Gucci has awarded its first recipients of their five-year Gucci North America Changemakers fund Impact Fund, an annual 1 million dollar grant to support community organizations and creating social impact across diverse communities in 12 cities in North America focused on arts and culture; social justice and equity; and education.

The first round of 16 grantees is focused on improving opportunity and access for diverse people across a number of social impact initiatives, including leadership development in venture capital and technology entrepreneurship, fashion programs for underserved youth, and criminal justice reform. Each grant is up to 50,000 dollars for a one-year funding cycle starting January 1, 2020 and will be used to help the recipients create new programs or scale existing initiatives in their communities.

More than 145 organizations submitted their applications for the Gucci North America Changemakers Impact Fund. Gucci worked diligently with the North America Changemakers Council and outside experts to review each application to select the 16 grantees. The next round of applications for the Gucci Changemakers Impact Fund will open in the fall of 2020.

The 16 recipients this year include HBCU VC in Atlanta, Georgia, After School Matters in Chicago, Illinois, Braven in Chicago, Illinois, Design Core in Detroit, Michigan, Writers in the Schools in Houston, Texas, Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, California, Educate Tomorrow in Miami, Florida, The Alliance for GLBTQ Youth in Miami, Florida, ACLU of Louisiana in New Orleans, Louisiana, Custom Collaborative in New York, New York, Slay TV in New York, New York, National Youth Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Creativity Explore in San Francisco, California, Talking Points in San Francisco, California, UForChange in Toronto, Canada, and Thurgood Marshall College Fund in Washington, D.C.

In addition to these 16 grant recipients, during 2019 the impact fund has also supported six additional non-profit organizations and institutions completing the first-year allocation of 1 million dollars. The second focus of the Gucci Changemakers North America fund empowers young people through two scholarships programs — Gucci Changemakers Scholars and Gucci Changemakers X CFDA Scholars by Design. The scholarships will be awarded in the spring of 2020.

photo: courtesy of Gucci