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Introducing the Black Disabled Liberation Project Resource Hub!

Aug 6, 2024 | Borealis News & Updates, Fund, News & Updates

A collage of diverse individuals, primarily featuring Black disabled people, engaged in various activities. The top-left image shows a woman in a blue shirt and hat, sitting in a wheelchair near a fence. The middle image displays a group of six people of varying genders, sizes, and disabilities, with one person holding a sign that says "disabled HERE." The top-right image features a woman in a black tank top and red pants, performing with a metal frame. The bottom-left image shows two women, one sitting in a wheelchair, hugging and smiling. The bottom-right image captures a group of seven people, smiling and posing for the camera, some using sign language


Black August is a time of reverence and honor for Black resistance and the political prisoners and freedom fighters whose resilience have brought us to this moment today. This Black August, we are proud and honored to put forward a new resource, The Black Disabled Liberation Project resource hub, which shares our commitment to resourcing today’s freedom fighters, and offers a roadmap for our funder peers to do the same. 

At Borealis Philanthropy, we believe that intersectional organizing—and thus, intersectional funding—is our portal to freedom and joy. 

The Black Disabled Liberation Project, a new co-funding initiative between the Black-Led Movement Fund and Disability Inclusion Fund, is an offering in this vein. A $1 million investment in the efforts of Black Disabled organizers, the project seeks to resource this historically underfunded work and also put forward resources to support the philanthropic sector to fund this work.

An infographic showing that only 2% of total philanthropic giving is allocated for disability-focused initiatives. The text "2% ALLOCATED FOR DISABILITY-FOCUSED INITIATIVES" is at the top, with a visual representation of many dollar signs. Two of the dollar signs are in dark blue, representing the 2%, while the rest are in light grey. Below the visual, the text reads, "Only 2% of total philanthropic giving is allocated for disability-focused initiatives.
An infographic illustrating the allocation of total philanthropic giving. The graphic features a large circle labeled "TOTAL PHILANTHROPIC GIVING" with two smaller segments highlighted: one representing 2.1% for "FUNDING FOR BLACK COMMUNITIES" and another 1.0% for "RACIAL JUSTICE INITIATIVES." Below the graphic, text explains: "Despite an uptick in resource mobilization in response to the racial justice uprisings of 2020, funding for Black communities still represents only 2.1% of philanthropic giving overall, with just 1% of all funding going towards racial justice initiatives.
An infographic highlighting funding challenges for Black-led and Black-benefiting nonprofits. At the top, there is text that reads "1/3 BLACK-LED & BLACK-BENEFITING NONPROFITS OPERATE WITH $30K / YEAR," accompanied by three cogwheels, with one cogwheel in dark red and the other two in light grey. Below the cogwheels, there is additional text: "A majority of Black-led and Black-benefiting nonprofits operate on less than $500,000 a year, with nearly one-third operating with just $30,000 a year.


This project was conceptualized based on two questions:

  • How can funders show up for Black-disabled liberation? 
  • How can our process be a model for ways of resourcing Black liberation? 

The Funds’ grantmaking answers the first, and a new microsite, which invites funders into a continued learning space, answers the second.

This site is an offering of love, clarity, and curiosity—and an ode to the power of communal learning. It is a documenting container for the reflections and possibility-making that occur when funders center Black-disabled wisdom and work. 

It is Borealis Philanthopy’s attempt to:

  • Share, with our fellow values-aligned funders, the need for—and actionable guidance around—abundant, intersectional, and anti-ableist grantmaking and working in trusted partnership with communities. 
  • Demonstrate the expansive nature of liberatory work—from arts and culture to mental health, movement infrastructure, community organizing, and healing justice—and catalog the wisdom of those living and leading at the intersection of Blackness and disability. 
  • Make clear the unique role of philanthropic intermediaries in advancing collective liberation. (As our friend Vu Lee has penned, we, like mycelium, the rootlike structure of mushrooms, exist to nourish, connect, and sustain.) 

It is abundantly clear that Black and disabled-led organizations and leaders are currently stretched thin to the point of literal collapse, with our communities’ livelihoods, the lives of organizers, and our collective liberation at stake. This is what philanthropy’s historical lack of investment at this intersection means, in very real and human terms. A long overdue, vital course correction is required of philanthropy—and we hope you will join us in offering radical abundance to our grantee partners and the broader community organizing towards Black disabled liberation.