Peacebuilding Program Builds on Impact, Lessons from a Decade of Grantmaking

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) established its Peacebuilding program in 2011 with a goal to advance “just and durable peace”—not simply the absence of armed conflict but the presence of structures, resources, and culture that sustain peace. A distinctive feature of the RBF Peacebuilding program has been its joint focus on conflict prevention at a global level and conflict transformation in specific local contexts. In both realms, the Peacebuilding program supports policy analysis, dialogue across lines of division, and constituencies for peace.

Since its inception, the Peacebuilding program has focused on Afghanistan, Iran, and Israel-Palestine because of the outsized role that the United States has played in these conflicts and their potential ripple effects on global peace and security. As conflicts around the world become more complex—and more deadly—the RBF is directing increased funding to efforts that consider the broader trajectory of U.S. foreign policy and possibilities for international cooperation. These considerations have long shaped our approach to peacebuilding.

The Peacebuilding program’s ongoing support for conflict transformation in Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine exemplifies a hallmark of RBF grantmaking: strategic, long-term commitments to prepare and empower civil society to seize opportunities for both gradual progress and catalytic shifts, even against daunting odds. The coming years appear likely to be pivotal for Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine, with significant implications for international law and global stability.

Some grantmaking priorities will evolve amid shifts in domestic and global contexts.

Afghanistan is no longer in a state of active conflict since the Taliban retook power in 2021, but it remains exceptionally unstable. In the coming years, the Peacebuilding program will support efforts in Afghanistan and the diaspora to build a foundation for an eventual comprehensive and durable peace, seek international accountability, and reshape U.S. foreign policy in the region to uplift rights and justice.

Over the past decade, the Peacebuilding program has made grants to organizations working on the ground in Israel-Palestine to advance peace, rights, justice, security, and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians alike. That grantmaking will continue in the years ahead. The program has also supported organizations in the United States that have prompted new discourse challenging perceptions of the Israel-Palestine conflict’s intractability. The next phase of this grantmaking will emphasize efforts to translate support for diplomatic solutions to the conflict into U.S. foreign policy.

The United States spends more on national defense than the next ten countries combined, and the trillion-dollar defense industry forms a powerful political and economic constituency for militarist approaches to foreign policy. Since 2020, the Peacebuilding program has supported the development of new foreign policy postures based on interdependence and coexistence rather than primacy and coercion. The program will increase its support for these efforts in the coming years.

In an increasingly complex, multipolar world order, however, U.S. action will not be sufficient to address pressing global challenges like climate change and nuclear proliferation without new modes of engagement with and among its peers. Fifteen years of RBF support for Track II dialogues between the United States and Iran helped lay the groundwork for the historic 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, demonstrating that there are opportunities for philanthropy to advance international cooperation, which the program will continue to pursue.

The program will also phase out refugee-related grantmaking by 2026. RBF grantmaking helped establish a model for funding refugee-led organizations, recognizing that refugees and displaced people are their own strongest advocates. However, the complex legal, political, and operational systems that impact how refugees access rights and protections are distinct from those of the peacebuilding field, and the work did not substantively contribute to our goal of advancing just and durable peace.

The core principles of the Peacebuilding program remain unchanged. Revised program guidelines approved by the RBF board of trustees in October 2024 reflect a logical progression of the Peacebuilding program and reaffirm our commitment to nonviolence, justice, and engaging those most affected by conflict in developing solutions. These guidelines also consolidate our grantmaking strategies from four to three to ensure that “defending civil society and human rights to foster sustainable peace” is integrated into all our grantmaking rather than functioning as an independent area of work.

Read the updated program guidelines here.