Albuquerque Community Foundation is honored to support the Community Wealth Building Cohort comprising the following members:
- Black Health New Mexico
- Burque Against Racism
- God’s Warehouse
- International District
- Economic Development
- International District
- Healthy Communities
- Coalition
- Los Jardines Institute
- TenderLove Community
- Center
- Together For Brothers
- Umoja Abq
- Working Classroom
- Vizionz-Sankofa
In 2021, DEI United, a joint collaboration of the Albuquerque Community Foundation (“ACF”) and United Way of North Central New Mexico (“United Way”), received funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support BIPOC-led (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000. The funding provided unrestricted grants to these organizations, with the goal of developing equitable grantmaking practices that challenged traditional philanthropic approaches often steeped in systemic inequities.
The staff of ACF and United Way identified four organizations which received funding in early 2022, and together they worked throughout the year to build trust and relationships. With the support of a facilitator, the group developed shared values, chose a name that reflected those values and selected seven additional recipients of funding, bringing the cohort to 11 organizations. In 2023, the cohort met to continue relationship-building, hone and enhance values, and share feedback on equitable grantmaking. The funding support for the cohort culminated in a full-day retreat and the commitment to continue meeting beyond the end of the grant cycle to focus on actions the cohort can take as a collective to further their work in the community.
At the July retreat, the cohort developed a shared vision to:
- Be a unified voice
- Educate, elevate and empower the least, the lost and left out
- Identify and address injustice for those most impacted
- Collaborate to generate funding
- Collectively build and share intergenerational leadership, resources and service(s) to co-create a legacy of well-being
- Live, love, and be healthy in thriving communities
Each organization received between $143,000 and $173,000 in unrestricted funding (totaling approximately $1.14 million) to further their individual and collective work in service to our community. The Albuquerque Community Foundation looks forward to continued collaboration with the Community Wealth Building Cohort in our journey toward greater equity.