A New Community-Led Fund

 

The Black Migrant Power Fund is a community-led fund that will move immediate, no-strings funding to Black-led, grassroots organizations addressing the urgent needs of Black migrant communities and building power with and for Black migrants in the US.

Key Black migrant organizations are launching this urgent call to action and will distribute the money raised through this newly-created fund, which will be housed at the Four Freedoms Fund. By trusting Black migrant-led organizations doing the work to make funding decisions, this newly launched fund seeks to move money to under-resourced grassroots organizations that are oft-neglected by philanthropy. These investments will support the leadership and resilience of Black migrant communities and transform the US immigration system to embrace the humanity and dignity of ALL migrants.

We are raising immediate, long overdue resources for Black migrant organizations leading transformative change.

Meeting this Moment

 

In September 2021, horrifying images of Border Patrol officers attacking Haitian migrants at the US-Mexico border drew national outrage. Videos of officers on horseback, wielding their horses’ reins as they intimidated and abused Black migrants and their families, painfully hearkened back to centuries of racial terror and violence inflicted on Black communities in the US. Sadly, this appalling mistreatment is not an aberration, but emblematic of the US immigration system’s historic and ongoing discriminatory targeting, exclusion, incarceration, and deportation of Black migrants.

In the face of these life and death challenges, visionary Black migrant leaders are rising to meet the urgent needs of their communities and are leading the way in the fights for immigrant and racial justice. Yet, philanthropy continues to underinvest in Black migrant organizations, despite growing calls for investment in Black leadership, forcing these groups to confront intersecting crises with inadequate support.

This fund is needed in a sector where only 1% of foundation funds explicitly benefit immigrants and refugees, and much less to Black-led and -centered movement-building work, as noted by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).

Through the establishment of a community-controlled fund, and a seeding investment of $10 million, Black migrant leaders will be able to address urgent needs in their communities, fight to dismantle racist immigration policy, and build the infrastructure and power to thrive.

Black Migrant Organizations

Following a funder briefing on Centering Collective Black Power for Migrant and Racial Justice last October, several Black migrant organizations called on funders to raise $10 million in initial funding to benefit Black immigrant justice organizations in 2022. These groups partner with one another and center Black, LGBTQI+, undocumented, youth, and formerly incarcerated leadership to lead transformative change with their communities.

About Us

  • The Four Freedoms Fund

    Four Freedoms Fund is a national funder collaborative that strengthens the capacity of the immigrant justice movement to ensure all immigrants, regardless of immigration status, have dignity, power to shape change, and agency to determine the quality of their life, community, and future. Through sustained grantmaking, ongoing technical assistance to grantees, and funder education and coordination, FFF invests in the long-term growth and ability of the immigrant justice movement to thrive, achieve bold, transformational reforms, and win lasting justice. Since its founding in 2003, FFF has infused the immigrant justice field with over $180 million.

    Across FFF’s various long-term initiatives, we support Black-led organizations playing critical roles in the fights for immigrant and racial justice. Through our Black Migrant Initiative, launched in 2020, FFF provides multi-year general support grants and tailored capacity-building support to strengthen the power and capacity of Black-led immigrant justice organizations.

  • Ola Osaze

    Ola Osaze is the Deputy Director at the Four Freedoms Fund and is the Lead Advisor for the Black Migrant Power Fund. Prior to joining the FFF team, Ola co-founded and served as the Director of the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP), the first organization of its kind to exist nationally. A formerly undocumented migrant and longtime leader in movements for social justice, Ola has amassed decades of experience organizing in Black and brown, LGBTQ+, and migrant communities as well as with organizations such as Transgender Law Center, the Audre Lorde Project, Uhuru Wazobia, Queers for Economic Justice and Sylvia Rivera Law Project.

    * The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) has also provided strategic advice to assist the creation of this fund.

  • Jonathan Jayes-Green

    Jonathan Jayes-Green (they/them) is an activist, philanthropic strategist and believer in a free and just world. Jonathan is an independent consultant supporting nonprofits and philanthropic entities aligning their strategies and practices towards racial justice and power-building. Jonathan most recently served as the Vice President of Programs at the Marguerite Casey Foundation, managing the foundation’s core grantmaking portfolios supporting local organizers across the country working towards racial, social and economic justice. They also served as the founding Executive Director of the UndocuBlack Network and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s National Latinx Director during her 2020 Presidential Campaign. Jonathan serves on the boards of the eBay Foundation, Hispanics in Philanthropy and Funders for LGBT Issues. They will be working with BMPF to set up the fund’s governance and grantmaking structure over the next year.