The Trump administration’s hostility to DEI and civil society more broadly has led to a struggle with several intersecting fronts. Nonprofits in the U.S. and abroad are fighting to stay afloat in the wake of the gutting of federal funding and in the face of a slow-to-pivot philanthropic sector. But while the environment is hostile to all nonprofits, organizations dedicated to women — and those serving Black women in particular — are facing especially significant challenges thanks to their long history of being underfunded. That’s true both here in the U.S. and internationally.
The situation is critical: A recent survey from U.N. Women found that 47% of international women’s rights and women-led organizations were at risk of closing under current funding levels, and 51% of the 411 surveyed organizations have already been forced to suspend programs. Nearly three-quarters of the nonprofits have had to lay off staff.
Against the backdrop of these concerns and the broader fight to uphold racial and gender justice, April saw some welcome news for Black, feminist-led nonprofits in countries around the world, including here in the U.S., when the Black Feminist Fund announced the second round of its Sustain Fund. The commitment will move $16 million in eight-year, flexible grants of $50,000 to $200,000 a year to registered and unregistered organizations alike. The fund is considering proposals from Black, feminist-led nonprofits across the Caribbean, South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East, North America and Europe.
Launched in 2021, the Black Feminist Fund has moved or committed over $15 million in grants to 73 organizations operating in 44 countries. In addition to the Sustain Fund, which was first created in 2022 and committed an initial $13.6 million, BFF also has a rolling Solidarity Fund which has committed almost $2 million. BFF’s own supporters have included the Ford, MacArthur and Farbman Family foundations and the Solidaire Network. A Black Feminist Fund spokesperson told Inside Philanthropy that the fund is also supported by an international network of individual Black feminists.
“We’re rooted in two truths,” said Black Feminist Fund cofounder Hakima Abbas during an April press event announcing the new tranche of funding. “The first, that funding is a critical barrier for Black feminist world-building and organizing; and the second, that Black feminist movements are essential to creating a just, sustainable and peaceful world for everyone. And that’s why we’re here, to fund Black feminist movements like we want them to win.”
“Funding to win” has been a BFF clarion call since at least 2023, when BFF cofounder Tynesha McHarris and Foundation for a Just Society CEO Nicky McIntyre urged foundations to do just that in an Inside Philanthropy op-ed.
Still, the amount that the Black Feminist Fund is making available is minuscule compared to the deep pockets of right-wing funders. In 2020, for example, the Global Philanthropy Project reported that what it called the “global anti-gender movement”— anti-trans, anti-gay and pro-patriarchy activists — moved $3.7 billion worldwide in just four years, from 2013 to 2017. And last year, the Institute for Journalism and Social Change found that 17 U.S. organizations that oppose both sexual and reproductive rights collectively spent $16.5 million in Africa from 2019 to 2022.
“Our movements are deeply under-resourced, which is more than a shame because our movements are a necessary response against a growing anti-rights movement and an authoritarian regime that is growing globally,” BFF’s McHarris said during the April press event. “And so if we want to win on any issue, we’ve got to deeply resource our movements and leaders. So we’re calling on philanthropy to choose action over inaction, fortitude over fear and freedom over fascism.”
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Black Feminist Fund grantee Egna Legna Besidet helps illustrate the stakes. A community-based nonprofit working to support domestic workers in Lebanon — including those trapped in slavery by the country’s Kafala system, which puts immigrant workers under the complete control of their employers — found the flexible nature of Black Feminist Fund grants has allowed it to help Lebanon’s migrant domestic workers flee the country when violence erupts there, as when Israel bombed the country last year. “During that war, we supported thousands of migrant workers” who were displaced by the violence,” said Projects Manager Tsigereda Birhanu. Among other work, Egna Legna Besidet also supports domestic workers returning to Ethiopia, where they frequently face marginalization in their home communities.
Another Sustain Fund partner, Black Women Radicals, is a U.S.-based Black feminist advocacy organization “dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender expansive people’s radical activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora.”
“Being a part of the Black Feminist Fund has really helped push our work forward toward building a new world where everyone is included and not left behind,” Black Women Radicals founder and Executive Director Jaimee A. Swift said at the grant announcement.
Black, women-led nonprofits were already severely underfunded before Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency. But it’s been impossible to miss how rising anti-democracy forces have turned women, minorities and queer people into stepping stones on their way to consolidating power. As funders seek to fill the gaps opened up by the removal of federal funds, they should be mindful of those organizations that support the populations most in the administration’s crosshairs.
