Valuing community labor
Ella Baker walking with leaders from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
I was inspired to create Black Ideas Collaborative after reflecting on my experience addressing issues that impacted my community.
As a preschool teacher earning $36,000 a year working at an expensive and mostly White nature-inspired preschool, I spent hundreds of dollars each month to host a weekend playgroup for Black families at a park in my historically Black and working class neighborhood. That playgroup grew into a nonprofit program that advocated for support and funding for home-based childcare providers serving low-income families as well as resources for the families they served.
As I walked around my community speaking to childcare providers and caregivers, I was so inspired to see others in my community were using the little resources and time they had to better our community. While the nonprofits with name recognition and big budgets were nowhere to be found as I walked the block, I did see grandmothers, aunties and brothers volunteering to mentor, coach, provide meals and childcare for their neighbors. They were creating mentorship programs and violence prevention programs but many of these grassroots leaders struggled to get funding for their work and their personal finances also took a big hit.
For me, it was incredibly hard to get my first grant. Funders continued to ask about my previous funding and last year’s budget even when I explained that I was trying to serve a sector of the childcare community currently not being served.
I was lucky enough to get my first grant because another nonprofit CEO became my mentor and when I asked him for a fiscal sponsorship, he suggested that I start the program as a part of his organization instead. This was incredibly helpful because I could point to that existing organization as I was seeking my first grant.
However, as I was getting funding, I could see grassroots Black leaders in my community not getting that same funding. Even worse, I could clearly see how some funders were willing to “invite me to the table” because I had two degrees from prestigious universities. I found this disturbing and unfair rather than flattering.
I believe Black Ideas Collaborative is an opportunity for the social sector to take advantage of a huge missed opportunity. There are phenomenal changemakers doing powerful work in Black communities around the world! We have the solutions to the challenges our communities face. We know what we need to do. But we have to invest in each other and care for each other - so that we can do what needs to be done. Our GBI pilot is an opportunity to learn and practice, to design a system that allows us to invest in everyday agents of change.
One of our advisors and mentors, Jessica Gordon Nembhard speaks beautifully to the existing community labor that goes undervalued. Her ideas have also been inspired by the work of Nina Banks. Check out the articles below to explore their work further.
Read the full article with Jessica Gordon Nembhard here: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/our-human-energy-redefining-and-reclaiming-our-labor/
Start digging deeper into Nina Banks work here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/business/black-women-economists-nina-banks.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap