When the Black Feminist Fund partnered with FEDWEN, providing a core, eight-year flexible grant, it modelled the kind of philanthropic intervention that grassroots organisations actually need: rather than funding a specific project, it funded the organization behind it.
A Black feminist world is one where all people can thrive and realise their full potential, free from violence and discrimination. In Kingston, Jamaica, TransWave Jamaica has spent ten years building it, in the face of conditions designed to make that impossible.
In the face of rising anti-rights attacks and shrinking institutional support, the Black Feminist Fund has awarded a new $13 million in flexible, long-term funding to Black LBTI+ groups building collective power across the globe.
Call it identity politics. Call it saving democracy. Call it what you want. The real test is whether we will stand together in courage or collapse into preemptive compliance. Time is of the essence. We cannot waste it on false choices.
Our invitation to you is simple – join us. People like you who can give, at whatever capacity, make possible funding that challenges the norms about who is a donor and who is fundable.
I remember the first time I settled into the embrace of Black feminism made flesh. It was September 2016 and I had joined 200 other people on the Bahian shore of the Atlantic Ocean to get a small taste of a wild dream: the one-of-a-kind Black Feminist Forum.