As the first-state-based fund of its kind, the Black Freedom Fund has hit the ground running with a seismic force resonating throughout California. Launched on February 4, 2021, it has already invested 6 of its 100 million dollars in its first round of grantmaking. The next round is anticipated for late February. This historical and groundbreaking fund is a 5-year initiative established to endorse organizations who work to empower and effect change in Black communities of California. In supporting grassroot advocates, Black community leaders, and Black-led organizations the state will expand its capacity for systemic transformation. The Black Freedom Fund leads their messaging with, “By creating and accelerating a new statewide ecosystem of Black-led organizations confronting racism and anti-Blackness, this fund aims to affect the culture, policy and systems changes necessary to realize equality and justice in California.”
All factual information was sourced directly from CABlackFreedomFund.org
Nearly two dozen contributors have invested in the Black Freedom Fund as of today, and that number will continue to grow as its positive influence stretches across California. The Black Freedom Fund is a living initiative that is designed to evolve with California’s changing needs in inclusive economic empowerment, voter education, social justice, and leadership development.
Akonadi Foundation President Lateefah Simon said that, “We must also acknowledge that the burden of the pervasive nature of structural racism across interlocking systems -- education, public health, economic and criminal justice -- also oftentimes falls on Black women and women of color.”
Black freedom fighters Lateefah Simon, Kaci Patterson, and many other women of color have fostered strong partnerships with the fund, sharing a desire to bring institutional reform to our cities, counties, and state, ultimately impacting our world. On February 24th, they will be hosting the Black Freedom Fund’s upcoming event Powering Black Organizing and Movement Building in California.
As a strong-willed and outspoken civil rights, juvenile rights, and racial justice advocate, Lateefah Simon continues to lead the state of California as one of its staunchest and most influential leaders.
Akonadi Foundation President Lateefah Simon. Civil rights, juvenile rights, and racial justice advocate.
How were you involved in the Black Freedom Fund’s inception?
This fund is co-created with Black organizers. California’s visionary Black organizers have told us that they need sustained investments to eradicate systemic and institutional racism, and we are answering their call. Akonadi Foundation is among two dozen foundations and funders who collectively have invested more than $35 million to date into the fund.
The California Black Freedom Fund is a five-year initiative. In your professional opinion, how long-lasting of an effect do you predict they will be able to create in that time?
To be clear, Black organizers will require more than five years of funding to make the kinds of long-lasting changes that Californians need to secure the livelihood of future generations.
The fund responds to a history of underinvestment in Black-led organizations and power-building by philanthropy; for example, an estimated 1 percent of community foundation support was specifically designated for Black communities in recent years, according to the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.
Historically, philanthropy has responded to racial justice flashpoints with an uptick in temporary funding that is short-term, tactical, and/or narrowly focused.
We are trying to change that through this fund. Black communities must attain the decision-making power over the policies, systems, and opportunities that shape their lives. To get there, it will take a powerful statewide movement of Black-led organizations working to improve Black lives through efforts such as budget processes, census counts, education funding, voter registration, access to housing, and employment.
Akonadi’s participation in the fund responds to a history of exclusion of Black-led organizations and power-building in philanthropy and the ongoing disinvestment and displacement in Black people and communities in the Bay Area across California.
If we are to make real policy changes and full-scale culture shifts against the dehumanization of Black people, we must include the input of Black leaders and communities so that they can have decision-making power over policies and systems that are impacting their daily lives.
Lateefah Simon at a Rosenberg Foundation event
What upcoming initiative can we look forward to seeing from the Akonadi Foundation?
The Akonadi Foundation has recently launched Creatives in Place, a listening project featuring 22 Bay Area artists and their stories of surviving and thriving during a time of great upheaval. The digital platform gives expression to the lived experience, traditions and resilience of local creatives whose geographies, ethnicities and races, gender identities, and sexualities span the spectrum. The project provides a digital space for artists’ words, works, and (virtual) presence to speak for themselves.
Akonadi Foundation is also investing audaciously in people of color-led organizing, base-building and policy advocacy to end the criminalization of Black youth and youth of color in Oakland through our All in for Oakland initiative. The All in for Oakland initiative is investing $12.5 million over five years in an ecosystem of movement organizations that are mobilizing directly impacted people to win and implement police free schools, reimagine school safety and school discipline, close youth prisons, and realize other critical efforts to transform youth justice in Oakland.