BFCF AnnualReport DONE - Flipbook - Page 6
GETTING DOWN TO WORK
We began to develop our approach. Fridays were Fund days, and our team met every Friday for hours, sharing
aspirations and dreams and strategies, giving shape to possibilities. We spoke of the warrior-ancestorwomen who raised us and how we might embody this tradition of courageous love. We would model a new
philanthropy that would not push Black organizations to the periphery, but instead cherish them and hold
them at the heart of the work.
Black people are accustomed to walking uphill, 昀椀ghting gravity for each hard-won inch of progress. We
wanted to reverse that societal gravity and send funds 昀氀owing freely toward Black folks and communities.
We wanted to offer our people an experience of abundance that feels easy.
Researching Washington history, we found only one example in the past 20 years of a similar idea for a fund
dedicated to Black people, but market forces had prevented that fund from coming into existence. We
viewed ourselves as standing on the shoulders of the elders who envisioned that fund in 2008. We sought
them out for conversation and they blessed our new effort.
We chose the name Black Future Co-op Fund to express deep care about our people’s future, grounded in a
spirit of collaboration, healing, and repair. In Paul Wellstone’s words, “We all do better when we all do better.”
We dreamed of offering Black people across Washington state what visionary author Orland Bishop calls
“sacred hospitality.”
The Black Future Co-op Fund came into being as a component fund of the Seattle Foundation. We
launched with an initial goal of $25M, and the 昀椀rst couple of years were full of hectic fundraising. We were
disappointed that it took us over two years to raise $25M, but we reminded ourselves that raising this
amount speci昀椀cally for trust-based philanthropy focused on Black communities had never been done in our
state. We also knew that this amount is very small compared to what is needed.
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