The Power of Investing in Black Cultural Leadership

Tenaja Jordan
Board Member, AAC

Black Philanthropy Month is an opportunity to celebrate a long tradition of Black generosity, but this year, it also feels particularly urgent. Across the country, Black communities are navigating attacks on civil rights, the continued dismantling of equity initiatives, and efforts to restrict how our history can be taught, discussed, and understood. At the same time, many of the organizations that preserve Black culture, develop Black leaders, and advocate for our communities are confronting funding losses and uncertainty. In this environment, Black philanthropy is more than generosity. It’s one way we protect our collective capacity to determine which stories are preserved, whose experiences are documented, and how Black communities imagine our own futures.

That is why Give 8/28, a national day of giving to Black-led and Black-benefiting nonprofits, matters. When we invest directly in Black organizations, we strengthen the infrastructure that allows Black communities to speak for ourselves. Our narratives shape how people understand our history, our needs, our contributions, and the solutions we create. Supporting the organizations that hold and produce those narratives helps ensure that Black people remain authors of our own stories, particularly at a moment when institutions are being pressured to retreat from race-conscious work. Giving becomes a way to sustain not just individual programs, but the people, relationships, knowledge, and cultural institutions that make self-determination possible.

This Give 8/28 is especially meaningful to me as I'm in my first year of service as a Board Member of Arts Administrators of Color Network (AAC). My relationship with the organization predates my board service. In partnering with AAC to help BIPOC arts and cultural workers develop the skills to fundraise outside of traditional foundation mechanisms, I've had the opportunity to hear directly from them about the visceral challenges that this moment has created for their work. The loss of National Endowment for the Arts funding, along with the parallel retreat from DEI work by some foundations, has left BIPOC-led arts and cultural organizations reeling at a time when our communities need them most. The salience of these struggles struck me deeply and personally. As a poet and fiction writer, I've relied on BIPOC literary organizations like VONA, Cave Canem, and Roots Wounds Words to hone my craft and find creative community with other writers of color. I shudder to think of what would happen if these organizations disappeared.

Cultural workers do more than make and support art. They help determine which stories reach audiences, whose histories are preserved, which artists receive resources, and whose visions of our collective future are given room to grow. Supporting their leadership is therefore an investment in our ability to shape culture itself. I joined the Board of AAC so that I could leverage all of my talents and expertise toward their sustainability at a critical time. 

This Black Philanthropy Month, I hope you will consider making a Give 8/28 contribution to Arts Administrators of Color Network. At a moment when Black histories, institutions, and equity-centered work are increasingly contested, investing in Black arts and cultural leadership helps protect our ability to tell our own stories and build institutions capable of carrying them forward. Give 8/28 reminds us that philanthropy does not belong solely to foundations or wealthy donors. Every contribution can be an expression of collective care, shared responsibility, and belief in what Black communities can build when we invest in one another.

Make your Give 8/28 contribution by midnight tonight.

Tenaja Jordan
Board Member
Arts Administrators of Color Network