Community Foundation of Louisville Announces Grants for First-Ever Racial Justice Cohort
This article was updated on January 21, 2022
Innovative investment in 12 Black-led social change organizations
Building on its legacy of strategic grantmaking to address changing needs in our community, the Community Foundation of Louisville, in partnership with its charitable fundholders and the James Graham Brown Foundation, the Lift a Life Novak Family Foundation, BrightSpring Health Services and Glick Philanthropies announce the first-ever Fund for Louisville Racial Justice Cohort.
Recognizing that social change is most successful when guided and led by those most impacted, this signature initiative of the Fund for Louisville brought together Black community members and their allies to advise the Foundation on creating a grant process intentionally focused on supporting Black-led social change organizations and to select the recipients.
Twelve local Black-led social change nonprofit organizations will receive up to $40,000 of grant funding that is renewable each year for three years, as well as the opportunity to share knowledge, network and identify best practices to achieve their organizational goals.
The organizations selected for the 2021 – 2023 Racial Justice Cohort are:
- Academy of Music Production Education and Development (AMPED)
- Bridge Kids International (BKI)
- Cultivating the Youth Experience
- Decode Project
- HHN2L: Hip Hop into Learning
- The Hope Buss
- Play Cousins Collective
- River City Drum Corp Cultural Arts Institute, Inc. (RCDC)
- Sowing Seeds with Faith
- TECH-Nique
- West Louisville Math and Science Project
Black-led social change organizations are identified as those with predominantly Black boards and executive leadership. The diverse organizations in the Racial Justice Cohort are building political, economic and social power in the Black community through work in a variety of areas, including education, entrepreneurship, economic and workforce development, the arts, mental and physical health and access to food.
“The Fund for Louisville’s new and innovative strategy is designed to alleviate power imbalances in the funding process and to partner with nonprofits in ways that go beyond issuing a check,” says Ron Gallo, President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville. “These organizations are focused on advancing their mission by building on the strengths and assets of the Black community to make real change. As a foundation, we’re inspired to continue to challenge and reshape long-standing traditions and practices to remove barriers, gather input and invest in our community.”
“Over the next three years, these organizations are looking forward to building collaborative efforts toward shared goals that drive change,” says Ramona Dallum Lindsey, Senior Program Officer for the Community Foundation of Louisville. “The collective wisdom of these 12 organizations will indeed build on the Black community’s strengths to realize its aspirations.”
The Fund for Louisville Racial Justice Cohort is another step forward in the Community Foundation of Louisville’s ongoing and expanding commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism.