Welcome to Chambers Family Fund online. This website will introduce you to the Fund, our mission and guidelines and let you know about our priority funding areas and our engaged funding philosophy. We encourage you to visit the websites of our partners via the links on the engaged funding page to learn more about these organizations dedicated to creating positive change.

Many people are interested in helping individuals in need. And there is a great sense of satisfaction when we can improve someone’s circumstances through a donation of our time or money. But instead of funding organizations that assist individuals directly, we are interested in making a difference at the broad, systemic level.

Although it might take longer to see we’ve made a difference at that level, when we invest in policy change or improving a system, we’re not only helping people directly, but also a whole stream of people who follow. We hope systemic funding will help generations not yet born.

When we fund initiatives to educate women, helping them become economically self-sufficient, we believe we’re breaking the cycle of poor and undereducated women who can’t get good jobs. By supporting education of that nature, we’re helping women and their families at the same time. It’s a waterfall effect. Poverty is not just about a single woman who can’t earn a living; it is a worldwide issue.

Similarly, we’re interested in improving access to and the quality of early childhood education because we know that by giving children a better start, they will have a better chance to be successful in school and in life. These successful individuals will facilitate the process for others in the future.

Another thing we like to do, in the spirit of making a difference over the long-term, is fund organizations consistently. After choosing an organization to invest in we see what works effectively with the resources we provide. With our continued support we sustain and increase what that organization can accomplish. We’ll often ask an organization — “For what do you have the most difficulty attracting resources?” — and that’s where we’ll direct our support. We recognize that building the capacity of an organization, creating an endowment and funding operational costs are essential to an organization’s success, and so often passed by.

We are fortunate to have the capacity to commit significant funds to nonprofits that are creating positive change. We hope that these upstream solutions, such as directing our support towards systemic change, will have a positive ripple effect for future generations.

Merle C. Chambers
President

Chambers Family Fund Board of Directors
From left to right: Hugh Grant, Merle Chambers, Marla Williams, and Donald Hopkins

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