BLMF GRANTEE PARTNER, DREAM DEFENDERS
BLMF GRANTEE PARTNER, SOLUTIONS NOT PUNISHMENT COLLABORATIVE (SNAP CO)

The Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF) supports the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and other politically aligned organizations so that it can better shape policy agendas for Black communities, create alternatives to institutions that have been harmful to Black people, and build local Black community power. The Fund provides a dedicated vehicle for funders to support the ecosystem of grassroots, Black-led power building organizations working towards community safety, justice, and liberation.

The BLMF exists to ensure that progressive, Black-led movement organizations have the resources, visibility, infrastructure and leadership capacity to sustain their day-to-day work. This includes the organizing, advocacy and collective care needed to combat anti-Black racism, ableism, cis-heteropatriarchy, and state violence in their communities and achieve transformational and lasting change.

The BLMF was launched in 2016 and has since moved more than $28.16 million in 383 grants to Black-led organizations!

BLMF GRANTEE PARTNER, ACTION STL

The BLMF prioritizes funding for:

  • Groups centering the leadership of Black women/femmes, girls, as well as queer and trans people. We define “Black-led” as 75% or more of its organizational composition self-identifying as Black.
  • Groups building local power, particularly in the South and Midwest, where funding opportunities for Black-led organizing are more often scarce.
  • Groups experimenting with new approaches to community safety or other strategic experiments that are less likely to be funded by institutional philanthropy.
  • Groups that have an intersectional connection to other issues and movements, such as climate justice, food and land justice, im/migration, reproductive justice, prison industrial complex abolition, disability justice, gender justice, and economic justice.
  • Groups working within the M4BL ecosystem, or within other movement ecosystems that are politically aligned with the M4BL Values.
  • Community organizing, advocacy, and/or policy work, or other work that moves ideas and practices of disability inclusion and disability justice forward.

 BLMF 2022 HIGHLIGHTS

The BLMF’s Grantmaking Process

The BLMF intends to move all general operating grants by a participatory grantmaking process by 2024. Participatory grantmaking will allow us to include more voices in the grantmaking process, democratize how funding is offered to our community, and offer transparency about our grantmaking processes. A committee composed of 8-10 individuals from communities, groups, and networks in and/or politically aligned with the Movement for Black Lives will make funding decisions about multi-year grants from the BLMF.

Current Funding Opportunities

To stay up to date on future funding opportunities, please sign up for our newsletter. 

Donor Benefits

Borealis Philanthropy builds bridges between funders and organizers to resource grassroots movements that are rooted in liberation and justice for all people. By partnering with Borealis, philanthropy can maximize its collective impact; fund bold, leading-edge work; and learn in community with allied funders, expert staff, and grantee partners.

As a donor collaborative, the BLMF offers funders:

  • Deep knowledge and insight about Black-led movement strategy and tactics
  • Relationships with expert staff who are connected to local Black-led movement organizations in every region
  • Knowledge exchange with allied funders
  • Giving that is aligned with the movement’s needs
  • Capacity building add-ons for individual groups and the M4BL ecosystem
  • Deepening existing social justice commitments to include and center disability justice through trust and relationship building.

Contact

For more information about the Black-Led Movement Fund, email blmf@borealisphilanthropy.org.