A family foundation that expands access to healthcare, education, safety, and economic opportunity, through fewer, deeper, longer-term commitments to underserved communities.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (quoting Theodore Parker).
The name Long Arc is drawn from these words, and it is both our namesake and our guiding light: the belief that justice is not achieved in a single act, but bent slowly, over time, by sustained and deliberate effort.
It is our sincere hope that through focused, intentional giving, made patiently and with conviction, our family can do its part to help bend that arc, however slightly, toward a more just and equitable world.
Our values
Five values guide how we choose our commitments and how we work alongside the organizations we support.
We direct our resources toward people and communities that have been systematically underserved, working to widen access to health, education, safety, and opportunity.
Lasting change is built slowly. We commit for the long term and stay with the causes and communities we support, year after year.
We choose a small number of relationships and invest in them deeply, rather than spreading our support thinly across many.
We support the organizations closest to the work and give them room to lead, favoring flexible, sustained funding over restrictive terms.
We judge our work not by outcomes alone, but by whether the people it serves are treated with respect and dignity.
Our goals
Our ambition is not to give widely, but to give well. In the years ahead we intend to:
Concentrate more of our support in a small number of communities where sustained investment can produce durable, compounding change.
Maintain a consistent, multi-year thread of support for women’s health, safety, and leadership across every giving cycle.
Grow scholarships and research that widen who reaches higher education and who shapes the fields that most affect underserved populations.
Ground grantmaking in rigorous evidence, prioritizing proven interventions and measurable outcomes over intent.
Our pillars
Beneath our focus areas sit four structural commitments that shape how, not just where, we give.
We anchor much of our giving in a small number of communities where structural gaps are severe and philanthropic resources are thin, returning every year to build lasting local relationships.
We commit for years, not cycles. Sustained, flexible support lets the organizations closest to the work plan ahead and lead, rather than reshaping their work to fit a grant.
We favor fewer, larger, purpose-driven grants over dispersed one-off gifts, in the belief that depth of commitment produces more durable change than breadth of distribution.
We actively pool resources and align with local leaders, co-funders, and grassroots partners, recognizing that systemic challenges require shared wisdom and collective action.
Focus areas
Our giving concentrates in four areas where access and equity are most at stake.
Primary and specialty care for uninsured, immigrant, and refugee populations, and global health efforts that extend access beyond U.S. borders.
Violence prevention and response, women’s health, and the infrastructure that advances women’s leadership across the sector.
Scholarships and research that widen who reaches higher education and who shapes the fields, from local degree completion to elite research universities and K-12 access abroad.
Support for basic needs, community development, and the pipeline of nonprofit leaders who strengthen the communities we serve.
For nonprofits
Most of our giving grows out of long-term relationships, and we make a limited number of new commitments each year. If your work aligns with our focus areas, we welcome a brief introduction.
We review introductions on a rolling basis and respond only to those we wish to explore further. An introduction is not an application, and does not guarantee funding.