Black survival has always been more than just an individual effort. It is collaborative. It is intergenerational. For centuries, our ancestors have passed down wisdom brought to them by their own ancestors, rooted in the world around them, the cultures they come from, and the circumstances they were dealt.
The wisdom we carry with us is seen in every thread of our communities’ fabrics. Food was used as a means of cultural preservation and survival, with popular dishes such as oxtail and chitlins originating from the leftovers enslaved people often got from their enslavers. Black hymnals such as “Wade in the Water” served as encoded messages during the Underground Railroad, and Afro hairstyles served as cultural preservation and resistance, with well-known figures such as Angela Davis and Nina Simone embracing their natural texture as a rejection of Eurocentric beauty standards.
When resources were denied to us, we created our own knowledge systems, wisdom rooted in community building, cultural heritage, and protection. That’s intercommunity wisdom—knowledge that lives in our people, moves through our relationships, and grows when we share it.
As we move forward and small communities become more globalized, how can we forge a new path to liberation that is rooted in ancestral wisdom?
A new wave of philanthropy
More often than not, traditional philanthropy fails the communities it’s meant to serve because it relies too much on donor’s values and expected outcomes, ultimately undermining the voices of local experts that know what their community needs.
But Black liberation can’t come from models that weren’t designed with our community in mind.
By focusing on trust-based and community-driven models, Black philanthropy can instead put agency back in the hands of the community, letting lived experiences and expert knowledge — not assumptions — guide the road towards giving.
At Black Future Co-op Fund, that framework is a part of our DNA. We aim to “do philanthropy Blackly,” and we do that by offering unrestricted grants to community organizations that were nominated by existing grantees and local leaders.
We also know that the power of our community resides in the history, knowledge, and culture of its residents. We embed community wisdom into our practice by:
- Platforming cultural leaders equipped with ancient technologies. Our quarterly family gatherings feature leaders from Washington and beyond with ancient technologies carried from our ancestors to guide, heal, and nourish our spirits. A recent guest was Keitu Gwangwa, a South African Trauma Release Specialist whose teachings focused on “Ubuntu,” which translates to “the ways of being,” and how human capacity and relational intelligence can be the greatest resources for our communities if we invest in them.
- Connecting with like-minded organizations working towards Black-led solutions. The Fund recently joined the National Network of Black Foundations & Funds (NNBFF), a network that connects Black-led and Black-serving foundations and funds across the country to share resources, knowledge, relationships, and opportunities—while building collective power and directing sustained investment in Black communities.
- Collaborating with local leaders to create comprehensive databases surrounding Black issues. In 2022, we worked with local changemakers, brilliant artists, and Black Washingtonians to create the Black Wellbeing Report, a comprehensive resource that focused on five key topic areas that matter to Black Washingtonians — and actions that we and our society can take to make necessary change across sectors. Today, we are working on multiple reports that continue to expand on the Black experience in Washington and ignite the action needed for systemic change.
We know that Black power and wisdom cannot be found in textbooks alone, but in the stories of our grandparents, the art we produce, the communities we build with and for each other, the passing glances we exchange as we cross paths on the sidewalk. It is between and within us, an essential pillar for our survival, and the strong foundation for our liberation.
As we continue to build a foundation for Black philanthropy in Washington state, we do so with the knowledge of our ancestors in mind, utilizing powerful tools of survival to create the future we want to build for ourselves and our children.