Last Updated on July 29, 2025 by BVN
Overview: The California Black Freedom Fund (CBFF) has evolved into the Black Freedom Fund, California’s first Black Community Foundation, to support and invest in the growth, capacity-building, and sustainability of Black organizations. Since 2020, CBFF has granted $45 million to Black-serving organizations and plans to double down on its support and investments into Black organizations, asking people to join them in a campaign to $200 million as they move into the next cycle. The fund aims to address the funding gap between Black-led organizations and white-led ones and encourages long-term commitments to these nonprofits.
Breanna Reeves
When the California Black Freedom Fund (CBFF) initially launched in 2020, the Fund set out to support and invest in the growth, capacity-building and sustainability of Black organizations by securing $100 million in funds.
Five years later, CBFF reached their goal and supported more than 200 organizations. It has now taken another step toward ensuring that Black communities have a future and the resources they need to thrive by evolving.
On July 1, the CBFF formally transformed to become the Black Freedom Fund, California’s first Black Community Foundation. Once housed as a fund within the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, BFF is now an independent institution with its own governance and infrastructure.
Since 2020, CBFF has granted $45 million to Black-serving organizations, and has plans to go further. Recent executive orders restricting diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives issued by President Donald Trump have threatened grant funding for thousands of organizations across the state that could be identified as defying the executive order. As a result, many Black-led and Black-seerving organizations may face losing millions of dollars in federal funding.
“The issues that we’re seeing facing the organizations that serve our community are not just limited to this moment. This is a part of the challenge with philanthropy and just anti-Blackness in our sector, which is that there is a given gap that is substantial,” said Marc Philpart, executive director of the Black Freedom Fund and inaugural director of the CBFF.
According to a 2020 report published by The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consulting organization, in collaboration with Echoing Green, on average, Black-led organizations manage with revenues that are 24% lower than white-led ones. The median revenue for Black-led nonprofits is $47,400 below that of white-led nonprofits — a $20 million funding gap.
“Without Black leaders and philanthropy being explicit about really targeting the organizations that are serving the Black community, I think these inequities would be much larger. The Black Freedom Fund really represents an opportunity for philanthropy to make good on its relationship to the Black community and its commitment to racial justice,” Philpart explained. “Which is, I think, a commitment that is not one that is only born by Black people, people of color or white people alone, like it really takes all of us as a society to commit to that. We stand for that, and we’re here to be in solidarity with anyone who wants to be on that path,” he continued.
Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (C.O.P.E.), a San Bernardino faith-based nonprofit, has been a beneficiary of the Black Freedom Fund from the beginning and has greatly benefited from the partnership, according to C.O.P.E. Executive Director Pastor Samuel Casey.
“Their financial support, thought partnership, and assistance in securing additional resources have been instrumental to our growth and sustainability. Through our relationship with BFF, C.O.P.E. has been able to elevate our visibility and influence across state and regional platforms,” Casey said via email.
According to Casey, funding Black-led organizations like C.O.P.E. and initiatives like the Black Freedom Fund is more important now than ever. A 2024 report released by the Black Equity Collective, a California-based philanthropic network, reported that Black-led organizations across the state provide critical services to communities, but often operate underfunded, understaffed and with reduced capacity.
“These restrictions threaten hard-fought progress, making it critical to invest in trusted, community-rooted organizations that build Black power, cultivate leadership, and sustain long-term movements for equity, justice, and transformation,” Casey stated.
But in its new iteration, the Black Freedom Fund plans to double down on its support and investments into Black organizations, and they’re asking people to join them in a campaign to $200 million as they move into the next cycle.
“We believe that this moment is calling for us to raise even more resources for the communities that we serve, for the more than 200 organizations that we’ve supported. We believe that now we need them more than ever to fight for the people they’re serving, to continue to build towards a vision for this country that has not yet manifested,” Philpart said.
Philpart stressed the importance of engaging funders and even regular people in long-term commitments to these nonprofits. He encourages people to commit to an organization’s future by supporting an organization over a five-year period, such as committing to $100 a month, for a five-year contribution of $6,000.
Though this commitment is attainable, Philpart shared that one of the challenges of this work, of society, is the inability to stay focused for an extended period of time. But Philpart explained that sticking with things, especially in this work, has resulted in significant benefits. This is what Philpart and the team at BFF are encouraging people to strive for.
“For people who are losing federal funding, our resources are really a drop in a bucket. In comparison, the important thing for people to realize, in this moment, is that their voice matters more than ever,” Philpart explained.
“We need their voice to be engaged in building support for the policies, the system changes, and frankly, the culture that we need to change in order for them to prevent cuts like the ones that they’re experiencing from federal funds and to build towards the vision for the world that they want to exist: where the services are no longer needed, the inequities that they’re trying to address no longer exist.”
One of the biggest challenges in philanthropy is getting most people who are donors to think beyond the charitable situation they’re coming to work in, work with, Philpart noted. He explained that it’s not about how many meals can be served or how many beds can be provided, but really about ensuring the existence of robust public services and ensuring that everyone’s needs are met.
To donors and funders, Philpart declared, “our work is more important now than ever. It’s filling such a critical need, and it’s only being attacked because it has been successful.”
