Arts Grants

"Art helps every human and raises capability, consciousness and awareness. Art creates culture."

John Paul DeJoria

We decided to do a little something different as we head into the long summer months in Austin. A lot of events and fundraising slow down, but we wanted to commit to funding some nonprofits who are building and sustaining community and culture through the arts. These various organizations use art to meet the needs of their communities that work with veterans, people who have experienced trauma, people in recovery, people who have been historically underrepresented in arts and business investment.

Here are the five organizations we chose to support:

  • Center for Survivors of Torture — Their mission and goal is to facilitate healing, ease transitions, and facilitate hope in survivors of torture and trauma. Last year they served 850 clients and their families in Texas, ages 4-75 from 38 countries. Their art classes and traditional craft groups are just one of the many healing modalities they employ to foster and sustain community healing.

  • DAWA — They believe in a world where DIVERSITY is a source of strength, AWARENESS normalizes challenging the status quo, WELLNESS is a collective journey, and ACTION means equitable investment of time and resources to historically underrepresented populations.

  • Museum of Human Achievement — They are a community-driven space grounded in affordability, inclusivity and access for artists. They also help other artists seek funding and increase their impact.

  • Reklaimed — This nonprofit is centered around woodworking and visual arts in order to help individuals in addiction recovery foster community through sharing skills and being of service.

  • Art Spark Texas — This organization challenges perceptions of how people contribute by creating an arts-inspired, inclusive community of individuals with diverse abilities. Their diverse services include services for current and prior military members and family. The arts are important to veterans because, for many military personnel, the arts are a way to express what they saw, heard, and experienced during service.

As you can see, they are all very different in what they seek to do, but all amazing. So grateful for a robust community of artists in Central Texas and these organizations that keep it all going!

Regenerative Ag in Central Texas

The Refugee Collective (formerly Multicultural Refugee Coalition) has been a partner for several years now. They help welcome, train and sustain refugee families in Austin through their projects. They have a 20-acre organic farm and community garden - New Leaf Agriculture - that connects refugees to sustainable farming opportunities. We helped purchase their farm tractor awhile back and were happy to help get a new no-till-seed-drill and other implements to help them move to their carbon farm plan and regenerative agriculture model. Getting to see that baby on its inaugural run dropping seeds for a cover crop was very exciting! And it’s such a great time to be on a farm - Spring in Texas!

Meet Fran, Jr.

We were so excited to welcome a new van to the fleet (of 2) vans being used by Keep Austin Fed to rescue food. Businesses like Trader Joe’s, restaurants and caterers let Keep Austin Fed know when they have surplus food that’s about to go to waste, and Keep Austin Fed uses its network of volunteers (and vans like Fran Jr.!) to collect the food and get it to community partners. In April 2024 alone, Keep Austin Fed rescued 99,662 pounds of food, which is equivalent to 83,108 meals! That’s amazing! We were so happy to pitch in for this van that will help nourish our neighbors.

25 Years of Mobile Loaves & Fishes

We are so proud to have been working with the folks at Mobile Loaves & Fishes for more than a decade now on their Community First! Village. We’ve helped build tiny homes, bought trailers, built their Entrepreneur Hub/ Art Studio. But their work goes back even longer than that -- this year was 25 years of serving goodness and bringing hope to Austin’s unhoused. What started as a mobile food truck business is now on its way to becoming a place where nearly 2000 people can find home and healing. We are so grateful for their presence in our community.

Check out John Paul in this video tribute to Alan Graham and the MLF team:

Person of the Year!

John Paul was awarded Person of the Year at the Friendly House LA’s Stronger Together Awards Luncheon. His friends Angus Mitchell and Keely Brosnan surprised John Paul by presenting him with this award. The Friendly House provides women seeking recovery from alcohol and other substance use disorders with a safe, structured and supportive home-like environment that fosters recovery, personal growth and civic responsibility. John Paul and Eloise have both been dedicated to helping folks living with addiction to find treatment and recovery. We want to thank Brandy Ledford for her commitment to Friendly House and her work on making this day a success!

El Buen Samaritano - fresh food delivered!

Though they have served Austin for 35 years, we first met El Buen Samaritano a year ago and started brainstorming ways to help them with their food pantry/food delivery model. They serve more than 12,000 people a year, increasingly in areas that are further away from Central Austin as the city grows and gets more expensive. We helped them purchase a refrigerated van that will help carry 280 boxes at a time (their old van could only hold 80 and wasn’t climate controlled) to make sure they can get food to families and partners who need it. As El Buen Director Dr. Sylvia Murillo said, “When people see this van, they get to experience happiness, joy and respect.” That’s our hope for the families and individuals who may be new to the Austin area or who might just need a little assistance right now. Thank you especially to Juan Rosa for making all the deliveries!!!

Common Ground Film

Last week was an exciting one to be in Austin — Common Ground premiered at and SOLD OUT our beloved partner and Austin institution, the Paramount Theatre. John Paul is a proud executive producer of this film that highlights the importance of returning to indigenous practices and regenerative farming to help our planet and our bodies heal from years of industrial, chemical-laden farming. In addition to helping produce the film, the foundation just donated to make sure the film can be shown in as many schools as possible to make sure that children are educated about the importance of healthy soils and foods. If you can, check out this film in a city near you!

Sunrise Navigation Center

We have known about the work of Sunrise Navigation in Austin for years and have many partners working with them to help coordinate services for unhoused folks. Their data below gives a compelling picture of who they are and how diverse their services are — they serve more than 10,000 clients a year! We are proud to say that we will begin partnering with Sunrise Navigation in their diversion program that identifies people who need help reconnecting with kin or accessing existing resources to get into housing as quickly as possible. We are so grateful for their critical work.

If you are experiencing homelessness in the Austin area, you can call or text Sunrise right now at 512-522-1097 to get help. If you are in the Austin area and would like someone to come check on a neighbor in need that you see on the streets or in a camp, you can Send Sunrise to go check on them by following the link below.

A decades-long commitment

We watched this video recently and it was hard to believe it was so long ago! In 2006, John Paul went to Mozambique with Mineseeker Foundation to support the eradication of landmines and treatment for victims, like Maria in the video.

On that same trip, John Paul went to South Africa and met with Sir Richard Branson, Brad Pitt and Nelson Mandela to highlight the work of 46664. 46664 was Nelson Mandela’s number in prison on Robben Island, Cape Town where he was held for 18 years, and became the name of an HIV/AIDS initiative as well. Mandela explained the project this way:

““46664 is committed to HIV AIDS awareness and prevention. We create and support initiatives that deliver sustainable solutions to help combat the HIV AIDS pandemic that is so tragically affecting our world,”

You can read more about the initiative and John Paul’s work from almost 20 years ago in this 2008 Vanity Fair article. Since our foundation is only 12 years old, it’s so fun to go back and look at work from back then that still informs our work to this day.

Fast forward to just this week, when we got a message from our longtime partner (and an even longer-term partner of John Paul Mitchell Systems) Food 4 Africa in South Africa. The foundation recently donated towards food and hygiene product donations in a township in Port Elizabeth. Love to trace the history of friendships and good work across the decades!