Purpose in Action: Black History Month
February is a time to honor Black history, culture, and lived experiences while celebrating the lasting impact of Black leaders past and present. This month, we uplift a few organizations dedicated to preserving these stories and advancing cultural understanding, equity, and representation. Their work safeguards important histories and creates pathways for future generations.
Clients Featured:
Black Dirt Farm Collective
Collective Renaissance Guild
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Fertile Ground Cooperative
LEAD Center For Youth
National Black Arts Festival
Soul Food Cypher
SUSU CommUNITY Farm
True Colors Theatre Company
Black Dirt Farm Collective
Location: Brandywine, Maryland
The Black Dirt Farm Collective is a collective of farmers, educators, scientists, agrarians, seed keepers, organizers, and researchers guiding a political education process.
Through our cultivation of an agrarian education (Afroecology), we ground our work on how agrarian communities’ personal, cultural and technical capacities can be activated and used as a socially and ecologically transformative organizing tool.
Our collective mission is to facilitate and support socio-cultural trainings rooted in the wisdom of nature, foster intergenerational exchanges, and bridge the rural-urban generational divide.
Consultant: Xandy McKinley
Purpose Possible Work: Fundraising support (grants retainer).
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Mission: Ebenezer Baptist Church is an urban-based, global ministry dedicated to individual growth and social transformation through living in the message and carrying out the mission of Jesus Christ.
In order to expand their social justice work, the church has formed two additional organizations: Ebenezer ACTS and the Martin Luther King, Sr. Resource Collaborative.
Ebenezer ACTS leverages education, training, partnerships, and strategic, organized action to advance social transformation in priority areas, including ending mass incarceration, fortifying democracy, and cultivating healthy, multi-generational leadership.
Martin Luther King Sr. Community Resources Collaborative works daily to disrupt generational poverty, create sustainable pathways to economic mobility, and empower disenfranchised citizens through social justice reform.
Consultants: Tiffany Reed, Lee Nowell
Purpose Possible Work: Fundraising support (grants retainer).
“It’s been an honor providing grants support for the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. I really admire how they respond to the needs of their local community by actively connecting their vision of a shared future with the lessons we’ve learned from our shared history.”
Collective Renaissance Guild
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Mission: To engage, educate, and activate young Black folx with the goal of increasing their collective power.
Collective Renaissance Guild (CRG), believes that the future of democracy lies in our ability to organize the power of the collective. Through leadership development, civic engagement, civic education, voter registration, and voter mobilization, we can build a generation ready to lead, govern and build the inclusive democracy of America’s promise.
Consultant: Lee Nowell
Purpose Possible Work: Fundraising support (grant writing).
“Working with Collective Renaissance Guild on writing and securing grant funding is deeply meaningful to me. Since 2007, the organization has trained young Black leaders across the state of Georgia, bringing their experiences and perspectives to the center of political conversations. Their grassroots work in rural and urban areas increases the number of registered voters, uplifting and amplifying the power that young Black voices have during elections. At this particular time in American democracy, their mission is more important than ever.”
Fertile Ground Cooperative
Location:
Raleigh, North Carolina
Mission: To establish a multi-stakeholder grocery store and community gathering space that increases access to healthy/affordable food and serves as a community/cultural center in Southeast Raleigh.
Fertile Ground Food Cooperative is a group of community leaders and visionaries working together to:
Cultivate a system of food security in Southeast Raleigh by investing in a community-owned grocery store and gathering space.
Nourish our historically Black community of workers, shoppers, and farmers by providing dignified jobs, fresh and affordable food, and wealth-building opportunities.
Harvest a healthy, informed, engaged community with an enhanced quality of life.
Consultants: Beth Sadler & Ed Holman
Purpose Possible Work: Grant writing
LEAD Center For Youth
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Mission: To advance equity and well-being through youth sports.
Focusing on the sports of baseball and tennis, LEAD Center For Youth empowers equity-challenged youth to lead and transform their communities to overcome the curveballs of life.
Through the methodology of sports-based youth development, LEAD is inspiring and equipping youth with the empowerment they need to live sustainable lives of significance. The organization delivers year-round experience through their Pathway2Empowerment programming that includes activities along four pillars of focus: athletics, academics, civic engagement and commerce.
Consultant: Ayanna Zulu
Purpose Possible Work: Communications & Social Media
National Black Arts Festival
nbaf.org
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Mission: National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) is dedicated to exposing, educating, and engaging audiences through the presentation and support of art and artists of African descent across the disciplines of music, dance, film, theatre, visual and literary arts.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, NBAF stands as the oldest multidisciplinary arts institution in the United States with an exclusive focus on the cultural and creative contributions of the African Diaspora. In 2008, the United States Congress formally recognized NBAF for its vital role in shaping the cultural fabric of Atlanta and the nation. Through its annual public programs, world-class performances, commissions, and arts education initiatives, NBAF creates enriching, transformative experiences that celebrate Black artistic excellence across genres and generations.
Consultant: Michelle Guski
Purpose Possible Work: Fundraising & Grants
Soul Food Cypher
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Soul Food Cypher (SFC) utilizes freestyle rap and lyricism to transform individuals and communities.
SFC showcases the positive aspects of rap through cypher events, tournaments, and community outreach. The aim is to provide lyricists (rappers) with a safe and nurturing environment where their voice and artistry can grow.
SFC aims to solidify the art of freestyling as a genuine aesthetic to the wider artistic community and carry this rich tradition to the next generation.
Since it’s founding in 2012, Soul Food Cypher has:
Successfully executed 200+ cypher events, performances, and activations impacting more than 10,000 individuals.
Awarded $50,000 Creative Placemaking grant from ArtPlace America to extend work and address gentrification in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood in Atlanta, Ga.
Featured in Sprite’s Winter Cranberry Spice commercial
Became the first Hip Hop group to partner with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Created WordShop, an afterschool program at the Kindezi Schools
SUSU CommUNITY Farm
Location: Newfane, Vermont
Mission: SUSU commUNITY farm exists to co-create a homemade field of love for the next 7 generations through the healing, affirming, and liberation of Black, indigenous, people of color and the allies who ride with us.
SUSU is an Afro-Indigenous stewarded farm, committed to centering food + land sovereignty through educational opportunities, land-based relationship, and ancestral healing. SUSU believes food, safety, commUNITY, and joy are birthrights and are practicing what it means to be in a reciprocal relationship with the land and people. It is through this type of relationship that they build healthy, thriving communities and a liberated culture for all.
True Colors Theatre Company
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
The mission of True Colors Theatre Company is to celebrate the rich tradition of Black storytelling while giving voice to bold artists of all cultures. The vision is to thrive at the intersection of artistic excellence and civic engagement.
True Colors instills confidence in high school students around the country through the Next Narrative® Monologue Competition, which leverages the power of monologues by living Black playwrights commissioned especially for True Colors. They contribute to bringing new plays into the world through “The Drinking Gourd: Black Writers at Work,” a national cohort of theatres that co-commissions and co-develops work of playwrights that represent the vast reach of the African diaspora. They meet the metro Atlanta community where they are through connectivity programming, which nurtures enduring partnerships with community leaders and organizations.
Consultant: Blair Brooks Keenan
Purpose Possible Work: Interim Development Support
