Nwamaka AGBO Regan PRITZKER

Kataly Foundation, Founded in 2018

regan pritzker grew up in chicago, vaguely suffocated by seeing her famously philanthropic family’s name on schools, hospitals and even parks. “It felt very self-congratulatory, instead of focusing on community and the true root of Jewish philanthropy, which is to be more anonymous in your giving,” says Pritzker, who distanced herself by moving to California and working as an elementary schoolteacher.

With her siblings, Pritzker served somewhat halfheartedly on the Libra Foundation, a social-justice nonprofit founded by her parents, but became more enthusiastic when she confronted her qualms. “My discomfort came from recognizing that my wealth came at the expense of others,” she says, and from realizing the issues she cared about profoundly—environmental and social in justice— were connected to the wealth inequalities from which she benefitted.

Her work at Lib ra with groups such as Movement Generation— which seeks to shift traditional philanthropy, with its top-down management and frequently onerous reporting requirements, to a more relationship-based and community-minded endeavor—helped persuade her to start the Kat a ly Foundation in 2018. Part of her goal, she says, “is to say to philanthropists like me, people with money and race privilege :‘ We need to be willing to critique the system that we have benefitted from in order to move forward.’ ”

Led by Nwamaka Agbo, a social-justice activist and specialist in the field of restorative economics, Kataly was capitalized with $445 million and focuses on economic and environmental justice, community wealth-building and mindfulness training. The foundation has a notably short 10-to-15-year horizon to spend out its assets and directs them to communities of color.

Crucially, Agbo notes, Kataly’s program directors “come out of direct lived and movement-building experience ,” which helps them build trust. “BIPOC communities experience systemic barriers in accessing the typical ‘friends and family’ capital that wealthier communities have ,” Ag bo says. To offset obstacles imposed by structural racism, Kataly provides“non-extractive” loans, permitting financial loss in return for greater social impact. The foundation’s Restorative Economies Fund enables stakeholders to make collective decisions about which initiatives to invest in.

“It seems so obvious to me that philanthropy should be funding projects like that, but many foundations have restrictions on capital projects—they won’t fund a building campaign or an ownership campaign ,” P ritzker says .“For us, that’s the clear way to make these resources durable and have a benefit that outlives our foundation.”

Kataly funds nearly 300 organizations, an eclectic list that ranges from the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, which helps BIPOC communities purchase mixeduse and residential properties, and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a green advocacy group representing immigrant communities, to the Harvard Divinity School.

The twin crises of C ovid and racial ly motivated violence further solidified Kataly’s relevance, Pritzker says. “So many of our problems are all connected to this broader, unacknowledged history of racism in America,” she says. “We’ve been showing up at a significant enough scale to get people’s attention in the philanthropy world, and therefore to serve as an invitation to others. Big funders are moving more money, they’ re moving it at scale, and they’ removing it to Black-led and Indigenous-led groups .”

For Pritzker, who spent years struggling with a sense of guilt, Kataly has provided a clarity of purpose. “I don’t think traditional philanthropy has permission anymore to be holding all the cards,” she says. “Private individuals with wealth shouldn’t be the ones determining where community resources should go.”

“So many of our problems are all connected to this broader, unacknowledged history of racism in America.”