Warner Music Fund Grants $6M to 17 Groups

The Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund named its first 2026 grantees on Thursday (August 27). The docket covers 17 organizations and an investment of almost $6 million.

Six of the recipients are new to the fund. Four of these newcomers specifically use music to drive social change.

New Music-Focused Grantees

The four new music-focused grantees are the Atlanta Music Project, the Brooklyn Youth Sports Club's VOICES program, Classical Pride, and Generator. The Atlanta Music Project offers tuition-free music training and college preparation in under-resourced Atlanta neighborhoods. VOICES helps Black and Latino youth write, perform, and engineer music. Classical Pride is a festival for LGBTQAI+ composers and musicians in classical music. Generator is a music development organization for artists across the North of England.

Returning Music Grantees

Several music organizations received renewed support. Black Lives in Music campaigns for equity for Black, Asian, and ethnically diverse musicians in the UK. Girls Make Beats teaches music technology to girls aged 5 to 17. The Hip Hop Museum celebrates and preserves hip hop culture. The Jazz Power Initiative offers free and low-cost jazz immersion for youth ages 6 to 18 through voice, piano, dance, and acting.

The 2026 grantees span the United States and the United Kingdom. The fund, launched in 2020, has now committed more than $52 million from its $100 million total. It focuses on racial justice at the intersection of culture and systems change.

Broader Social Justice Support

Other grants target criminal justice reform and education. Over the next five years, new grantee Freedom Reads will create and maintain 75 new prison libraries across the United States. Another new grantee, the Global Black Economic Forum, will fund voter education for people in the criminal legal system.

Returning non-music grantees include The Marshall Project, Civil Rights Corps, and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. The wider 2026 slate also includes African Leadership Academy, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, StopWatch, and JULIAN.

Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl linked the funding to music's power. "Music has the power to help drive real societal change," he said. "We're proud to support these organizations as they work to connect, heal, transform, and create important opportunities."

Len Blavatnik of the Blavatnik Family Foundation also commented. "We are honored to help talented people from all backgrounds turn potential into achievement," he said. Yrthya Dinzey-Flores, the fund's President, stated the strategy is continuously evolving to create a lasting, measurable impact.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation has contributed over $1.5 billion to more than 250 organizations to date. According to WMG, the social justice fund has backed more than 50 organizations since its June 2020 launch. The information was reported by Music Business Worldwide.