status quo thinking.

The sixteen grants will address three categories: Challenging Racism and White Supremacy in Nuclear Policies and Institutions, Building Actionable Connections Between Nuclear Weapons Issues and Other Issue Areas, and Examining and Dismantling the Military-Industrial Complex.

Through the Equity Rises RFP, grants were made to:

• Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament
• As You Sow
• Bombshelltoe
• British American Security Information Council
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Global Zero
• Inkstick Media
• Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice
• Marshallese Educational Initiative
• The Nuclear Truth Project
• PATH Collective LLC
• Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University
• School of International Futures
• Secure Families Foundation
• Tamara Lilinoe Patton
• Whitman College

With these grants, Ploughshares Fund aims to foster a community of advocates, activists, researchers, and creative thinkers who can affect change to reduce nuclear threats and ultimately eliminate the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

CONTACT:
Lauren Billet
Communications & Marketing Manager
Ploughshares Fund
[email protected]  (link sends e-mail)
(202) 783-4401

SOURCE Ploughshares Fund