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A report released by the Black Feminist Fund in March highlighted how the lack of financial support given to Black women-centered movements had upended positive global change.
Research in Where is The Money for Black Feminist Movements? included hundreds of contributions from groups and activists worldwide. It was collected and sorted over a year-long process in collaboration with the Human Rights Funders Network.
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The stark reality of the research is that the vast majority of efforts to continue organizations centered around Black women globally do not have the financial capacity to sustain themselves for the long haul.
- 53% don’t have funds available to carry them through the next fiscal year.
- Just under 60% have never received core funding.
- 61% have an annual budget of less than $50,000.
- A bleak 81& don’t have the financial resources to meet their goals.
- 75% receive the majority of their funding specifically for “project-specific” grants that do not support the organization as a whole.
The extensive five-chapter, 146-page report was spearheaded by its authors, Awa Fall Diop, Cynthia Eyakuze, Maie Panaga Babker, Yannia Soffia Garzón Valencia and Timiebi Souza-Okpofabri.
The report highlighted how the extreme underfunding of Black women-centered movements halts them at every level
Some of the roadblocks that the financial constraints cause include the inability to legally or formally register an organization, secure memberships, fight for causes or land funding itself.“The data simply confirms what Black feminists have known: there is a deep-seated, gendered, and racialized trust gap and bias in philanthropy,” said Hakima Abbas, who co-founded the organization with Tynesha McHarris in 2017. “The impact on Black feminists movements is dire under-resourcing, despite the system-changing work that they do. This research is a provocation and a call to action to philanthropy.”
Black feminist movements is an encompassing term for organizations across the globe committed to the advancement of feminist agendas that support Black women, girls, femmes and trans identities
They are committed to empowering Black women through solidarity and doing the work. The top three sectors of human rights issues tackled by the movements — according to the research’s data — are combating gender-based violence and fostering both women’s leadership and economic empowerment.
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