Deepak Bhargava to deliver ‘Lightning Bolt’ to philanthropy

Deepak Bhargava, the newly elected president of the JPB Foundation, one of the largest grant-making foundations in the US, plans to spend up to $100 million in additional funds in 2024 to strengthen democracy

Under an expanded mission, the Foundation will help people who have been denied power to build it, so they can change unjust systems and create a more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable society, according to a press release.

As part of that mission, the Foundation will support five key areas of work, including Democracy, Gender, and Racial Justice; Community and Worker Power; Movement Infrastructure and Explorations; Faith, Bridging, and Belonging; and Reproductive Justice, Medical Research, and NYC Community Grants.

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“The threat to democracy is the single greatest challenge facing our nation,” said Deepak Bhargava. “Saving democracy will require building broad alliances across civil society to unite those who may have differing worldviews but agree on bedrock commitments such as the right to vote and the need for representative and responsive institutions.

“We must work to meet those short-term threats to our formal democratic institutions while also addressing the long-term drivers of our crisis of democracy,” he said. “Doing so means recognizing that a sustainable and inclusive democracy requires much more than the right to vote.”

“Workers should have a voice in the economy, women and LGBTQ+ people should be free to make decisions about their bodies and lives, people of color and immigrants should be full and equal participants in every aspect of society, and we should not allow a small number of fossil fuel companies to overrule the wishes of billions of people for a liveable planet.”

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“Protecting and expanding democracy demands that we build power with those who have been denied it and that we invest in grassroots organizations and movements,” Bhargava said. “With the Foundation’s new commitments and mission, we’ll continue to work with grantees to meet the moment and strengthen the movements fighting today’s biggest battles.”

The Foundation also announced it is committing a total of nearly $500 million in 2024 grantmaking, which is approximately a 40% increase from the Foundation’s 2022 grantmaking levels and far exceeds the legally required standard annual distribution for philanthropies. Up to $100 million will be devoted to spending in new program areas.

This expanded spending will support a broad array of initiatives and organizations fighting in various capacities to protect and strengthen democracy, including work around voter engagement and voting rights at the state and local levels with a sharp focus on communities of color and young people; community, faith-based, and rural organizing; efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation; and strategies to address the long- term drivers of our democratic crisis.

The Foundation has also made additional grants to support climate justice, focused on ensuring that the potential benefits of recently passed federal legislation reach low-income communities of color.

Bhargava brings over 30 years of expertise in social justice movements as a leader, campaigner, and strategist. Since 2019, he has been a distinguished lecturer at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.

He previously led Community Change for 16 years, where he worked to strengthen the community organizing field and launched coalitions that achieved major policy reforms at the federal level on issues such as poverty, health care, and immigration.

Bhargava has trained and mentored hundreds of leaders who’ve play key roles in progressive organizations and social justice movements, and, more recently, he co-founded a new organization, Leadership for Democracy and Social Justice, which trains and supports early and mid-career people working for social change, especially people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and people from working-class backgrounds.

He has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, the Open Society Foundations (US), and 350.org, where he was Board Chair. He currently serves on the board of the Democracy Fund.

Bhargava is the co-author of Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World with Stephanie Luce (New Press, 2023) and co-editor of Immigration Matters: Movements, Visions, and Strategies for a Progressive Future with Ruth Milkman and Penny Lewis (New Press, 2021).

He was a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute from 2020-2023, where he co-authored The Statue of Liberty Plan: A Progressive Vision for Migration in the Age of Climate Change with Rich Stolz and The Death of “Deliverism” in Democracy Journal with Shahrzad Shams and Harry Hanbury, which explores the relationship of economic policy to political allegiances.

Born in Bangalore, India, Bhargava grew up in New York City, where he currently resides.