Last week, 11 philanthropies stepped up in solidarity with Black feminists and their movements around the world. In an open letter to philanthropy, the funders urged their peers to join them in supporting the Black Feminist Fund, which they described as “the world’s first global women’s fund singularly devoted to Black women and Black feminist agendas.”
Signatories include high-wattage names in the philanthropy world, including the Ford Foundation and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures. There’s also Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation, Farbman Family Foundation, Foundation for a Just Society, Libra Foundation, Satterberg Foundation, Solidaire Network, MacArthur Foundation, the Meadow Fund and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund.
The letter entreats philanthropists to address what has to date been a severe drought in funding for Black women and Black feminism. Despite the role they’ve played in building movements and forging substantial social change, the letter points out that “… Black women are the least likely to receive the financial support and other resources to sustain their work. In 2018, out of nearly $70 billion in foundation giving globally, less than half of 1% went to Black feminist social movements.”
Since its launch in 2021, the Black Feminist Fund has raised close to $35 million toward a goal of $100 million. In the open letter, the 11 signatories challenged their fellow philanthropists to join them in raising another $65 million: “We invite donors from across philanthropy to meet this goal and unleash the full power of Black feminist movements working all around the world.”
Kitchen table conversations
The idea of the Black Feminist Fund (BFF) was born during a series of conversations that began at a kitchen table and continued over the next 10 years, according to cofounder and co-executive director Tynesha McHarris. “We found that when we were talking to other Black feminist leaders from around the world — when we should have been talking about the world we were trying to build or the work we were trying to do or the forces we were trying to resist — we kept coming back to how hard and painful it was to raise money,” she said. “It would suck the energy out of the room. So we started brainstorming about what it would look like if there was a vehicle that would move money in ways never seen by Black feminists before.”
McHarris and her colleagues brought activists, organizers and Black women working in philanthropy into the conversation, and in 2021, BFF became a reality. “We are truly a global fund, and that is one of the things that makes it an unprecedented vehicle,” McHarris said. “There’s never been a fund singularly focused on the leadership of Black women, Black trans and Black nonbinary people around the world. Our grantees reflect that, our movement partners reflect that, our staff reflects that, and so do the folks who make up our advisory board — we’re really reflecting the Black global community.”
The Black Feminist Fund works to strengthen grassroots feminist and gender-expansive organizations working in Africa, the Americas, the Middle East and Europe. Some of the organizations BFF supports oppose gender violence; others work on food and environmental resource issues; still others build leadership among women, girls and gender-expansive people. One BFF grantee, AfroResistance, organized poll monitoring during the recent election in Colombia, where activist Francia Márquez was elected as the country’s first Black vice president. Another grantee, the Kenyan Peasants League, is working to end gender-based violence and protect land rights.
BFF also conducts research on funding for Black feminist organizations. It recently released an in-depth examination of the global funding landscape titled, “Where is the Funding for Black Feminist Movements?” A statistic from the report underscores philanthropy’s scant support: “A mere 0.1% - 0.35% of foundation giving globally went to Black women, girls, and trans people.”
Through its own structure and methods, the fund is determined to disrupt some long-standing philanthropy norms and practices that it says don’t serve grantees. Its Black Feminist Grant Review Committee, a participatory grantmaking body, helps guide the organization’s funding. BFF also works to remove funding barriers like burdensome reporting requirements, and follows an eight-year grant cycle so grantees can rely on a steady source of revenue over time. “Our research continues to show that Black women and gender-expansive people are more likely than other groups to get one-time, project-specific grants that are very restricted,” McHarris said. “We’re providing eight funding years because it takes at least eight years to make the kinds of changes and to see the kind of meaningful impact that we say we want. We’re hoping to model this for the sector.”
The idea for the open letter came not from BFF but from the philanthropies themselves, according to McHarris. “As with our grantees, we’re trying to reimagine the relationships we have with our funders so they’re not transactional and extractive, but trust-based. We were in conversation with our funders about how they can show solidarity and support the Black Feminist Fund, and we shared that we need folks to support us in getting to our goal of $100 million, and they came up with the idea of the letter.”
These philanthropies, which are all BFF funders, also support feminist and Black-led organizations in their own grantmaking. The Libra Foundation, for example, includes the African Women’s Development Fund USA, Global Fund for Women, and Grantmakers for Girls of Color among its grantees. The Satterberg Foundation funds Young Women Women’s Freedom Center, a California-based organization that provides support for young women and trans youth impacted by the juvenile justice system. Solidaire Network supports the Black Girl Freedom Fund, among other grantees, and the Foundation for a Just Society’s entire mission is to promote racial and gender justice.
McHarris says that the $100 million BFF hopes to raise will free up Black feminist leaders to do what they do best. “We imagine a world where our movement leaders can focus on the work of world-building, rather than on reports and applications and trying to respond to funder requests,” she said. “So many of our leaders have to worry about how they’re going to resource their own staff and how they’re going to fund the minimal things necessary in order to operate an organization. That reality is sucking the energy from our movement.”
“We’ve got to be funded to win”
Even though Black feminist groups and movements receive only a fraction of philanthropic funding, they’re often at the forefront of significant social change in the U.S and abroad, as the open letter points out. “Evidence shows us that the work of autonomous feminist movements is the one key factor in creating lasting change — not only on issues that directly affect women and girls, but in deep structural changes that positively transform societies.”
A recent report by Shake the Table and the Bridgespan Group, “Lighting the Way: A Report for Philanthropy on the Power and Promise of Feminist Movements,” ticks off some of those accomplishments: “In recent years, feminist movements in Argentina, Ireland and Mexico realized crucial gains in reproductive rights. Farmworkers in the United States secured better wages and working conditions, including curbing sexual violence in the fields. And feminists in Nigeria organized intense protests to bring an end to an abusive special police squad.”
BFF cofounder and co-executive director Hakima Abbas also made this point when the open letter was released. “We are hopeful that others across philanthropy will realize that funding Black feminist work is funding the work that will ultimately lead all of us — across race, gender, class and other identities — to a safer, more just society,” she said.
The open letter was just released, but a number of funders have already reached out to express interest. McHarris hopes that interest translates into dollars so BFF can reach its $100 million goal sooner than later. “We want to raise all of that now — not in increments, not in a year or two years, but now,” she said. “If we are going to fund movements to win, we’ve got to be funded to win.”
This article was updated on March 7th, 2023.