Black businesses, event curators, chefs, artists, and historical leaders are not only vital to the culture that makes Austin a top destination city, they feed the state economy.
One might assume, then, that finding support for Black-led organizations in the region would be easy… but you know what they say about the first three letters in “assume.”
In 2024, the data-driven advocacy organization Measure and the Austin Justice Coalition released a report titled “State of Black Lives in Austin,” which found that despite the money poured into the economy by Black residents, the City of Austin failed to invest in the Black community. Black households earned 54 cents on the dollar compared to white households, and Black creatives received only 2% of the City’s cultural funding.
To help address at least part of that need, officials said The Black Fund of Central Texas earlier this year awarded $275,000 to 24 Black community groups. It was a return to action for the organization, which had skipped a grant cycle the year before to rethink how its funding decisions were made.
Pausing to make sure you’re doing the right thing in the right way isn’t that common in philanthropic organizations, but it’s reflective of the thoughtfulness behind The Black Fund, whose genesis goes back to 2020, when founders Colette Pierce Burnette, Kendra Garrett, and Jameila “Meme” Styles approached longtime philanthropic agency Austin Community Foundation (ACF) with a goal of uplifting Black organizations through major funding, according to officials.
A steering committee was formed, racial equity gaps researched, and by 2022, The Black Fund was official. Since then, the fund has distributed $1.2 million to 72 Black-led and Black-serving institutions in Central Texas, according to leaders with the nonprofit.
Like many of the small organizations The Black Fund serves, its path to success was forged through community building, data-driven analysis, and stone cold grit.
Fundraising ain’t for the faint
East Austinite Terry Mitchell has been part of The Black Fund since the beginning. It came about, she remembers, during a time of social upheaval with the Covid pandemic, the killing of George Floyd, and demonstrations that rocked the country leaving many in a state of uncertainty. As a result, Mitchell said she considered the mission of providing funds for “Black frontliners” to be a divine calling.
Getting started, though, proved “tedious” and “exhausting,” Mitchell told Austin Free Press. The small group putting things together needed impartial reviewers, a board, grant writers, accountants, outreach teams, and technology-based systems that could disseminate the grants. They also needed cash.
Mitchell credits ACF as being The Black Fund’s “North Star.” ACF helped them navigate the predominantly white world of fundraising and introduced them to philanthropists with deep pockets, fund officials said.
Together, The Black Fund and ACF committed to investing more than $1 million in the Black community over three years.
Getting started
The Black Fund solicited its first round of grant applications in 2022, with the money distributed in February 2023. According to Mitchell, there was an “overload” of applicants but limited funds.
Collaborating with Black grassroots leaders, they sorted through 92 applications submitted across four categories: education; health and wellness; wealth building; and power building, organizing, and advocacy. Ultimately, four organizations were awarded $40,000 each, eight allotted $20,000 each, and four given $5,000. Another five received “Community Choice” grants worth $3,000. A total of $355,000 was distributed.
Despite the success of the 2023 rollout, Mitchell acknowledges that “an incredible amount of viable and deserving organizations [were] left without the funding they deserve.” This caused a bit of an uproar.
Some local leaders called for more transparency and invitations to participate in the grant-making process. Others issued threats.
“It was the most painful thing that I’ve ever had to endure,” said Mitchell, who declined to describe the exact nature of the threats.
While some complaints came from anti-DEI crusaders who simply wanted to shut The Black Fund down, others came from people who supported the fund’s aims but questioned how it was operating.
Black trans rights advocate Rocky Lane, who was among those reviewing the initial round of grant applications, thinks this type of “infighting” is due to “a lack of abundance.” While the needs are many, there is a relatively small pot of money to go around. This forces some to play a game Lane calls “the oppression Olympics” in order to justify their slice of the philanthropic pie.
Following a second round of grants issued in January 2024, The Black Fund stepped back to examine its procedures. Its solution to controversy was more public forums, more feedback sessions, and more roundtables. They also implemented organizational development workshops to train Black community members on skills such as how to obtain nonprofit status so that they could qualify for grants.
According to Mitchell, the year off not only built deeper trust within the community, the events created more opportunities for Black nonprofit leaders to build partnerships.
By 2025, The Black Fund was back, ready again to accept grant applications.
Bigger and blacker
Last year also saw The Black Fund begin to move out from under the umbrella of ACF to become a stand-alone nonprofit. At the same time, it changed its name to The Black Fund of Central Texas.
“I’m so grateful for the Austin Community Foundation partnership in those beginning stages,” said Mitchell. “But our independent autonomy is letting us reach even more Black-led organizations by being more culturally specific.”
While traditional grantmaking models focus on essay skills, tax-exemption filings, and the ability to navigate complex rules, The Black Fund took a new approach. They placed more value on storytelling, allowing applicants to submit a three-minute video instead of essays alone, and prioritized a commitment to sustainable practices such as metric tracking, generating self-reports, and accepting consistent feedback.
The fund also found a new partner. Working with Little Bit of Good, a capacity building accelerator program for predominantly Black-led Central Texas nonprofits, The Black Fund found a way to offer more long-term support for grantees.
In the 2025 grant application cycle The Black Fund received 14 percent more applications than ever before. Ultimately, 24 nonprofits were awarded a total of $275,000.
Among those nonprofits was Art Curatorial Inc. Founder Ibiye Anga has been investing in Black artists since 2018 without any funding. Getting $20,000 from The Black Fund, she said, felt like their “big break.”
That grant, Anga said, allowed Art Curatorial Inc. to “level up” and qualify for other grants that require nonprofits to already have substantial money in the bank.
Another $20,000 grantee, the Texas Empowerment Academy, was founded in 1998 with a mission of providing an “innovative alternative for educational excellence” for elementary and middle school kids, which expanded to serving K-12 in 2019.
According to Chief Development Officer LLyas Salahud-din, the open-enrollment charter school started with seven students and has grown to nearly 800 — 90% of whom are Black. Tuition and transportation are free. While the academy is federally and state funded, philanthropic support from organizations like The Black Fund allows them to do more with less.
“It’s long overdue to have an organization like The Black Fund that is able to raise and pour money back into the Black community,” said Salahud-din.
Former University of Texas and NFL football standout Stephen Braggs founded Stephen Braggs Youth Foundation in 2010 to help guide young athletes in the Austin area and was elated to receive $20,000 from The Black Fund. “They really listened to my story and my passion,” said Braggs.
Braggs said the foundation uses the grant money to help fund monthly retreats at the Candlelight Ranch, where foster kids learn life and job skills from mentors at no cost.
The U.S.-Africa Institute, founded by Dr. Tadios Belay, is yet another beneficiary of a $20,000 grant. Belay came to the U.S. in 2011 as a refugee from Ethiopia. He calls fellow Black immigrants caught in the current chaos of nationwide ICE activities “the invisible ones.”
The institute supports immigrant, refugee, and international students.
In addition to monthly “Know Your Rights” sessions, the institute dedicates the second Thursday of each month to an Immigration Detention Visitation Program where the public can support ICE detainees. According to Belay, their advocacy efforts recently helped bring home a constituent who was detained at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center.
“We’re a very small organization,” Belay said. “This money helps us support the legal services urgently needed for our communities. That’s why The Black Fund is so important right now.”
Alex Chew is a filmmaker, co-founder of the Black Auteur Film Festival, and feature writer for the Austin Free Press.
