The J.M. Kaplan Fund champions transformative social, environmental, and cultural causes through inventive grant-making.
With the consequences of climate change, cultural loss, and systemic injustice at our doorstep, the urgency for social-impact organizations and community leaders to act has never been greater. Our convergent crises demand not only resilience but also creativity, ambition, and new models of change-making. The J.M. Kaplan Fund believes in the power of innovators to reshape our future – and knows that this work is already underway in unexpected places and through nascent projects across the country. The J.M.K. Innovation Prize to help transform these bold, early-stage ideas into lasting impact.
Leveraging a legacy of catalytic grant-making at the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Prize seeks out visionary nonprofit and mission-driven for-profit organizations that work within, across, or in a manner related to one or more of the Fund’s three program areas:
Heritage Conservation: Protecting the places and traditions that communities care about most.
The Environment: Advancing climate solutions for a more resilient, vibrant planet.
Social Justice: Working with communities to build a more welcoming and just society.
The application is open to individuals or teams representing nonprofit or mission-driven for-profit organizations within the United States. The Prize will be awarded to projects or ideas that:
Represent a game-changing answer to a clearly identified need;
Innovate within one or more of the Fund’s three program areas;
Demonstrate the potential to develop an actionable pilot or prototype with Prize funding; and
Hold out the promise to benefit multiple individuals, communities, or sectors through a clearly articulated theory of change.
Most Prize awardees are organizations or fiscally sponsored projects that have been active for less than five years and operate with annual budgets of less than $500,000. While the Prize welcomes bold ideas of all kinds, we encourage applicants to carefully consider whether their work aligns with the Prize’s focus on early-stage, impactful innovation.
The first-round application will be available on the JMKFund.org website from February 11–April 25, 2025. Select applicants will be invited to submit a more detailed second-round application in the late spring. Finalists will present their ideas to the trustees of the J.M. Kaplan Fund in the fall, with awardees formally announced in November 2025.