Black Lives Matter foundation awards 3,000 Survival Fund grants to Black families struggling in pandemic
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has awarded $3 million in mini-grants to Black families struggling amid the pandemic, the organization said Thursday.
Launched quietly earlier this month, the fund is now being formally expanded, The Associated Press reported. On Thursday the foundation said it would award as many as 3,000 microgrants of $1,000 each under the auspices of the BLM Survival Fund to people who need it most. By that evening the fund said all the grants had been spoken for.
“The BLM Survival Fund has met its goal of providing direct support to nearly 3,000 Black people and their families, and we will be closing applications until further notice,” the foundation said on the initiative’s website. “The enormous response has highlighted how severe the economic crisis still is for millions of Black people across the country, and how much more needs to be done.”
These Survival Fund grants form part of BLM’s nascent philanthropic arm, according to AP.
“We’re part of a long legacy of groups stepping in to support those failed by our government — notably the Black Panther Party and its free breakfast program in the 1960s and 1970s,” the foundation said. “Cooperation and cooperative economics have been principles and survival tactics of Black communities for centuries.”
The grants are being administered by UpTogether, a project of the Family Independence Initiative, which works to disrupt the cycle of poverty through direct investment to low-income families and budding entrepreneurs.
Last year, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raised more than $90 million, the organization said in a financial impact report released Tuesday. It gave more than a quarter of that to BLM chapters and local organizations.
The Survival Fund is part of the foundation’s 2021 focus on economic justice, especially when it comes to the outsize socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on Black communities. Much of what flowed into the BLM foundation’s coffers last year poured in after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 fueled worldwide protests.
With News Wire Services
