2023-2025
Strategic Framework
Our Community.
Our Power.
Our Prosperity.
This strategic framework outlines the foundational elements that guide us: our vision, mission, and values. At our core, we are Black warriors reinventing philanthropy. Our strategy is grounded in four primary areas of impact, with three-year outcomes and corresponding strategies to achieve each.
Connected Black Communities for Collective Power
We are stronger together. Created by us and for us, the Fund is here to support the connectedness of Black Washingtonians who are leading vital work toward our collective liberation.
In three years, we envision…
serving as a hub for Black Washingtonians; creating spaces that Black people love to be in; and facilitating healing, organizing, and policy change.
Strategies to get us there:
Connect Black people, organizations, and efforts to one another.
Build partnerships that center Black knowledge, relationship, and healing.
Listen to and work with Black communities statewide to inform how we function as a fund.
Lift up the Black Well-being report data and approaches to support organizing, inform policy, and direct resources.
Promoted Truthful Black Narratives
By centering Black voices and experiences, we are owning our stories — past, present, and future — and lifting up truthful narratives across Washington.
In three years, we envision…
established storytelling platforms and narratives that amplify our truth and that funders use to direct resources into Black community-identified approaches.
Strategies to get us there:
Identify where and how anti-Black narratives appear, then work to deconstruct and counter them.
Leverage the Fund’s platforms and use the power of strategic communications to advance the mission and work.
Invest in learning and amplifying the stories of Black Washingtonians to shift narratives, programming, and grant-making.
Engage in campaigns throughout the year, like Black Philanthropy Month, that elevate Black narratives and move Black agendas.
Invested in Black Generational Prosperity
Through networking and investing in Black communities across the state, we empower Black-led solutions that foster Black wealth, health, and well-being over generations.
In three years, we envision…
reaching our mid-fundraising goal, tracking the funding landscape that propels Black generational prosperity, and investing in as many Washington Black-led nonprofits as possible.
Strategies to get us there:
Create and implement a fundraising development plan, grounded in trust-based relationships, to reach our three-year goal of $50M with sights on our longer-term goal of $246M.
Work with partners to track dollars invested in the Black community.
Develop grantmaking practices, wealth-building opportunities, and programming strategies based on deep community listening.
Continue our commitment to unrestricted multi-year We See You grants.
Shifted the Philanthropic Paradigm
We are shaping a new model for philanthropy that elevates Black genius and shares power with Black people to substantially increase resources flowing into our community.
In three years, we envision…
having done the work internally to become a blueprint externally, and collectively increase multiyear, unrestricted funding flowing into Black-led organizations and communities.
Strategies to get us there:
Define and implement our own internal practices to center Blackness, live our values, and reimagine philanthropy.
Build the infrastructure and grow our organization to become an independent, sustainable fund serving Black Washingtonians for generations.
Collaborate with Black-led philanthropies and other funding partners to learn together and maximize resources invested in Black-led nonprofits and Black communities.