Address: 321 N. Clark Street, Ste. 1500, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 312.782.2464
Web: www.joycefdn.org
Email: info@joycefdn.org
The Joyce Foundation was founded in 1948 with a $2,000 gift from the sole Joyce family heir, Beatrice Joyce Kean. Today, the foundation has $1.2 billion in assets and makes annual charitable distributions of more than $65 million, investing in evidence-informed public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
The Joyce Foundation funds efforts to address state and local public policy in the Great Lakes region and national public policy designed to have an impact on these Great Lakes states. The foundation focuses its funding in six areas: culture, democracy, education and economic mobility, environment, gun violence prevention and justice reform, and journalism.
Program Information:
The Joyce Foundation’s priority focus areas include gun violence prevention, justice reform, and environment.
Financial Information:
Total Assets: $1,167,847,391 (FY22)
Amount Dedicated to Health-Related Grants: $6 million (FY22)
Special Initiatives and/or Representative Health and Human Services Grants
Community Initiatives—to support the Black and Brown Collective (the Collective). The Collective was officially launched in July 2023 and brings together a racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse group of two dozen researchers from the University of Maryland, the University of Chicago, the New School, RTI International, and other institutions to advance the evidence base around preventing gun violence. ($300,000)
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence—to support policy research, education, and litigation on federal and state gun safety issues across the country. ($400,000)
Project Unloaded—to support its continued launch of a large-scale public education campaign to increase awareness among young people of the risks associated with firearms. ($350,000)
Michigan Municipal League Foundation—to test new strategies that reduce the cost of lead service line replacement and its financial burden on ratepayers. This grant is designed to help reduce the total cost of removing lead pipes and to help ensure that water bills remain affordable, targeting both drinking water safety and access to water service. ($138,600)
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization—to work with Chicago officials to incorporate the recent Cumulative Impacts Assessment in planning and enforcement decisions to reduce pollution and protect public health; and to advocate for and support the implementation of policies to make water services more affordable and to accelerate the pace of replacement of lead water pipes. The grant also includes funds to push for equitable implementation of Illinois’ clean energy policies. ($675,000)
Joyce Foundation and GIH
The Joyce Foundation believes in the GIH philosophy of “better health for all” throughout its organization, mission, and funding priorities, as well as its work in gun violence prevention and the environment.
Role of Philanthropy in Meeting Pressing Needs
“Gun Violence is a significant public health issue in our communities. We believe that philanthropy has an important role to play in tackling it. Despite the enormity of that challenge, public and private funding to address gun violence has lagged—perhaps because of the perceived risk in engaging on this issue, or the apparent challenges in driving impact on an issue that seems intractable. For those very reasons philanthropy must rise to the challenge and take risks where government cannot, and lead when others will not.”
–Tim Daly, Program Director, Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform Program, The Joyce Foundation