The 2025 J.M.K. Innovation Prize

The J.M.K. Innovation Prize seeks to identify and support bold problem-solvers leading transformative, early-stage projects in the fields of heritage conservation, the environment, and social justice.

In 2025, J.M. Kaplan will award up to 10 Prizes, each including a cash award of $150,000 over three years and $25,000 in technical assistance funds. Awardees will also receive guidance through the Fund’s resource network, accessing hands-on training and support to help turn their ideas into sustainable growth and impact.

Interested in Applying?

About the Prize

With the consequences of climate change, cultural loss, and systemic injustice at our doorstep, the urgency for social-impact organizations and community leaders to act has never been greater. Our convergent crises demand not only resilience but also creativity, ambition, and new models of change-making. At the J.M. Kaplan Fund, we believe in the power of innovators to reshape our future – and we know that this work is already underway in unexpected places and through nascent projects across the country. We created the J.M.K. Innovation Prize to help transform these bold, early-stage ideas into lasting impact.

Since 2015, over five biennial cycles, the J.M.K. Innovation Prize has supported 50 wildly creative cultural, environmental, and social initiatives. Past awardees include efforts as varied as building a “revitalization accelerator” to preserve threatened languages, transforming mining runoff and fallen trees into new economic engines, and organizing a collective of birth workers to confront health inequities. Leveraging a legacy of catalytic grant-making at the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Prize seeks out visionary nonprofit and mission-driven for-profit organizations that work within, across, or in a manner related to one or more of the Fund’s three program areas.

  • Heritage Conservation: Protecting the places and traditions that communities care about most.

  • The Environment: Advancing climate solutions for a more resilient, vibrant planet.

  • Social Justice: Working with communities to build a more welcoming and just society.

Learn More: https://jmkfund.org/innovation-prize-2025

Funding opportunitiesinfoenvironmental justice