How Solidaire is Funding Black Liberation—and What Other Funders Can Learn From It

Martha Ramirez at Inside Philanthropy recently sat down with Solidaire staff members Leigh Gaymon-Jones, movement partnerships and grantmaking practitioner, and Janis Rosheuvel, director of movement partnerships and grantmaking, to discuss the rise in funding for Black-led nonprofits and how philanthropy must go further to ensure that the movement has what it needs—now and for the long haul. They discuss Solidaire’s commitment to increasing support of Black-led racial justice work and its unique approach funding a wide range of issues and groups:

“We are not necessarily aiming to support a singular movement, but hoping to uplift an ecosystem of folks who are working to uplift the lives and futures of Black people… and therefore…uplift the liberation of all people,” said Leigh Gaymon-Jones, movement partnerships and grantmaking practitioner at Solidaire.

They also discuss what Black liberation means for Solidaire—and the intention behind not dictating to its grantees what that looks like:

“So much of how we work at Solidaire is about our movement partners defining the term for themselves and in their specific context and around the specific issues they work,” explained Rosheuvel.

Gaymon-Jones added that Solidaire wrestled with this issue. Is Solidaire as a philanthropic organization and institution positioned to define Black liberation? “I don’t think we are.”

“Through our grantmaking, we partner with many organizations, businesses, groups, collectives, cooperatives that are really rooting their work in a Black liberation framework, so in many ways, that’s being defined by each of those individual groups, and I think it’s appropriately reflective of the diversity of Black life and the Black experience.”

Gaymon-Jones described the Black Liberation Pooled Fund’s grants as no-strings-attached funding, meaning Solidaire is forgoing common grant practices like extensive reporting, quarterly check-ins, documentation, specific expectations of donor engagement or an expectation of a set number of site visits.

Gaymon-Jones added, “I really hope that this fund sparks imagination and creativity and possibilities, and offers the breathing room by offering multi-year funding, by offering general-ops funding; I really hope that it offers the breathing room for some really powerful work to emerge out of these organizations that were already doing really powerful work.”

As Rosheuvel says, for Solidaire, the hope is philanthropy as a whole can learn what it means to fund through deep and long-term partnerships:

“We’re doing the work internally to unburden and release wealth…I’m in solidarity with folks who are doing that and always strongly encouraging for that to be the standard rather than the exception.”

Read the full article—How Solidaire is Funding Black Liberation—and What Other Funders Can Learn From It —by clicking here.

Seeding by Ceding – Mackenzie Scott’s Gift to Solidaire Network

“Generosity is generative, sharing makes more.”

These words in MacKenzie Scott’s Medium post resonate with all of us at Solidaire. In this blog “Seeding by Ceding,” MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett made public their gift to Solidaire Network amongst 285 others in the ecosystem of social change. They lift up our cherished principles and practices of grounding in radical giving, of abundance, and trusting the leadership of movements. As MacKenzie says, “we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.”

Announced today, this one-time, unrestricted, not time bound gift of $10 million emboldens us to keep working towards realizing our Theory of Liberation, leading by example with boldness and courage. We could not be more thrilled and grateful to have our collective work for the past eight years endorsed and celebrated in this way. Funding social movements while transforming our own relationship to wealth is clearly the way to go for philanthropy! MacKenzie’s generous, no-strings-attached gift honors our bold ambitions for our collective work.

The timing of this gift could also not be better suited to meet the moment. We have just deployed our first series of multi-year unrestricted grants of $14 million through our Black Liberation Pooled Fund, $3.3 million through Movement Protection Fund, and another $3.7 million in Movement Infrastructure Fund grants are about to be announced. This pooled fund giving does not even begin to cover the 2000+ applications our team received and vetted and the many many thoughtful requests that keep coming our way. As we boldly make multi-year and unrestricted commitments to our movement partners, we have longed and wished for an abundance of resources to enact our solidarity for years to come. This year, we moved a fraction of what these groups need to keep growing their impactful work. There is no dearth of imaginative, brilliant, game-changing work being done by grassroots organizers and movement builders around the world. We know that our members will continue to answer the call to organize and share.

Thank you to our movement partners for fighting for our collective liberation. Thank you to our hard-working staff for getting us to this point. You demonstrate every day what moving in deep alignment with movement means. To our founders, thank you. Look at what your vision continues to make happen. To Solidaire members who are sharing your abundance with oppressed and exploited people, many spending down “fortunes enabled by systems in deep need of change,” you demonstrate the generative generosity exemplified by this announcement.