CHAMA: Mobilizing Resources for Deeper Community Impact through Funder Collaboratives
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”- African Proverb
Undeniably, the best part about my job is the opportunity to convene and mobilize a diverse group of philanthropic leaders and organizations nationwide who share a deep love for and commitment to Black communities.
Harnessing the African proverb that emphasizes further together, ABFE launched CHAMA, a collection of national and regional funder collaboratives designed to increase resources to support local, Black-led, and focused nonprofit organizations, in 2023.
Chama, a Kiswahili word for an informal cooperative society commonly used to pool and invest savings by East Africans, supports foundations in reducing philanthropic silos, leverage regional and national resources, and sustain investments in high-impact Black-led nonprofits. So far, these funder collaboratives have mobilized over $500,000 and our localized impact and investments continue to grow.
We launched our first state-wide funder collaborative in Missouri, dedicated to providing holistic support and capacity-building investments for Black-focused organizations. The fund is designed to advance the social, political, and economic progress of Black Missourians through strategic philanthropy and partnership. While the fund provides unrestricted funding to nonprofits, it’s also uniquely designed to support organizational capacity building and leadership well-being.
As a strategic partner in designing and implementing funder collaboratives, I’ve witnessed how effective these partnerships can be in deepening regional connections amongst foundation leaders and their grantee partners. One of our initial steps in developing these collaboratives is initiating a landscape scan that includes a thorough mapping of the Black-led organizations supported by each collaborative partner.
The scan also includes a mapping of mission-aligned, Black-led organizations that our foundation partners have not previously supported or may be unaware of. The mapping features demographic information on the CEO, Board, staff, and the communities they serve and an analysis of their funding models and operating budgets. For many in our collaborative, this is the first time they are able to compare their grantee data with their peers, reflect on critical funding gaps and potential blind spots, and analyze partner preferences.
The collaboratives also provide a safe space for philanthropic leaders to test new ideas, discuss emerging regional or national challenges, and find commonalities and differences in organizational practices. Since the overturn of Affirmative Action and the ongoing legal challenges facing the Fearless Fund, our funder collaboratives have birthed test kitchens for foundations to implement different grantmaking practices like creating gift agreements versus grant contracts, eliminating the use of grant applications, and creating new or no reporting requirements for grantees. Our collaboratives allow foundations to pilot new ideas alongside their colleagues and measure collective and personal success, adaptability, and effectiveness.
As a part of our 50th Anniversary campaign, ABFE committed to a series of strategic pillars that continue to ground how we mobilize our expansive membership network to advocate for deeper investments in Black communities. Our first strategic pillar is our commitment to organizing collective investments in Black-led Social Change efforts to build political and economic power in Black communities. CHAMA is one of the tools we’re using to make good on this commitment.
Our CHAMA work will continue as we build at least two more funder collaboratives next year, which will seed transformational change in our communities. This work is a testament to the wisdom of our ancestors, reminding us that we can achieve so much more when we come together.