READY TO CELEBRATE? BECAUSE BLACK GIRL* FREEDOM WEEK IS BACK!
Dear Community,
We are thrilled to invite you to our 2nd annual Black Girl Freedom Week**, February 14-20, 2022. This week of celebration and action is hosted by the #1Billion4BlackGirls campaign, and Black Girl Freedom Fund (BGFF), an initiative of Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC). Black Girl Freedom Week uplifts what is possible when we invest abundantly in the dreams, power and leadership of Black girls, femmes and gender-expansive youth, and work together to co-create a future where they are safe, free, and thriving.
Special guests during the week include founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks and author Marley Dias, actor, writer and filmmaker Eva Reign, award-winning actress, producer, and CEO Tracee Ellis Ross, and a number of other exciting guests. And, most importantly–Black girls as leaders, activists, philanthropists, and artists! Our virtual programming will center the lives of Black girls* and explore how narratives in fashion and beauty impact the justice they seek; how we can intentionally support their leadership and entrepreneurship; how we elevate their artistic vision and genius; and, what a $1 Billion investment would do for Black girls, femmes and gender-expansive youth.
In addition to the exciting lineup of guests and programming, we’ll have an interactive space for those 25 and younger on Friday, February 18. Participants can register on Hopin separately for virtual sessions led by, and centering, Black youth on various topics, including the arts, sports, tech, and wellness.
We appreciate the community of speakers, workshop leaders, and partners who are contributing to this year’s Black Girl Freedom Week. We are especially grateful to the phenomenal co-founders of the #1Billion4BlackGirls campaign: LaTosha Brown, Tarana Burke, Fatima Goss Graves, Joanne N. Smith, Dr. Salamishah Tillet, Scheherazade Tillet, Teresa Younger, and our own Dr. Monique W. Morris.
Register for Black Girl Freedom Week here, and reserve your spot for Friday’s interactive space here. All events are free. Follow us for updates on IG @blackgirlfreedomfund. We look forward to celebrating Black Girl Freedom Week with you all!
Take good care,
Cidra M. Sebastien
Black Girl Freedom Fund Manager
Grantmakers for Girls of Color
WHAT’S NEW AT G4GC?
Future Economy Lab: Share your vision of an abundant future!
We are excited to announce that SecondMuse Capital has partnered with Grantmakers for Girls of Color to launch a Future Economy Lab focused on abundantly investing in girls, femmes, and gender-expansive youth of Color. This lab will conduct collaborative research and design processes to co-create new financial mechanisms that pave the way for increased material, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual investments into futures where youth of Color thrive and lead! A call for visions is the first phase to hear directly from them directly!
If you know girls, femmes, and gender-expansive youth of color aged 13-24, we want to know from them: what does an abundant future look like for you, your family, and your community in the next 15 years? We ask that visions be submitted by March 11th to [email protected]. For more information click here and please share widely! As a thank you, participants will receive a gift certificate after submission.
We’re Hiring!
We’re still accepting applications for a fund manager to support trans girls* of Color in our Holding a Sister Initiative (HASI) until Feb. 11th (applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled). Do you know someone passionate about centering trans girls of Color, and positioned to create a container for critical dialogue and movement building to advance justice for trans girls of Color? Share this post with them! For more details, visit our website or read more about the job posting in English and en Español.
EVENTS,ANNOUNCEMENTS, & FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES!
#GOMujeres to resource Latina orgs
At G4GC we’re so excited to be a partner of #GOMujeres! Join us March 7-31 for what some are calling “the largest movement for gender equity across the Americas,” by @hipgive. We invite grantees working with young Latinas and Latinx communities to sign up for this crowdfunding campaign, where orgs can connect with a larger network while strengthening their digital fundraising skills.
Hispanics In Philanthropy (HIP) is offering a FREE virtual bootcamp on Feb. 8-10 for orgs working with Latinx communities to learn how to plan a successful crowdfunding campaign in 3 sessions. Sign up at: https:/bit.ly/gomujeres2022-bootcamp
Rock Star Fund
Calling all young women and non-binary youth of Color (ages 12-24) living in Washington DC! The Women’s Foundation is looking for someone who is passionate about creating social change in their community.
If you or someone you know fits this criteria, apply to the #RockStarFund! You could get up to $2,000 to make a difference in your community. Apply by Feb. 28 at wawf.org/RockStar2022
Do you know a Global Teen Leader?
We Are Family Foundation is searching for incredible young humans who are positively changing the world. Their acclaimed Three Dot Dash Global Teen Leader program and new Youth To The Front Fund are both accepting applications NOW!
We Are Family Foundation is fiercely committed to creating equitable programming that unites young change makers from all over the world with networks of collaboration and support, access to opportunities and resources so they can grow their ideas, visions and passion for positive social change. Learn more here.
Grant opportunity from Chinook Fund
Chinook Fund seeks to support groups working on human rights, racial justice, economic justice, environmental protection, peace and other social justice issues in Colorado. The fund prioritizes proposals with leadership and constituency from historically marginalized communities and work that engages in community organizing. The application deadline for grants from $1k to $10k is February 21st.
Strengthen BIPOC storytelling
Color Congress, a national collective, has an open call to support POC-led and supporting documentary organizations. Their 2-year grants aim to support majority BIPOC and BIPOC-led organizations with the smallest budgets that have not benefited from national funding, and that support the documentary field and their communities, so they can sustain or grow their work and contribute to the POC nonfiction storytelling field ecosystem. Deadline to apply for the funding is February 21st, find more details here.
WHAT’S INSPIRING US!
Is there a single accepted model for thriving?
“We must believe that thriving is what we deserve and we have to imagine it into existence. The Bridge to Thriving urges us to envision and remake our relationships with one another and our world—because the world we need doesn’t yet exist.”
Take a few minutes to dive into this article Dimensions of Thriving: Learning from Black LGBTQ+/SGL Moments, Spaces, and Practices from Nonprofit Quarterly that nudges us to reject the deficit approach, the medical model and the status quo, and choose to pursue a bridge to thriving instead.
A love poem to Black girls
“This poem is a love letter to Black girls like me who were forced to grow up too fast.”
We’re moved by the powerful spoken-word performance about adultification bias by Mississippi high school student Logan Green. Our friends and grantee partners at the Initiative on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law shared Logan’s performance as a reaction to their research report, Girlhood Interrupted.
“When I discovered ‘Girlhood Interrupted,’ I knew this study described exactly what I was going through; what many Black girls go through. I had to tell this story.” Listen to Logan’s performance here and read the interview here.
IMPORTANT DATES THIS MONTH
We honor Black girls, femmes, gender-expansive people, and women all year, and also during Black History Month. Share important historical dates or upcoming celebrations with us to be listed in this section (send to [email protected]).
February 2022
*Black History Month*
- 11: Anniversary of the start of the Longest Walk (1978)
- 12: NAACP founded (1909)
- 14: Annual Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
- ✨🎶✨14-20: Black Girl Freedom Week! ✨🎶✨
- 20: World Day of Social Justice
- 21: International Mother Language Day
March 2022
*National Women’s History Month
*Development Disabilities Awareness Month
- 2: Claudette Colvin refuses to give up bus seat at age 15 (in 1955)
- 3: World Wildlife Day
- 4-5, 3pm-3pm: National Day of Unplugging
- 8: International Women’s Day
Does your organization have a funding opportunity, upcoming conference, or other celebration centering girls of Color you want to share with the G4GC community? Or an important date to be included in our upcoming calendar section? Email them to [email protected] for consideration 6-8 weeks before the event or date.
*G4GC defines “girls of Color” as any cis, trans, gender-expansive, non-binary and/or any girl or femme-identified person age 25 and younger who identifies as Black, Indigenous, Latina, Asian, Arab, Pacific Islander, and/or other People of Color.
**#1Billion4BlackGirls is a 10-year philanthropic initiative designed to invest in the brain trust, innovation, health, safety, education, artistic visions, research, and joy of Black girls* and their families. The Black Girl Freedom Fund (BGFF) is an initiative of Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC), and leads and hosts the organization of Black Girl Freedom Week.