We make grants to effective organizations to reduce disease, poverty, pain, and violence while expanding freedom, happiness, and empowerment.

When USAID was unceremoniously shut down, we were in Africa—standing beside partners who had just lost decades of hard-won progress overnight and individuals who didn't know where they were going to get their ARVs anymore. We’ve long known that democracy is an upstream issue, shaping every outcome we care about—from health and education to livelihoods and climate resilience—but that day in February, we felt  it in a freshly acute way. We wanted our community to feel supported

At the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation, our mission has always centered on supporting justice, health, education, and livelihoods—both globally and here at home. Today, we’re proud to share a new step in that journey: the launch of a small, dedicated fund to support nonpartisan efforts to strengthen democratic systems in the United States. This decision comes at a time when many of the systems we rely on to advance opportunity are under strain. Civic institutions, norms, and...

Site visits can be powerful moments—funders see programs in action, and communities have a chance to share their stories directly. But...