What We’re Reading: A New Effort Aims to Help Foundations Better Fund Black-Led Nonprofits
“A new effort to help grant makers change the way they work so they can better support Black-led nonprofits was announced today. Abundance is a collaboration between three Chicago-area grant makers, Chicago Beyond, the Grand Victoria Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.”
“Abundance is not a pledge, but rather a program for grant makers,” said author Jim Rendon. “The foundations are in the process of hiring a director for Abundance and have given the group an annual budget of $400,000 for three years. Much about the way it works will be determined by the director, but the idea is to provide a forum for grant makers to learn from one another about how to change their practices so they are more effectively supporting Black-led groups, which are often small, locally focused, and historically underfunded.”
Abundance plans to address issues such as internal barriers and finding ways, “to get more grant makers interested in supporting Black-led nonprofits with multiyear grants, [and] to understand the challenges Black-led groups faced and to help such groups grow in a way that can be sustained.”