Give Black, Give Back Nonprofits to Support

Mural Artists: Elisheba Israel Mrozik, Michael Mucker, Kasumi Bledsoe and Kamarrah Stevens.

Grassroots, Black & Giving: How Philanthropy Can Better Support Black-led and Black-benefiting Nonprofits report summary via Nonprofit Quarterly.

“We wanted to find out more about the needs of Black-led, Black-supporting organizations and their fundraising behaviors, and what can the larger sector of particularly institutional funders [do to] shift or change some of their practices, requirements, barriers to entry?” Young, Black & Giving Back executive director Ebonie Johnson Cooper tells NPQ.

Scroll down for a full list of Middle Tennessee Black-led nonprofits profiled in GivingMatters.com.

A Portrait of Black-Led Nonprofits 

The report details six key findings from their survey. Overall, they describe Black-led organizations as resourceful and close to the ground in terms of both their missions and institutional knowledge and experience.

The report finds that Black-led nonprofits:

• Are “grassroots, hyper-local and grounded in communities,” often founded by “leaders who recognize community problems and respond by building infrastructures to address community needs.” Most are led by women and people who are millennials or members of Generation X (that is, people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s) (10).
• Do “a lot with little,” running on budgets of less than $500,000 annually, with many operating on shoestring budgets of closer to $30,000. Most have small staffs and rely heavily on volunteers; many leaders work side jobs to make ends meet (10).
• Address “the direct needs of Black communities by focusing on issues related to poverty and economic security,” including health, financial literacy and economic wellness, food insecurity, workforce development, education and youth development (11).
• Want support to build capacity, with leaders reporting they lack the funds to invest in priorities like individual donor support and would benefit from coaching or training in areas like financial management and fundraising (11).
• Seek “diverse, authentic and trusting funding partnerships” that serve to genuinely benefit their own needs. Many leaders, the survey found, “believe their organizations are used as a resource to help improve white-led organizations with no clear benefit to their own” (12).
• Feel “comfortable talking to existing institutional funders about their challenges and presenting their identity authentically,” but also feel pressure to “adapt their message at least somewhat to appeal to white-led philanthropic institutions,” as well as pressure to “accomplish much more with fewer resources than their white-led counterparts” (12).

The good news, the report states, is that “Black-led nonprofits find ways to make an indelible impact on their communities.”

But that impact could be greater and more durable, the report argues, “with a commitment from philanthropic institutions to center investment in these organizations in ways that help them build capacity and pursue social-change strategies most authentic to the communities being served.”

Support Middle Tennessee Black-Led Nonprofits 

How to use this table:

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Read About the Black-led Nonprofits Give Black, Give Back has Supported: