Happy Black Future Month! As we kick off Black History Month today, what if in addition to looking back, we also commit to ensuring a prosperous and healthy future for all Black people?
This would require philanthropy to think about Black-led organizations in ways that can’t easily be measured; in ways that allow for dreaming. The act of dreaming — reimagining and envisioning the just and equitable future we are working toward — involves both creativity and collaboration. And it takes time: strategic planning that spans decades, not just a few years.
In other words, philanthropy needs to play the long game when it comes to racial justice.
I was introduced to the idea of a Black Future Month by the bestselling science-fiction and fantasy writer N.K. Jemisin. In 2013, on the eve of Black History Month, she wrote an essay entitled, “How Long ‘til Black Future Month?” A few years later. she re-used the title for a book of her short stories. Black futures should not be limited to fantasy, though.
Alicia Garza, who leads Black Futures Lab, a power-building organization, belongs to a contingent of activists who have already embraced a Black future mind-set. The Movement for Black Lives has popularized the concept of a Black Futures Month, calling for February to be a “visionary, forward-looking spin on celebrations of Blackness” and a time to dream and imagine.
“One of the most important things that I take from Black history is that Black communities have always been futurists,” Garza said on a podcast this time last year. “Because of the way that the rules have been rigged against our communities, we’ve been forced to imagine a new future with possibilities for freedom.”
Admittedly, given the current efforts to erase Blackness from American history, recasting this month to look forward and not simply backward is not without risks. After all, reckoning with the past helps us understand the root causes of inequity, heal and repair the harm done, and pave the way for something better. But the problem with thinking about the fight for Black liberation as only a moment in history is it both overlooks the critical racial-justice work happening today and ignores the work still required to build an equitable future.
Helping Black Groups Thrive
For the philanthropic world, ensuring Black futures starts with the practical work of funding today’s Black-led organizations in ways that allow them to thrive into the future. I can think of a few ways philanthropy can do that:
No more forcing Black-led organizations to live grant check to grant check. Nearly four years ago, research from Echoing Green and Bridgespan, where I work, found the unrestricted net assets of Black-led organizations were about 75 percent smaller than those of their white-led counterparts. This pattern doesn’t seem to have changed much since then. If philanthropy is truly committed to advancing equity and justice, then it needs to start funding this work like the massive re-imagining exercise it is. That doesn’t happen in one-year or three-year grant cycles with strings attached.
Draw on all your assets to support Black leaders. The 1954 Project, a pooled fund, is a good example of how philanthropy can authentically support Black leaders. Its founders, philanthropists Liz and Don Thompson, understand that philanthropy has more assets to offer — including social capital, time, talent, knowledge, and physical space — than money.
The 1954 Project draws significantly on the social capital of its principles and staff to support each of its grantees, or “luminaries,” as the fund calls them, including helping them find additional donors, potential board members, or other helpful connections. Liz Thompson has accompanied the luminaries to meetings or conferences to better serve as a champion and, when needed, has also nudged those connections to ensure they follow up on commitments.
Fund with care. Faced with the complex fight against systemic inequity combined with chronic underfunding, we are in the midst of what some have called a “profound crisis of burnout” for leaders of color, especially Black women and nonbinary leaders of color. The Ms. Foundation found that women and nonbinary leaders of color experience deep personal connections to the work they do, which inspires them to sacrifice their own health and well-being to seek justice for those in their community.
In response, the foundation has called on philanthropy to adopt a giving approach that focuses more on the care of nonprofit leaders. That requires reframing how grant makers think about resources to include the women and nonbinary leaders of color themselves and the underfunded multi-issue work that their organizations engage in. Such approaches are commonly employed by Black women who address issues through their multiple vantage points, including race, gender, and sexuality.
The Ms. Foundation also encourages donors to invest in the wellness of these leaders. That might include encouraging sabbaticals and leadership coaching to help with burnout, or even allowing leaders to determine for themselves what wellness practices are best to incorporate into their organizations.
Rethink risk. I’m always startled when philanthropists use the word risk. It seems risk has been normalized as a good thing when it involves accumulating wealth, but it turns bad when it involves giving money away to accelerate social change. Instead, what if donors allow their giving to be guided by an asset-based approach that focuses on an organization’s strengths and potential. When it comes to advancing equity and justice, the only risk that matters is the risk of not giving.
Philanthropy can, of course, give with a futurist mind-set in many other ways. The suggestions I offer here are just a starter list. To me, embracing a Black futures mind-set does not shed Black history. Instead, it acknowledges that the equitable world we seek requires both never forgetting the past and always staying focused on the future.
So this month, with N.K. Jemisin still on my mind, I ask this: How long ‘til philanthropy genuinely supports Black futures?