A racial reckoning after George Floyd’s 2020 killing prompted major pledges aimed at helping historically underfunded Black-led organizations, but new research suggests the financial support did not endure for many groups, according to a report released Tuesday by Candid and the racial justice philanthropy group ABFE.
The hopes of sustained investment followed corporate donations to historically Black colleges and universities, climate funders’ promises to direct more money toward minority communities and major donors’ efforts to narrow the racial wealth gap, the report says. Instead, it found that for many Black-led nonprofits, any increases were short-lived or did not materialize at all, with smaller organizations seeing little change.
“We’re literally being asked to do more with less resources,” Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said in an interview with The Associated Press. He linked the funding pattern to the realities facing community groups now pressed to help low-income families as healthcare costs rise and food prices climb.
Albright’s comments came as the report described the broader backdrop for the nonprofit sector, including President Donald Trump’s policies that curtailed diversity, equity and inclusion-related funding and threatened social service programs. The research says the resulting uncertainty, combined with efforts that chilled racial justice funding through anti-DEI executive orders, deepened financial strain for community organizations.
The report also examined how organizations built their funding base during and after 2020. It found that small Black-led nonprofits—defined as those with annual expenses of $1 million or less—received just over one-third of their funding from continuing supporters, leaving them more exposed when new funders stepped back.
In Chicago, Asiaha Butler, CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, described how support shifted after summer 2020. She said the organization, which she co-founded more than 15 years ago, had a handful of consistent backers, then saw more than two dozen new funders arrive, only for the funding “spurt” to fade.
“All of a sudden, we were desirable for people to fund,” Butler said. “And, really, those priorities shifted quickly,” she said, adding that the short-term inflow became a “curse” once the quick capital tapered off. She said the delayed funding affected a nearly $7 million capital project that the group had planned after the post-George Floyd civil unrest.
The report points to a continuing-relationships problem that Black philanthropy professionals said preceded 2020 and became more consequential when funders scrambled to respond to demands for systemic change. ABFE CEO Susan Taylor Batten said foundations lacked relationships with Black organizations of any scale before 2020, creating what she described as a scramble once protests and calls for racial justice intensified.
Kia Croom, whose fundraising firm works with nonprofits in Black communities, said some groups received more money than ever from corporations during that period and sometimes added development staff to meet the demand—only to undergo layoffs when the funds disappeared. “It was just a very transactional gift at best,” Croom said.
Similarly, Kandee Lewis, CEO of the Positive Results Center in Los Angeles, said she appreciated checks from new supporters but found that the support often looked like one-time giving rather than a sustained relationship. “They were so busy trying to figure out who was who that they didn’t really take time to get to know people,” Lewis said.
The report also describes limited networks as a hurdle for many Black-led nonprofits trying to reach funders. Jaleesa Hall, who heads Raising A Village Foundation, said she started the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit more than six years ago with few high-net-worth people in her network, making it difficult to earn foundation attention beyond existing circles. “Small, Black-led nonprofits simply aren’t in those rooms to begin with,” Hall said.
Candid’s associate vice president of research, Cathleen Clerkin, said long-term investment requires significant effort each year, calling it a “song and dance” process for nonprofits seeking recurring support. “They’re just constantly going on first dates with new funders and hoping that somebody will invest in them and understand them,” she said.
The report further argues that the fundraising model itself can discourage sustainability. T’Pring Westbrook, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, said the issue is not that foundations want to support marginalized communities but that they often support them through “trend funding.” “Maybe during Black History Month there will be a funding campaign,” Westbrook said, adding that a campaign “doesn’t build sustainability.”
Black-led nonprofits also described barriers beyond race, including grant eligibility requirements and the reporting workload that some small organizations struggle to meet. Hall said it can feel like a burden, explaining, “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” in part because limited staff can prevent organizations from keeping up with foundations’ frequent reporting demands.
The report says philanthropy has increasingly shifted toward trust-based models that provide general operating support and multi-year grants, but that many Black-led nonprofits did not fully benefit from those best practices. Batten said the study found Black-led nonprofits had significantly fewer continuing funders than their non-Black counterparts, and she said many were still dealing with “remnants of bad practice” in how philanthropy invests in Black communities.
Butler said her group is now turning to public funding as private supporters’ priorities shifted again after 2020’s racial justice movement. She said the City of Chicago provided a $2.5 million grant and that she was awaiting another $1.5 million in state support, adding that her nonprofit delayed a capital campaign planning effort because “the timing was off.”
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly