2019-20 Grantees
The Justice for Muslims Collective ($10,000) combats institutional and structural Islamophobia in the DC area. Led by Muslim women of color, its grassroots organizing focuses on creating mechanisms of community defense for Muslims and building community resilience. Beckner will support their healing and wellness programs, leadership development and training programs focused on Muslim women, and alliance/coalition-building work across movements.
The Fair Budget Coalition ($10,000) brings together advocacy organizations, service providers, and community members to advocate for budget and public policy initiatives that address systemic social, racial, and economic inequality in DC. Beckner will support FBC’s Constituent Leadership Program, which gives low and moderate-income DC residents a greater understanding of the budget process, hones their leadership skills, and provides decision-making authority within FBC’s structure to the people most impacted by policy change.
Black Lives Matter DC ($10,000) advocates for non-police solutions to intra-community violence and ending police brutality by confronting and dismantling institutions and systems of state-sanctioned violence and oppression that displace and criminalize Black people through political education, community power, and direct action in Southeast DC. Beckner will support the development of a Liberation Zone that invests in safety beyond policing such as community control, community defense and divestment from militarization, and other programs that oppress Black people.
Dreaming Out Loud ($10,000) creates economic opportunities for the region’s marginalized community members by building a healthy, equitable food system. Beckner funding will support the Farm and Food Hub at Kelly Miller Middle School in DC's Ward 7 and create a vertically integrated pipeline to jobs and economic opportunity for communities of color through food hub distribution, entrepreneurship and cooperative development, workforce development, and advocacy and public policy.
Platform of Hope ($10,000), a collaboration between Capital Area Asset Builders, Jubilee Housing, Jubilee Jumpstart, For Love of Children, Mary's Center and Sitar Arts Center, addresses the gentrification of resource-rich communities; redresses structural and racial barriers that prevent low-income adults from building wealth and well-being; and connects the varied health and learning needs of children from low-income families from prenatal to early-childhood and through to college graduation. Beckner will support their work across the housing, health, education, arts, asset building, and youth development sectors.
The Healthy Babies Project ($10,000) helps DC’s poorest families have healthy babies, raise strong families, and move into independent lives. Beckner funds will support the Feeding Our Girls program, which provides nutrition for malnourished, hungry, pregnant, and/or parenting DC youth of color. The program addresses food security for two generations of vulnerable DC children – the teen parent and child – to ensure maternal and child health.
Kindred ($10,000) cultivates relationships between parents of diverse economic and racial backgrounds in gentrifying elementary schools and builds their capacity to take action within their schools to address the root causes of the opportunity gap. Beckner funding will support a parent dialogue-to-action program at Bancroft Elementary, which will build a diverse coalition of parent activists to advance equity and meaningfully change outcomes in their school so that all students thrive. Beckner will also support the pilot of a parent facilitator apprenticeship program to extend the dialogue work into new communities.
The Trans Women of Color Collective ($10,000) uplifts the narratives, lived experiences, and leadership of trans and gender non-conforming people of color, while building towards the collective liberation of all oppressed people. Beckner funding will support TWOCC’s Black Trans Health Initiative, Safe House in Ward 1, daily cooked meals for community members, transportation to community meetings and events, stipends to fund the work of TWOCC’s organizers, meeting space, and information technology to support their leadership team of trans women of color.
Collective Action for Safe Spaces ($9,100) uses comprehensive, intersectional, community-based solutions to eliminate public gendered harassment and assault in the DC area. Beckner funds will be used to develop an Organizing Institute centered on the experiences of Queer and Trans Women of Color who are current or former sex workers and participants in their Safe Bar Collective jobs program. The program supports queer and Trans sex workers of color in advocating for their needs and the needs of people most impacted by harassment and assault in public spaces.
Bread for the City ($8,500) helps low-income, Black and Brown DC residents develop the power to determine the future of their own communities. They provide food, clothing, medical care, and legal and social services to reduce the burden of poverty. Beckner funding will support Bread for the City's Terrence Moore Organizing Institute, a free 8-week training program led by two women of color, which equips client leaders with the tools to organize in their communities, including deep political education.
Empower DC ($5,000) enhances and promotes the self-advocacy of low and moderate income DC residents and builds their collective power to bring about sustained improvements in quality of life. Beckner funding will support Empower DC’s citywide Public Housing Campaign, which builds the organized political power of DC’s public housing residents, supporting their strategic engagement in the systems of decision making in order to secure budget and policy change to improve conditions, secure the future of public housing, and prevent the displacement of public housing residents.