Amid Stacey Abrams-Fair Fight Layoffs, Black Nonprofits Speak Landscape – Capital B News

Tracie Powell remembers how relatively easy it was to secure $10 million in funding for the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy, where she led fundraising back in 2020. The Ford Foundation gave $6 million in one fell swoop, and others lined up to supplement it.

Now it’s 2024 and as the founder of The Pivot Fund, a new organization focused on investing in independent, community-driven news outlets run by Black, indigenous or people of color, Powell says she has barely raised $6 million in total.

“It’s been much harder for us,” Powell told Capital B Atlanta. 

And, in her opinion, the reasoning: the funding spigot that blossomed out of 2020’s summer of racial reckoning has now dried up.

Four years ago, corporations and major donors, it seemed, were suddenly awash with philanthropic funding and eager to steer that cash toward Black charitable causes. Much of that money was tied to the country’s mythical “reckoning.” Locked down by the Covid-19 pandemic, the country was collectively forced to face the trauma long experienced by Black Americans in the form of viral video of the police murder of George Floyd on a sweltering Minneapolis street.

As Black citizens took to the streets in protest, corporate America responded by pouring resources into movements around voting rights and social justice, which had been a part of Black American history for generations.

But as quickly as it came, the funding wave crested and crashed. A 2021 Washington Post investigation found that in the wake of Floyd’s death, American corporations committed $49.5 billion to social justice initiatives. A National Committee of Responsive Philanthropy report revealed another $125 million from community foundations flowing to Black nonprofits and activist organizations nationwide. But by March 2023, the NCRP found that “[t]he additional money in many cases has barely moved the needle,” for racial justice organizations because they were largely short-term donations to historically underfunded nonprofits.

The fallout means that in Georgia and elsewhere, Black-led nonprofit organizations doing identity and race-focused work in underserved communities now have an even smaller pool of funds to pull from. As a result, that could mean rolling back operations or in the case of the Stacey Abrams-founded Fair Fight organization: mass layoffs.

At the time of announcement back in January, the Georgia-based political advocacy group cited mounting debt as the source of its need to cut 75% of its staff, effectively ending its voting rights, media, fundraising, and grassroots organizing efforts.

In a written statement, Salena Jegede, Fair Fight’s board chair, laid out several reasons for the layoffs, including “a contraction in investment has affected most civic actors in our space.”

The reduction in funds ends up having a domino effect. Fair Fight, Jegede noted, brought multiple voting rights lawsuits in Georgia, litigation that sapped a shrinking pool of funds as they went through court. “We had the moral obligation to field these suits on behalf of voters,” Jegede said. “However, due to the complex nature of litigation, the organization unfortunately faces a serious funding deficit that makes our current trajectory unsustainable.”

Cliff Albright, executive director and co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, says Fair Fight is not alone as funds begin to retract from corporations and donors who no longer are invested in racial justice.

“It’s not just foundations but corporations that made very lofty statements in 2020 and 2021, about the importance of racial justice, only to decide a year or two later, OK, I think we’ve done enough,” Albright said.

Combined with what Albright sees as a growing environment of fear stemming from attacks on diversity, inclusion and equity, he says organizations across the civic engagement sector are faced with issues that have created a perfect storm to freeze funds.

“That’s led some organizations to say, ‘We want to do this, but we’re worried about getting sued,’” Albright said. “We’re worried about attacks from state governors and legislatures and so it’s had a chilling effect.”

Powell also says that sometimes, rather than having a connection to the missions of the organizations they invest in, funders may have a singular connection to an individual that can hurt the relationship once that person leaves the organization.

“That’s why we really have to get people who are value-aligned,” Powell said.

Albright said the key is in urging philanthropy to build long-term partnerships with racial justice organizations rather than making one-time donations.

“We need more multiyear grants, because you can’t just give organizations a one-year grant and act like ‘OK, go ahead, you have to face racism this year,’” he said. “This is long-term work where you have to give general operating support, because organizations need to have the flexibility to be able to move money from this program to that program.”

Corrections: The Ford Foundation gave $6 million to the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. An earlier version of this story misstated the source. Also, The Pivot Fund has raised $6 million in funding. The amount was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.