requests of the south florida philanthropic & funding community.

 

Although racial injustice has plagued South Florida from its inception, we recognize that we are in a particularly unique moment to mobilize resources - people and financial - toward achieving equity, justice and liberation for all Black people.  We center racial justice in our requests as the time is now to right the historic wrongs done to Black people and address the intentional resource divestment & disenfranchisement of Black communities in South FL. We are calling on the local philanthropic & funding community to address the inherent biases in the funding pipeline and to step into the resource gap for Black-led organizations. Our requests are rooted in the following core principles: transparency, Black leadership, accountability, and accessibility.

our requests are as follows:

 

grantmaking.

  • Enhance transparency in terms of reviewers and board approval of grants;

  • Create a participatory grant-making process in which a community advisory board make decisions on grant making thereby increasing the number of Black people included in decisions on grants and grantmaking process; 

  • Consider organizations during the application process that have pay equity and diverse board & leadership;

  • Ensure a fair grant application process i.e. consider that larger organizations have grant-writers  and smaller organizations rely on program staff and overextended executive directors to draft grant proposals;

  • For community-wide funding efforts, such as Give Miami Day: use communications to specifically encourage folks to give to racial justice organizations and create match opportunities specifically for racial justice organizations;

  • Measuring grantee success with the understanding that transformative organizing & policy require a different rubric for success;

  • Educate donors in donor-advised funds on racial justice funding opportunities within the community.

funding.

  • Organize a racial justice funding collaborative to increase available funds for Black-led racial justice work;

  • Increase minimum annual distribution of funds;

  • Disburse larger amounts of funding to organizations focused on racial justice;

  • Give long term, multi-year support; 

  • Fund more full-time staff rolls;

  • Ensure these nine groups receive multi-year, full funding.

 

research.

  • Review and share internal data of current grantees and determine how many are actually led by Black leadership;

  • Review and share internal data on amount of funding given to white-led organizations to do the same or similar work of Black-led groups;

  • Research professional development and technical assistance for funders;

  • Review research studies that show disportionalities in funding access to Black-led groups;

  • Speak to progressive funders and learn how to more seamlessly integrate racial justice into philanthropic operations in South FL;

  • Research the differences between racial equity & racial justice.

 

public relations.

  • Publicly share reasons for support of each organization.

type of work to fund.

  • Community organizing;

  • Transformative policy advocacy;

  • Black-led organizations that fight for racial justice;

  • Black-led organizations doing organizing work;

  • Black-led organizations doing systems-change work;

  • Black-led organizations doing all sorts of work including arts, youth development, crime prevention, education, environmental justice, economic justice, community development, start-ups, cultural, reproductive justice, etc.

  • Capacity-building for small organizations including executive coaching, fundraising, grant-writing, donor relations, communications, public relations, finance/accounting/bookkeeping and legal.

 

internal transformation.

  • Share the racial breakdown of foundation’s senior leadership and board of directors;

  • Develop a leadership pipeline to diversify foundation boards of directors;

  • Align with work we are doing publically;

  • Support organizing, capacity-building, leadership development and advocacy as a specific part of foundation’s mission;

  • Divest from corporations that harm the Black community - see work of Brooklyn Community Foundation.