The Fund for Black-Led Change
In 2020, we announced the Fund for Black-led Change (FBLC), a $20 million commitment of core support to Black-led organizations building power, advancing permanently organized communities, and transforming systems toward liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all in Greater Washington.
Grantee partners selected for our Fund for Black-led Change cohort organize and advocate to combat systemic anti-Blackness through the lens of immigrant rights, food equity, policing in schools, voting rights, tax justice, housing rights, and more.
Continue scrolling to learn more about the organizations in the FBLC and to find out how you can support their work.
Below, Stephanie Sneed (Director for the Fund for Black-led Change) provides an introduction to this body of work at the Meyer Foundation:
Grantee Partners in the Fund for Black-led Change
African Communities Together (ACT)
African Communities Together (ACT) is an organization of African immigrants fighting for civil rights, opportunity, and a better life for their families here in the U.S. and worldwide. ACT empowers African immigrants to integrate socially, advance economically, and engage civically. ACT connects African immigrants to critical services, helps Africans develop as leaders, and organize their communities on the issues that matter.
Advocates for Justice & Education, Inc.
Black Church Food Security Network
The Black Church Food Security Network specializes in recruiting, organizing, and mobilizing African American congregations around food system initiatives, environmental conservation, and agricultural projects.
Black Lives Matter DC
Black Lives Matter DC is a member-based abolitionist organization centering Black people most at risk for state violence in DC, creating the conditions for Black Liberation through the abolition of systems and institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism.
The Black Swan Academy
The Black Swan Academy empowers black youth in under-served communities through civic leadership and engagement, giving them a comprehensive set of tools needed to succeed in life and become active social catalyst in their communities. The Black Swan Academy is committed to creating a pipeline of Black youth leaders who are committed to improving self, as well as their communities.
Black Women Radicals
Black Women Radicals is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting Black women and gender expansive people’s radical political activism. Rooted in intersectional and transnational feminisms and Womanisms, they are committed to empowering Black women and gender expansive activists and centering their political, intellectual, and cultural contributions to the field of Black Politics across time, space, and place in Africa and in the African Diaspora.
Bread for the City Organizing
Bread for the City’s organizers work with staff and client leaders on a housing campaign that advocates for policies that preserve and create affordable housing in DC. They do this by building coalitions, engaging public officials, and working with tenants as they organize to protect their homes. Ultimately, they are building community power to fight inequality beyond housing alone. Their advocacy division hosts a 12-week organizing institute to introduce community members to organizing skills, direct action, and strategies for building effective grassroots campaigns.
Critical Exposure
Critical Exposure trains DC youth to harness the power of photography and their own voices to fight for educational equity and social justice. Through campaigns and visual storytelling, Critical Exposure supports youth in raising their voices in conversations about education policies and in building the political will needed to address the issues they face.
DC Justice Lab
DC Justice Lab is a team of law and policy experts researching, organizing, and advocating for large-scale changes to the District’s criminal legal system. They develop smarter safety solutions that are evidence-driven, community-rooted, and racially just. DC Justice Lab aims to fully transform the District’s approach to public safety and make it a national leader in justice reform.
Dreaming Out Loud
Dreaming Out Loud Inc. rebuilds urban, community-based food systems through cooperative social enterprise increasing access to healthy food, improving community health, supporting entrepreneurs and cooperatives from low-income communities, and creating opportunities for at-risk residents to earn sustainable, family-supporting wages and build wealth.
Envisioning Safety on Campus (ESOC)
ESOC's mission is to develop a network of students, faculty/staff, alumni, and community members to advance transformative justice practices on college campuses in DC & MD. ESOC is a commitment to building infrastructure for intercampus student organizing and providing political education rooted in the Black Radical Tradition.
Fair Budget Coalition
The Fair Budget Coalition advocates for budget and public policy initiatives that address systemic social, racial and economic inequality in the District of Columbia. They work to accomplish these goals by leveraging the collective power of their Coalition Members and impacted community members, particularly those from Black and other communities of color.
Harriet's Wildest Dreams
Harriet’s Wildest Dreams is a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub centering all Black lives at risk for state-sanctioned violence in the Greater Washington area. Their work includes legal empowerment, political and civic education, mass protests, organizing campaigns, and community care that builds alternatives to oppressive systems.
Life After Release
Life After Release is a formerly incarcerated women-led organization in the DMV area organizing to build a post-conviction movement where people have the right to challenge convictions and the system responsible for convicting them in the first place. Their work is grounded in a vision of self-determination for directly-impacted communities and has four main pillars: Post Conviction Movement Building, Legal Empowerment/Participatory Defense, Court Watch & Judicial Accountability Organizing, and Community Outreach (bail outs and transactional service).
ONE DC
ONE DC was founded in 1997 in the midst of neighborhood change. From early on, ONE DC’s approach to community development addressed structural causes of poverty and injustice, an orientation that stemmed from deep analyses of race, power, and the economic, political, and social forces at work in Shaw and the District. As a result, ONE DC’s organizing work centers on popular education, community organizing, and alternative economic development projects.
Organizing Black
Organizing Black is a grassroots, member-led organization dedicated to fighting for the liberation of all Black people by building local power through transformational Black direct action organizing, political education, and participatory governance practices.
Out for Justice, Inc.
Out for Justice, Inc. is an organization comprised of individuals who are both directly and indirectly impacted by the criminal legal system advocating for the reform of policies and practices that adversely affect successful reintegration into society.
Racial Justice NOW!
Racial Justice NOW! is committed to dismantling structural and institutional anti-Black racism in all areas of people activity. Their primary focus is on the institution of education and lifting up the voices of dis-empowered Black parents and children. They are dedicated to stopping the school-to-prison pipeline and focus specifically on holding institutions accountable to equitable distribution of resources and services to the Black Community.
UndocuBlack Network
Founded in 2016, The UndocuBlack Network is a multigenerational network of currently and formerly undocumented Black people. They develop the leadership of members through tools, training, and programming; build power with and for communities through advocacy, local organizing, and cultivating strategic alliances to advance policies that affect their daily lives; and center the humanity, dignity, and wellbeing of communities in all aspects of their work.