The collaboration recognizes NIA as essential nonprofit infrastructure at a time when property and casualty coverage is harder to secure and afford.

The Kresge Foundation has joined eight other foundations in committing a total of $25 million to support Nonprofits Insurance Alliance (NIA), a nonprofit insurance cooperative that serves more than 25,000 nonprofits across the country. 

For most nonprofits, property and casualty insurance is a condition of holding a lease, operating vehicles, employing staff and accepting public contracts. Without it, organizations cannot deliver the services their communities rely on. 

In recent years, that coverage has become harder to secure and afford. Comprehensive, affordable options in the commercial market have narrowed, and nonprofits have absorbed higher premiums, tighter terms and, in some cases, unexpected nonrenewals. Those costs come directly out of program budgets and reserves, a quiet but compounding drag on the balance sheets of organizations already operating on thin margins. 

NIA was built for exactly this gap. Founded 37 years ago, it is a group of nonprofit-governed insurers created to provide the property and casualty coverage the sector needs, and it is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit itself. That structure differentiates NIA as infrastructure rather than simply another market option; its purpose is tied to the sector’s stability rather than to shifting market cycles. 

The consortium’s support helps strengthen access to insurance for nonprofits at a time when coverage can be difficult to secure and afford, and positions NIA to continue serving its members through a period of significant market change and growth. 

“We are pleased to join eight other foundations in committing a total of $25 million to support Nonprofits Insurance Alliance,” said Aaron Seybert, managing director of Kresge’s Social Investment Practice. “NIA is central nonprofit infrastructure for organizations that need property and casualty insurance to continue their work. When coverage becomes unpredictable, the cost lands on the organizations least able to absorb it, and on the communities they serve. This commitment helps NIA keep doing what it was built to do.”

The nine foundations providing support are: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The California Endowment, Kresge, the Surdna Foundation, the Soros Economic Development Fund, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. 

The collaboration reflects a shared view among the participating funders that access to insurance is a precondition for nonprofit operations, not a peripheral concern, and that the infrastructure the sector depends on warrants the same attention funders give to the programs it makes possible. 

Read the full announcement from Nonprofits Insurance Alliance