We continue to support organizations and leaders that work to defend their communities, BUILD POWER, experiment with new strategies and advance BOLD VISIONS for systems change. The Reimagining Power Fund marks our second granting cycle since the Kolibri Foundation’s public launch in 2022. After 12 months of deep reflection and learning from our inaugural cycle, we remain responsive to the ongoing crises that confront the life and dignity of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities with a particular emphasis on people who are undocumented, former and currently incarcerated, migrant and refugee, Queer & Trans, disabled, gender oppressed, and poor and working class.
We are thrilled to fund 21 organizations and projects across the US and in Puerto Rico whose work focuses on building one or more of the following types of power:
- Organizing Power: The capacity to recruit, train, practice internal democracy, and align around a shared vision/purpose/strategy in service of using the collective voice.
- Governing Power: The capacity to explore ways to build governing power that centers equitable and shared leadership over resources and rules; this is not just about who, but the how of governing.
- Narrative Power and Cultural Power: The capacity to change or confront dominant and socially accepted norms, while remembering and lifting up cultural practices that differ from the dominant society.
- Economic Power: The ability to resist exploitative components of capitalism and create alternative infrastructures that support regenerative economies in defense of communities.
[Thank you to our friends at The Rising Majority for offering these definitions of power!]
Kolibri deeply values the process of relational grant making and trust-based philanthropy. Therefore, we chose to forego an application process because we know that an organization’s time is better spent attending to their needs rather than writing to funders. Instead, we worked collaboratively as Kolibri’s Staff and Board of Directors – made up of Farbman family members and movement leaders – to identify organizations for this new cycle. We remain committed to multi-year, unrestricted funds with no reporting requirements. This cycle’s grants are all for three years.
Our 2024 Power Building Fund partners are building power in coalitions and at the local and national level. They represent emergent organizations and those that have been around for decades, but are experiencing funding gaps due to philanthropy’s strategy and priority shifts. We are thrilled about the diversity of work, geographical reach, and direct impact that is represented in our 2024 Power Building Fund. Just as we did with our 2022 cycle, we continue to lift up the work of organizations rooted in the political frameworks of Healing Justice/Collective Care and Safety, Disability Justice, and Ending Gender and Sexual-based Violence.
Kolibri Foundation was founded on the premise that we will spend down all of our assets by the end of 2027. We remain committed to learning from our movement partners about the emerging and under-resourced needs of the communities that are often forgotten or overlooked by traditional funders. We hope our commitment to a radical redistribution of wealth influences other foundations and wealthy individuals to do the same.
You can learn more about our partner organizations, staff, and funding priorities by checking out our website – www.kolibrifdn.org.