Emergent fund for black lives

There are no words for the rage and grief we feel that Black folks have not articulated over and over again. Emergent Fund is in deep solidarity with organizers and protesters fighting for George Floyd and a complete end to the murderous, white supremacist systems that killed him—the same systems that killed Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many more. We’re also in solidarity with Iyanna Dior, a Black trans woman who was brutally beaten by a group of men in Minneapolis this week. #BlackTransLivesMatter unequivocally. We can’t be free until we’re all free, and we know that transphobic and gendered violence is connected to racialized violence and to all forms of interpersonal and state violence. 

We are emphatic about our belief that Black Lives Matter and we know that Black liberation must be core to both our organizing and our philanthropic praxis, by any means necessary. The mandate for us now and always, is to lean into the leadership of Black organizers and to honor the legacy of resistance and vision that continues to birth a new world.

The systems we are fighting are ingrained into the fabric of this nation-state, from Indigenous land-theft and settler colonialism, to generations of enslavement and Jim Crow laws, to mass incarceration, our hearts are heavy with this compounded, prolonged, generational trauma. We know that there is a straight line between policing, gendered violence, the criminal legal system, detention, deportation, the “war on terror” and global militarization. And as organizers across movements are calling for an end to all of these interlocking systems, and complete abolition, Emergent Fund remains true to our belief that organizers of color are leading us towards the most radical vision of the world we deserve. We are following their lead and we urge the entire philanthropic sector to do the same.

Emergent Fund was established immediately after the 2016 election to help move quick resources with no strings attached to communities that were and continue to be under attack by federal policies and priorities – immigrants, women, Muslim and Arab-American communities, Black people, Indigenous communities, LGBTQ communities, and all people of color. The Fund focuses on grassroots organizing and power building in communities of color who are facing injustice based on racial, ethnic, religious and other forms of discrimination. We provide resources to defend against the ongoing crisis, and to develop innovative strategies to transform our country. This is who we’ve always been.

Emergent Fund is a Black, Brown, and Indigenous-led fund that invests in people power; it’s our grantee partners, and the everyday folks putting their bodies on the line right now, who give us hope. This is a reckoning, and an invitation to moves towards transformation. We are in deep reflection about something that Black folks know all too well during this dual pandemic of state violence and COVID-19 crisis: our systems are failing us because they were never designed to protect us, especially those of us at the margins. Disparities and racism in healthcare, economic insecurity, surveillance all bubbled to the surface as the COVID-19 crisis began, particularly for Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities. And we saw our communities immediately move into action. We have been incredibly inspired by the many mutual aid projects springing up across the country and in this moment, we have seen the care and healing for people on the front lines of these fights, and the resilience of our communties in the face of state sanctioned violence. It's clear that we keep us safe. 

For our grantee partners on the front lines, and so many of us—this work is not theoretical. We are guided by our lived experience, ancestral wisdom, our will to live, and a deep trust for Indigenous, Black and people of color organizers and the folks closest to the work. We know at Emergent Fund that it’s not a risk to trust the leadership of impacted communities because we have been here, doing this work with very few resources. But we’ve always had the most important resources: an intersectional analysis of root causes, creativity and resilience and perhaps most important, we have people power.

Emergent Fund grantee partners are organizing and fighting like hell so that we come out on the other side of this crisis closer to justice—we will not go back. We’re seeing policies transform, we’re seeing cities divest from policing and invest in the things that keep us safe, like housing and social safety nets. We’re seeing people freed from jail and detention, we’re expanding conversations about affordable childcare, universal sick leave, healthcare for all, living wages for childcare workers, universal emergency shelter, increased resources to Indian Health Services, extensions and expansion of census data collection, voter protections, the things that should have been here all along, and we’re leaning on one another. Another world is possible.

In response to this moment, Emergent Fund is in communication with organizers on the ground in Minneapolis, Louisville, St. Louis, Tallahassee and DC to support their work, while continuing to support the important COVID-19 response work happening across the country.

The proposals that the Emergent Fund receives bear witness not only to the unrelenting attacks that many communities are suffering, but to the courage, vision, and creativity of those who are leading the creation of an alternative future. The need is not diminishing, in fact, since the launch of The People’s Bailout COVID-19 Response Fund, Emergent Fund has received almost 300 proposals from organizations across the United States working to support their communities and transform our world bringing us into the future we all deserve.

We are continuing to use Emergent Fund’s already well-honed rapid response funding infrastructure to support organizers on the front lines of change. Our next round of funding will continue to provide COVID-19 support to organizations while moving resources to Black-led organizing in this crucial moment. Already, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, we have moved over $800k to 100 grantees, and we will continue to prioritize funding the Black-led movement-building that brings us justice.

Organizers of color—that’s who we’re accountable to. We remain committed to the belief that Black Lives Matter, and to the personal and philanthropic practices that demonstrate our love of Black lives and Black liberation in action.

For more about Emergent Fund’s first two People’s Bailout Fund COVID-19 response grant cycles, please see below.

Until we’re all free,

alicia sanchez gill