Black-Led Movement Fund Moves $6 Million to Black-Led Organizations and Organizers Working for Black Liberation and Joy

Founded in 2016, Borealis Philanthropy’s Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF) exists to support the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and other politically-aligned organizations to better shape policy agendas for Black communities, create alternatives to institutions that have been harmful to Black people, and build local Black community power. In April 2023, the BLMF announced $6 million in awards to 30 organizations and organizers working towards community safety, justice, and liberation—bringing its total funding distributed since inception to nearly $30 million. This year, each organization will receive $200,000 in flexible, core operating support until 2025.

This year’s grantmaking is the first since the Fund’s shift to a participatory model of decision making. Grantee partners were selected by a committee of 10 community organizers representing a cross-section of generations and various aspects of movement building, including land, food, and black culture systems. 

“We were thrilled for the opportunity to practice participatory grantmaking for the first time as a Fund,” said Julia Beatty, BLMF’s Program Director. “This shift was an important step in sharing power, bringing community into a more democratic funding process, and challenging the traditional gatekeeping model, which does not serve our organizations or our communities.”

The Fund’s newest cohort includes organizations across the country that have intersectional connection to other issues and movements, including climate justice, food and land justice, im/migration, reproductive justice, prison industrial complex abolition, disability justice, gender justice, and economic justice. 

“This feels BIG! for our team,” acknowledges Jardyn Lake, BLMF’s Senior Program Associate. “I’m amazed by what we accomplished as a team, with the leadership of the committee.”  

With a widened lens, made available through the decision-making of more people, with a broader scope of lived experience to include movement organizing this year’s participatory decision making process resulted in a rich cohort of over 30 organizations which embody—in both myriad and creative ways—the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)’s values and vision of abolition, anti-capitalism, and kinship.

2023-2025 BLMF Grantee Cohort

We invite you to join the Black-Led Movement Fund and bolster our network of thoughtful and future-focused grantee partners, who are co-creating a more beautiful world for us all. To learn more about how to partner with the Black-Led Movement Fund, please email Julia Beatty at jbeatty@borealisphilanthropy.org.