Deeply committed to social justice and to the fundamental rights and dignity of all people, the Lenny Zakim Fund helps to change the course of people’s lives.
Bridging Communities
As efforts are made to limit the rights of immigrants and refugees, budget cuts threaten services for families living in poverty, and systemic racism continues to affect even the youngest in our communities, The Lenny Zakim Fund (LZF) seeks and supports people and organizations with tangible solutions that promise positive change in their very own communities.
Achieving social change and equity in our communities requires building bridges between grassroots organizations, the people they serve, donors, volunteers, and community leaders. Building these bridges is the mission and purpose of The Lenny Zakim Fund.
Help Us Grow the Grassroots
There are so many ways to get involved with The Lenny Zakim Fund. LZF isn’t self-sustaining; we rely on fundraising and generous donations to operate. Financial contributions are always appreciated, but there are other ways to get involved too. Our grantee partners don’t just receive money from LZF, they receive support in everything from leadership coaching to pro bono legal support to access to experts that can help them with the skills and knowledge needed to continue their work.
30 Years of Partnering with Grassroots Organizations
As 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Lenny Zakim’s founding of The Lenny Zakim Fund, we are pleased to celebrate this milestone anniversary by highlighting 30 of the hundreds of grassroots organizations LZF has been proud to partner with since 1995. We invite you to hover over the photos for a quick glimpse into the inner workings of these former and current grantee partners, commemorating our 30 years of bridge-building throughout eastern Massachusetts.
2Gether We Eat
2Gether We Eat teaches the math and science of hydroponics and uses green energy to provide healthy food, education, training, and employment and fight the food crisis in food deserts across our communities. We donate 100% of our fruits and vegetables to the community through food banks and nonprofits, and we work with academic institutions and municipalities as well.
African Bridge Network
One of the best memories from our time as a LZF Grantee Partner was the friendship and support among the executive directors in LZF's leadership fellowship. Since then, thanks to the financial and capacity development support received from LZF, we have grown from serving 50 to 450 clients annually.
BalletRox
Since partnering with LZF as a Grantee, BalletRox has greatly expanded our impact in Boston's underserved communities. We now serve over 700 children and youth yearly, offer scholarships to any student in need, and are strengthening student involvement, leadership, and career skills through our Youth Council.
Chinese Culture Connection
We have gone from providing a dozen events to more than 100 programs annually. Our annual Lunar New Year celebration has grown from serving 300-500 people to over 1,300 audiences this year.
City Year
City Year's new podcast, “Why We Matter,” explores the vital role of education and mentorship in empowering young people. Through interviews with educators, student, and community leaders, the podcast delves into the transformative impact of student success coaches and the importance of supporting systemically under-resourced schools, which serve disproportionately high numbers of students living in lower income households and students of color. Each episode highlights inspiring stories and discusses the challenges and successes in fostering academic and personal growth.
English at Large
English At Large has increased and enhanced the quality and outcomes of our free programs including tutoring, conversation groups, and beginner English classes, while extending to more communities in our greater Boston service area. We are particularly grateful for how LZF was there when it counted – supporting and collaborating with us to sustain and enhance our community of learners and volunteers.
Fathers' UpLift
The day former LZF director Jude Goldman and her team visited us at the Salvation Army in Roxbury was a pivotal moment for us. WIth the men in attendance sharing their stories and experiences of resilience and hope, we felt an undeniable sense of purpose and connection, igniting a passion that would carry us forward in our mission. Since then, we have evolved into a dedicated full-time operation with a committed team spread across the nation and have become an accredited and licensed mental health and substance use treatment facility.
Healthy Waltham
In 2025, we will be pivoting from an emergency food pantry, run outside in all weather conditions, to the Healthy Waltham Community Market in our new permanent home.
Louis D. Brown Peace Institute
LZF was one of the first to invest in The Peace Curriculum Boston Book of Peace, educating young people on the values of peace, which enabled us to grow into a vital resource for survivors and communities impacted by murder, trauma, grief, and loss. They also brought Grantees together to process racial events as a community and provided training clinics that taught us nonprofit do’s and don’ts.
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
With a two-decade history, MTPC is the longest-running transgender advocacy organization in the U.S., and for the last few years, we have been in a state of rapid growth. In 2023, we launched the REACH (Relief and Emergency Assistance for Community Hope) financial assistance program. In early 2024, we introduced our partnership with Namesake, a trans-led business, to better help Massachusetts residents change their legal name and gender marker. And as of May 2024, we have three full-time salaried employees – the most in our 20+ year history.
Political Asylum Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project
Executive Director Anita Sharma recalls: "When I first became ED in 2015, LZF offered support and told me I wasn't alone. They sent me to their Budgeting 101 course, and to this day, I use the sample budget sheets they gave me and heed the advice that 'friends don't let friends budget alone.' LZF’s care and technical support made a profound difference in my nonprofit leadership journey. PAIR has now grown from 2 full-time employees to 20 since we first came into the LZF portfolio, and our presence in immigrant communities and with community partners has deepened."
REACH Beyond Domestic Violence
REACH was one of LZF’s earliest Grantees and so much has happened since then! We are now a multi-service agency serving 6,000 people annually across a 27-city catchment. We offer an emergency shelter for those escaping abusive households, as well as support for survivors and extensive outreach in our communities. In 2017, we moved into a new office space that is a warm, light-filled, welcoming environment with space for training, confidential meeting rooms for survivors, and a supervised play space for children.
Right to the City Boston
Right to the City Boston is a multi-issue alliance of grassroots organizations representing working-class communities and communities of color in Boston. Our collective work is focused on fighting the displacement crisis in our city. Recent priority campaigns with our neighborhood partners have included rent control and participatory budgeting.
The South Coast LGBTQ+ Network
We'd like to share just a few of the many comments that give us joy and purpose, with thanks to LZF's support: "I now have a healthcare provider that listens to me and understands what I'm going through"; "I showed my parents the interview you did of my coming-out journey and we are now getting along better than ever"; "I never had an outlet for my creative expression and seeing my work in an art exhibit meant the world to me."
The History Project
We celebrated 20 years of marriage equality in May 2024 with a gathering at Arlington Street Church, an exhibit highlighting the history of marriage equality, and digital archives of community stories. A meaningful moment was being in community with others at the annual LZF Institute and feeling newly inspired to continue documenting, preserving, and sharing LGBTQ+ history in the fight for equality for all.
We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project
We want to give a shout-out to LZF for taking that first chance on investing in a new leader and helping them through the journey. Since then, there have been many “firsts." Our board has become an all-professional model while maintaining a 70% ratio of BIPOC board with lived experiences. Our programs now include the copyrighted Six Part Healing Series; Caregiver Program; Youth Empowerment Program; and Clinician Program. And we have the confidence gained by not only being encouraged to lead, but also being shown there were new ways to lead.
Adaptive Sports New England
In addition to our core youth programs (swimming, track & field, and wheelchair basketball), Adaptive Sports has expanded into new areas including our multi-age Boston Strong beep baseball team for blind athletes and our adult New England Patriots wheelchair football team, which both compete in tournaments across the country.
Ansaar of Worcester
Since becoming an LZF Grantee Partner, we've been able to establish an after-school program, as well as a workplace shuttle program for refugees, while also investing in professional case management.
Chica Project
LZF was critical to the Chica Project for our pandemic response programming as we faced an increasing frontline need for mental health services for our youth. LZF was an inaugural funder of our Virtual Village programming, which catalyzed a grassroots, BIPOC, young womxn-led Public Health campaign that had a lasting impact on our organizational operations and strategy.
City Life/Vida Urbana
It's been over a decade since we've been a LZF Grantee Partner, and we have expanded across multiple sites and shared our organizing model with similar organizations around the country. We've won hundreds of units out of the speculative market and into the hands of nonprofit community development corporations or community land trusts. We've also seen passage of meaningful legislation, and we've organized hundreds of tenant associations across greater Boston to fight for their rights.
City Strings United
Running a small nonprofit is difficult, and in the early years, you often don't encounter a lot of respect. So it was unusual to receive the kind of care from a funder as we did from Allison Picott and LZF. Based on LZF's networking advice, we were able to partner with the Roxbury YMCA to expand our service hours and offerings into an additional location in our neighborhood.
DEAFinitely, Inc.
When our Deaf Youth Council raised mental health as a key topic, DEAFinitely partnered with national nonprofit This Is My Brave to produce a life-changing stage production, Heart Truth: Mental Health Stories from the Deaf Community, which brought stories of mental illness and addiction into the spotlight, helped fight stigma, and uncovered inequities in the mental health system. The show produced an overwhelming response from Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled and hard of hearing communities. With continued support from LZF and community partners, DEAFinitely will produce Heart Truth II in 2025.
Gratis Healthcare
Gratis offers top-shelf medical care to South Americans in three languages, virtual and in-person, and we have recently introduced a women's health program and pediatric back-to-school exams. When we realized the tremendous stress our patients were experiencing, we were able to create a group therapy program for management of stress and anxiety.
Hyde Square Task Force
Since our time as Grantee Partners, HSTF youth have successfully organized to bring civics and comprehensive sex education back to Boston Public Schools, spoken out against transit police harassment, fought to hold TD Garden accountable for failed promises to our state’s young people, and called out a local grocer for inequitable pricing. Through all of these campaigns, youth not only moved the needle on equity but also gained powerful leadership skills. Our model now includes a distinct focus on Afro-Latin performing arts.
Lynn Worker Center
Lynn Worker Center, Centro Trabajadores de Lynn, is an organizing and training space for immigrant workers to learn about their rights and take collective action to transform their working and living conditions. Recent advocacy includes supporting the Anti Wage Theft Bill and amending the Massachusetts Paid Family Medical Leave Law.
My Life My Choice
Now in our 20th year of service, we have mentored over 900 youth, provided prevention exploitation groups to 3,800 girls, and trained facilitators and over 21,300 youth providers from 43 states and Canada on our prevention curriculum. Shortly after receiving LZF funding, we had the privilege of walking alongside a new mentee through the birth of her children and her marriage to a loving spouse. This year, she became a Survivor Mentor who now works with mentees of her own, helping us create a cycle of healing that will impact young people for generations to come.
Resilient Sisterhood Project
Our new core program, “Art and Reproductive Justice,” draws on the Sankofa principle of looking to the past to understand the present, using art as a catalyst. Through commissioned and curated artwork, RSP tells the stories of past medical malfeasance perpetrated upon Black women’s bodies, as well as the history of pseudoscience used to justify the institution of slavery and the social construct of race.
Sisters Unchained
When we first started 9 years ago, LZF was one of the first organizations to fund us for our summer intensive that consisted of 3 youth. We now have 25 and run throughout the year, and we have become co-owners of our own space.
Sitters for Scholars
Sitters for Scholars celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2024. With LZF's support, we've expanded our services, providing free, reliable childcare to a greater number of low-income student parents pursuing higher education so they can focus on their studies, achieve their goals, and advance economically.
The Welcome Project
We are constantly reminded what a powerful thing learning English can be for immigrants as they navigate life in the States, particularly as we see students gain overall confidence as their language skills grow. We've been able to increase the number of students in our ESOL classes each year and have also expanded our LIPS program to continue empowering bilingual youth.
Apply for a Grant
Nonprofit organizations based in eastern Massachusetts, with operating budgets under $350,000, that have an IRS 501(c)(3) status or a documented fiscal agent that has 501(c)(3) status are welcome to submit a proposal to The Lenny Zakim Fund during our annual grant cycle.
LZF’s primary funding areas are:
- Access to Food, Housing, and Economic Opportunity
- Child and Youth Development and Education
- Civil and Human Rights Advocacy and Support
- Health Promotion and Accessibility for All
- Organizing and Support for Immigrants and Refugees
- LGBTQIA Community Support and Organizing
- Violence Prevention, Criminal Justice Reform and Family Outreach