Black Equity Fund
Powerbuilding and Systems Change Grant
2024 Request for Proposals
Deadline: Friday, September 13, 2024, 11:59PM PST
Introduction
The Black Equity Initiative - Inland Empire (BEI-IE) and the Inland Empire Funders Alliance (IEFA) have established a Black Equity Fund, an effort to raise and grant $5 million over 2 years to Black led/Black empowering organizations in the Inland Empire region. The fund is housed at the Inland Empire Community Foundation (IECF), who serves as the fiscal sponsors of the IEFA. The IEFA is a collaborative network of funders whose mission is to advance equity, advocacy, and systemic change in the Inland Empire by uplifting the region’s assets and opportunities, and leveraging resources for impact. The BEI-IE is a coalition of Black-led and Black empowering organizations committed to the long-term sustainability of Black organizations working to end systemic racism and build political and economic power for the Black community in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
BEI Funding Focus
We recognize that our battles for equity and justice are especially heavy when situated in a place with a deeply rooted and painful history of white supremacy. We uplift the legacy and memory of Black people in the Inland Empire and their allies who led courageous fights for justice and equity and paved the way for new generations of leaders to emerge. We know the fight to und structural racism must be sustained through intentional power building among Black-led and Black empowering movements and organizations in the Inland Empire and abroad. (See full BEI-IE principles and values statement below.)
BEI Funding Focus
- Systems Change: To develop, strengthen and scale Black-led and empowering organizations’ sustainability and collective ability to engage in systems change work to promote racial equity in (#) issue areas.
*Systems Change: A change in the policies, processes, relationships, knowledge, power structures, values, or norms that guide how organizations function internally and in relationship to other organizations.
- Power Building: To support strategies that focus on engaging and mobilizing diverse constituencies of Black people (young people, families, system impacted persons, faith leaders, and communities) to build Black power and for long-term impact.
*Power Building strategies may include non-partisan voter engagement, base building and leadership development.
Eligibility Criteria
The Black Equity Fund intends to fund Black-led, Black empowering and/or Black serving nonprofit organizations (NPO) based in the Inland Empire as defined by the following identity criteria:
- Black Led: Black leaders are in a position of influence within the organization
- A Majority of the Board is Black, AND
- Executive Director is Black, or the Executive Leadership/Organizational Lead is majority Black
- Black Empowering: The organization demonstrates an institutional commitment to justice and liberation for Black people, evidenced by one or more of the following:
- Developing a constituent base working to advance structural and systemic changes that improves the material conditions for Black life,
- Embedding Black voice and the lived experiences of Black people as critical expertise that guides the fabric of the organization’s mission, vision, values, and core work; and develops both individual agency and community capacity to advocate for conditions that enable Black people to thrive.
- Black Serving: Organizations that are committed to serving and empowering Black people as evidenced by:
- Programmatic services that prioritizes and target the needs of Black people
- Has a history of serving Black people.