Black Abundance Collaborative
The Black Abundance Collaborative
The Black Abundance Collaborative is a five-year investment in the ecosystem of local Black-led organizations working across a variety of issue areas toward a just, connected, and inclusive Greater Washington.
Rooted in the belief that Black organizers and the organizations they lead deserve to be well resourced, the Collaborative connects Black-led groups to build collective power through shared learning, strategic collaboration, and organizational development.
“Also, Black abundance relishes in the messy, beautiful work of being Black in this nation.
It refuses to fetishize Black pain or Black joy, while accepting that Blackness and Black people are more than enough. We are worthy of revision. We are abundantly worthy of good love, second chances and healthy choices. This is Black abundance.”
-Kiese Laymon, professor, writer, and author of Heavy: An American Memoir, a work that inspired the primary goal of the Collaborative: to fortify existing networks and ecosystems of local Black leaders and organizations.
Overview
Over a five-year period, organizations invited into the Black Abundance Collaborative work together across a range of issue areas and tactics, united by a shared commitment to systemic change. Groups in the Collaborative receive multi-year general operating support, capacity building resources, rapid response funding, and opportunities to convene.
Our goal is for the Black Abundance Collaborative to foster and strengthen lasting partnerships among Black-led organizations and to resource an ecosystem in which these organizations can collectively strategize for the benefit of Black people and all people in Greater Washington. The Collaborative is intended to be a generative space for grantee partners that strengthens their organizations and leadership, deepens each other's analysis, and inspires collective action. Organizational leaders also engage in Black thought leadership and a community of practice to grow and develop their tactics, shared strategies, and tools to win.
How We Got Here
The Black Abundance Collaborative is preceded by the Fund for Black-Led Change, our five-year capacity building initiative that laid the groundwork for our convening strategy and our thinking around how philanthropic institutions can begin the work of showing up in support of Black-led and Black-centered movement building. Through the Black Abundance Collaborative, we move forward with the next iteration of this work with critical insights that participants have shared with us, and with consideration of the current landscape of funding for Black organizations.
A Black organizer posed the question, “What would it look like if funders really wanted Black movements to win?” The Black Abundance Collaborative expands on our answer to that question.
Learn more about the work resourced through the Fund for Black-Led Change (2020-2025):
Frequently Asked Questions
The Black Abundance Collaborative is an invitation-only offering. Please look out for future funding opportunities on our website and social media.
To form the Black Abundance Collaborative, we made the difficult decision to move to an invitation-only process. The nature of this process may mean that some organizations were overlooked. As we continue to reaffirm our commitment to investing in and strengthening the ecosystem of Black organizations in Greater Washington, we invite you to stay tuned for future opportunities and offerings.
We are proud to have wrapped our five-year commitment through the Fund for Black-led Change as of December, 31, 2025.
We successfully moved $20 million to 20 Black-led organizations in the Greater Washington area. The lessons we learned through our Fund for Black-Led Change informed the structure and design of the Black Abundance Collaborative.
To contact a member of our team about the Black Abundance Collaborative, please reach out to us here.
Contact
For additional questions about the Black Abundance Collaborative, please contact us.