Headwaters Foundation for Justice Launches Emergency Fund For Black Lives

Contact: Maria De La Cruz
(612)270-2307
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, December 9, 2015 – Headwaters Foundation for Justice is launching “the Emergency Fund for Black Lives” to provide grants to Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC). These two groups have inspired, mobilized, and supported hundreds of community members to call out and change police violence against people of color. With an initial goal of $100,000, Headwaters Foundation has already raised over $60,000 by reaching out to individual donors and foundation partners.

On November 15, Jamar Clark, an unarmed 24-year-old black man, was shot and killed by officers from the Minneapolis Police Department. Since that day, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis peacefully occupied the fourth precinct for 18 days, held numerous peaceful protests and community gatherings, survived the shooting of five people by a group of white supremacists, and hosted a Blacksgiving Celebration.

Headwaters recognizes the historic importance of this moment in time and feels compelled to take action and build on the momentum generated by the events of the past few weeks. “We are launching the Emergency Fund for Black Lives, and asking community members to invest in it so that together we can aggressively address the racial inequities that exist in Minnesota,” said Headwaters Executive Director David Nicholson. “By committing to this fund, our community is committing to creating positive change. The fund will provide resources that can be used to dismantle the structural and institutional racism that exists in Minneapolis and throughout our state.”

“With financial support from the community Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and
NOC will be able to deepen our working relationship and expand the black and people of color infrastructure we’ll need to bridge Minnesota’s outrageous racial and economic divide,” said NOC Executive Director Anthony Newby.

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis is supporting emerging leaders to move the work for racial justice forward. “We plan to use the dollars from Headwaters’ Emergency Fund for Black Lives to increase training, capacity-building, and community engagement as we continue to risk everything to call attention to and change the glaring racial disparities in our state,” said Miski Noor, a leader in Black Lives Matter Minneapolis.

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Headwaters Foundation for Justice was established in 1984 by thoughtful donors who built the organization around a grantmaking model that places funding decisions in the hands of the community. For over 30 years, Headwaters has relied on this model of community-led grantmaking to provide over $10 million in financial support and organizational assistance to grassroots organization

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis is a group of Black and allied organizers in Minneapolis, Minnesota working in solidarity with the national Black Lives Matter movement.

Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC) is a grassroots, member-led organization building power in under-resourced communities and communities of color across the Twin Cities. Together, NOC members fight for racial and economic justice. NOC is building powerful, active campaigns for better public transit, workers' rights, expanded voting rights, and police accountability.

February 28, 2020

NFG Newsletter - February 2020

February is Black History Month and, in this newsletter, NFG honors Black resistance. Given the persistence of structural racism and the legacies of segregation, NFG has mobilized philanthropy to support POC-led organizing for equitable development since our start 40 years ago. Through our member-led and local advisor-led programming, we are lifting up how Black communities are reclaiming land ownership and addressing the racial wealth gap through grassroots power building.

At the beginning of the month, NFG’s Amplify Fund staff and steering committee spent a day with local organizers, non-profit leaders, and organizations in Charleston and Edisto Island, South Carolina — one of Amplify’s eight sites. Both national and local grantmakers learned alongside some of Amplify’s grantees, including the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation, Low Country Alliance for Model Communities, Carolina Youth Action Project, and South Carolina Association for Community and Economic Development, which are bringing together Black, Latinx communities and youth in the region to fight for community power, land rights, and environmental justice in the face of corporate power, criminalization of communities of color due to gentrification, and land theft.

This week, NFG’s Democratizing Development Program (DDP) hosted a two-day Health, Housing, Race, Equity and Power Funders Convening in Oakland, California. Over 100 participants grappled with how anti-Blackness and xenophobia fuel the complex housing & health crisis and community trauma, and heard examples of concrete organizing wins led by Black women from Moms 4 Housing and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Organizers from around the country urged grantmakers to significantly invest in long-term general operating support, community ownership models, POC leadership, and 501(c)4 funding for Black, Indigenous, and POC communities engaging in policy and systems change around housing affordability and justice. 

From Amplify’s funder collaborative to the DDP convening’s planning committee, funders organizing other funders has been a key part of our work. Funder members: how are you stepping up as an organizer and moving more resources for power building in Black, Indigenous, and POC communities? We invite you to connect with NFG staff, programs, and upcoming events — including our National Convening — and be part of our community where we bring funders together to learn, connect, and mobilize resources with an intersectional and place-based focus. 

Onwards,
The NFG team

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January 23, 2020

NFG Newsletter - January 2020

Animated fireworks with the text "40 Years Strong"

This year marks NFG's 40th anniversary. During our early years, NFG was one of the few spaces in philanthropy specifically focused on people of color-led, grassroots organizing, and power building as the key to effective social change strategies. Today, NFG continues to be many funders' political home at a time when moving resources to struggles for justice is critically important: communities of color are bearing the brunt of the housing crisis, growing wealth and income inequality, and climate change; white nationalist backlash is rising; and our democracy is profoundly threatened. NFG is a space to draw support, deepen relationships, and find co-conspirators as we propel philanthropy to shift power and money towards justice and equity.

In 2020, the NFG network is continuing to explore structural racism in health and housing, racial capitalism, migrant worker justice in rural areas, reimagining community safety and justice, and more. We will also return ‘home’ to NFG’s founding city — Washington, D.C. — for our 2020 National Convening.

As we celebrate 40 years, our dynamic community of grantmakers and grassroots leaders is what makes us strong. This newsletter spotlights The Libra Foundation, an NFG member that shares our commitment to organizing funders in moving more resources to frontline communities and movements.

Keep reading below for more opportunities to engage with NFG. Whether you are new to NFG or a long-time member, we look forward to collaborating with you to accelerate racial, gender, economic, and climate justice.
 
Onwards,
The NFG team

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