The Movement for Black Lives Is on the Rise—and Funders Are Paying Attention

M4BL week of action, Minneapolis, June 1, 2020. photo courtesy Movement for Black Lives

As protests and demands for racial justice reach a groundswell that many are comparing to the civil rights movement, it’s a pivotal time for the country—and for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a nonprofit collective of racial justice organizations at the heart of the uprising. 

M4BL aims to “win rights, recognition and resources for Black people,” supports public engagement and advocacy, and calls for sweeping policy reforms. The collective has been around since 2014, but as many have noted recently, this moment feels different—including within philanthropy. M4BL is backed primarily by individuals and donor networks, and for years, many foundations have considered it to be too radical. But this year, the organization has nearly doubled its 2019 fundraising and is attracting more attention from institutional grantmakers.

“The recent murders shocked a lot of people into a conscience around what we’ve been saying the whole time—Black life is in danger, and we need to create alternatives to police and incarceration to take care of our folks,” said Charles Long, who has been M4BL’s resource coordinator since 2016.

“[A month ago,] Defund the Police had nowhere near the traction it does now, and I would argue our team made that a reality. We were poised to do this because we’ve been building trust together, learning how to be a movement of people who could govern ourselves as well as money, and make decisions around how to make our vision a reality.”

M4BL launched following the killings of Michael Brown and other Black people by police and coalesced during an activist gathering in 2015, that drew more than 2,000 participants. In 2016, the group released a six-peg policy agenda. It now serves as a hub for the #BlackLivesMatter movement; the Black Lives Matter Global Network helped craft its agenda and is among its member partners, which also include the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and about 150 others.

Kailee Scales, managing director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, described M4BL as “a space for Black organizations to debate and discuss current political conditions, develop political interventions” and convene leadership around shared movement strategy.

What M4BL Wants

M4BL’s policy platforms cover reparations, ending the war on Black people (criminalization, incarceration and killing), invest-divest (from police into communities), economic justice, community control, and political power. Each platform contains policy briefs on related actions at the local, state and federal levels.

“We felt that it was important not to just have policy ideas, but also to provide examples of model legislation and something that you can tangibly take to your elected official,” Janae Bonsu, national public policy chair of Black Youth Project 100, told the Atlantic in 2016. Hers was one of the groups engaged in the development of the M4BL platform. That involved a yearlong participatory process—which was not all “peaches and cream,” she said—guided by pre-existing policy structures like those on the Ferguson Action site and from the Black Panthers’ 10-Point Program.

The policy strategies have since been updated to reflect a greater focus on Black feminist, disability and LGBTQ+ justice, among other changes. New rapid-response platforms for 2020 include a COVID-19 response and protestors’ rights.

M4BL has a decentralized but highly interactive structure made up of tables or squads of groups and leaders. Together, they have developed a five-year plan called Project 24: Black Power Rising. Its goals focus on mass engagement, local power, building across movements and enacting a multiracial strategy, leadership development, and electoral strategy. Notably, it aims to train 50,000 Black organizers, activists, strategists and people in other roles. Part of its electoral strategy is to prevent the rise of white nationalist and authoritarian rule.

In a call to action that accompanied a series of events surrounding Juneteenth, M4BL outlined three demands: defunding of police, investment in Black communities, and President Trump’s resignation.

“It is important to hold those folks accountable who are doing the most harm… [Trump] is inflaming national violence. He is racist and a bigot. It is important to be clear… especially as people enter into this election cycle,” Long said. He said the group doesn’t necessarily expect a resignation, but that the demand is a way to keep the pressure on.

On July 7, M4BL’s Electoral Justice project introduced the BREATHE Act, which incorporates many of their core policy demands. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib will bring the act to the House floor.

Funding the Movement for Black Lives

On June 8, a group of leaders from the nonprofit and funding worlds held a call on philanthropy’s role in saving Black lives, led by Funders for Justice. Other call organizers included ABFE, Borealis, the Solidaire Network, Resource Generation, the Third Wave Fund and more. Close to 700 people participated, including many members of M4BL. The organizers called on philanthropy to provide the racial justice network with $50 million this year. In 2019, M4BL raised $2.7 million.

Long said that individuals and networks of individuals have long been the main supporters of the group, including Solidaire, Resource Generation, and the Women’s Donor Network. The Surdna Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy and Pink House Foundation have also been backers, he said. According to Foundation Center records, M4BL’s main fund, action fund, and 2015 convening also received grants from the Tides Foundation, Proteus Fund, North Star Fund, NoVo Foundation and G. Frederick Charitable Foundation.

Within the philanthropic sector, Long said M4BL has experienced isolation in the past, and even been treated as “taboo.” He points out that #BlackLivesMatter was long regarded as “massively leftist; some people would even call it a terrorist organization.” The movement is still regularly attacked by some on the right. In late June, Vice President Mike Pence said its leaders have a “radical-left agenda” and falsely claimed they support calls to violence. This was the same day Trump tweeted a video wherein a supporter chanted "white power,” which he deleted a few hours later.

Long said M4BL has been “doing the foundation circuit” to connect with people who care about racial justice. He said COVID-19 and the recent uprisings uplifted their platform and increased awareness among “traditional shops.” He described the new attention as feeling “odd,” but also as “chickens coming home to roost.”

Amid widespread social unrest and the sector’s growing interest in advocacy, M4BL is now receiving more money. It has already raised $5 million this year, mainly from numerous modest individual donations. Several foundations have reached out to discuss new funding relationships. The K-pop band BTS and Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation also supported M4BL in response to recent events.

Long said the funding they receive is put to use in many ways, including media campaigns and movement building, resourcing member groups, support for himself, six other core staff, and consultants. The Pink House foundation recently moved a grant of $160,000 to M4BL specifically so that it could be redistributed to its partner organizations. Long says M4BL is well-positioned as an intermediary, and since the pandemic hit, it has supported mutual aid endeavors. “I've been moving COVID funds to new organizations,” he said, some of which are beyond the group’s official network.

With M4BL’s plan to run a national Defund the Police campaign, it will be spending money on things like toolkits on security, digital culture and communications, disbursements to members, its own role as a national hub and more.

Scales of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation said M4BL provides infrastructure, opportunities for collaboration, and “connects and trains the next generation of Black leaders while strengthening the organizations to which they belong.” The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is also resourcing the movement—it recently established a $12 million grant fund.

In our recent article on the underfunding of Black-led groups, several philanthropic leaders working in racial justice recommended supporting M4BL at this time. Nat Chioke Williams, executive director of the Hill-Snowdon Foundation, said that because white supremacy is an ideology, it is necessary to have an ideological analysis and strategy that is “aggressively counter to white supremacy.” He said organizations like M4BL and other Black-led organizing groups “with a racial justice and Black liberation framework are the most strategically effective and necessary” on the spectrum of BLOs fighting white supremacy.

Lori Villarosa of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity also recommended funders invest in the groups working together through M4BL and the members of this coalition “within their region or most tied to their focus areas.” She told us there is power in “the alignment, consensus-building and scale afforded by the coordination of [M4BL].” She also sees a need to support its members, including Blackbird, Southerners on New Ground, and others.

Frustrations and Hopes

Looking ahead, we asked Long what concerns and inspires him. He said groups that have been leading racial and criminal justice work around the country “are now [in] the spotlight locally [and] will receive backlash for receiving funds... It's important to buttress those organizations, show up for them, and help them build infrastructure to hold the growth, and take their lead.”

He encourages funders to trust and invest in Black leadership and not backslide. He quotes one of M4BL’s leaders, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, co-director of the Highlander Center, who often says, “Fund us like you want us to win."

Long also said the persistence of a white supremacist mindset is a major challenge. He is receiving countless messages telling him how and in what language his group should move forward. “We are a grouping of over 100 organizations, led by over 40 or so deeply intelligent Black leaders in this country, who have made [decisions about our policies,] and we didn't come to these decisions lightly.”

He said many people want to take just a “pinch” of the M4BL policy platform or shift its principles. “I think the only reason you would think that way is because you believe that you have a superior solution, and I can only chalk that up to anti-Blackness and white supremacist thought.”

While M4BL’s police divestment platform is firm, disagreements persist, including within the diverse Black activist community, over whether reform could work or the entire system must be uprooted. These are visible in the opposition between the #8cantwait pro-reform platform by Campaign Zero, which targets specific use of force policies, and the #8toabolition campaign other activists launched in response. The #8toabolition platform states that reform efforts have already proved insufficient, and M4BL takes a similar position. “We’re tired of quick fixes and piecemeal reforms. Ending police violence will require a thoughtful, deliberate, and participatory approach that has already begun,” it states.

DeRay Mckesson, cofounder of Campaign Zero and a long-term leader in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, recently wrote on Medium about the efficacy and failure of certain police reforms, stating that #8CantWait can be viewed in conjunction with calls to defund the police. “[It] is a scare-tactic to suggest that use of force changes or defunding strategies take years to implement or that they are at odds with each other.”  

Long of M4BL says he is heartened at this time because he sees “more folks asking for what they actually deserve.” Rather than “crumbs, reform or body cams,” which only make people in positions of power feel safer, “people are actually standing up for what makes them feel safer.” 

He also pointed out that “a win for Black folks is a win for all people,” because everyone wants things like safe schools, alternatives to incarceration that include mental health and substance abuse care, and the kind of low police presence that wealthy white neighborhoods experience.

Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by police, will be one of the first places in the country to pilot a community-safety model that does not rely on police—the City Council recently voted to dissolve the police department with a veto-proof supermajority. Los Angeles and New York have announced plans to redirect some funding previously allocated for police to social services and other programs.

Long also pointed to the mutual aid networks now flourishing as inspiring and enduring. He said these are examples of how more people are starting to distrust many established public systems, recognize their interdependence with their neighbors, and build grassroots community safety practices. 

“Now, we are just going to be looking at ways to codify that and make it into what we want to see, which is unarmed people dealing with situations that don't have to get violent; in which nobody has to lose their life.”