Background 

Decolonizing Wealth Project is an Indigenous and Black-led racial justice organization that envisions a world where racial equity has become a societal norm – where new systems ensure everyone can live their best lives, thrive in their cultures, and heal from generations of colonial trauma. Our work aims to disrupt the existing systems of moving and controlling capital by offering truth, reconciliation, and healing from the ails of colonization through education, radical reparative giving, and narrative change.

Since 2021, through our fund, Liberated Capital, we’ve invested more than $10M to support movement-building & advocacy efforts to advance reparations in the U.S.

This first-of-its-kind funding initiative aims to fuel and amplify movement-building & campaign efforts to achieve reparations where wealth (money or land) can be redistributed by institutions and/or governments to Black communities in the U.S. 

Why Reparations?

The United States was built on a history and practice of enslavement, genocide, and extraction of and from Indigenous peoples and African descendants – resulting in more than 400 years of policies and procedures that fueled economic extraction and systemic violence in Indigenous and Black communities.

In 2020, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) reintroduced legislation to fund the first commission to study and develop proposals for providing reparations to African Americans. The bill was reintroduced in 2021 (as it has been at every congressional session since 1989) and is gaining traction with national support from leaders. This year, the momentum has continued with the legislation nearing the required House votes to pass through to the Senate and pressure building for President Biden to sign an Executive Order. There are also a number of reparative efforts underway to address the historical and ongoing theft and control of land that has led to the extreme concentration of wealth among a small group of people that exists today.  In May 2023, Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) introduced a resolution that forcefully argues why the federal government must provide reparations to descendants of enslaved Black people and people of African descent. The resolution outlines the various forms those reparations should take and has further ignited the movement in its fight.

Because of the effectiveness of social movements over the past few years – coupled with the successful philanthropic organizing of Decolonizing Wealth Project – we are seeing new opportunities to unearth, support, and scale efforts to actualize reparations for Black peoples.

To support this progress, Liberated Capital will provide untethered resources to support organizing and advocacy for community-driven reparations efforts that will help build the case for local, regional, and national policy opportunities that will inform ways wealth can be redistributed by institutions and/or governments.

This funding opportunity aims to source both the spaces and places where reparations campaigns are taking hold, provide vital funding to fuel their efforts and utilize our platform as a reparations fund and field disruptor to document and share this reparations movement ecosystem with our network of philanthropic institutions and donors. The spirit of reparations is that those who hold the bulk of ill-gotten resources and influence (including philanthropy) must hold responsibility for repairing the harms done.

 2024 – 2025 #Case4Reparations Grantee Partners

Justice for Greenwood – Tulsa OK

Blackroots Alliance – Chicago IL

FirstRepair– Evanston IL

GetFree– Brooklyn NY

National Conference of Black Lawyers– New York NY

Reparations Education Project– Washington DC

Equity and Transformation– Chicago IL

Reparations United– Burr Ridge IL

National Black Cultural Information Trust– Waldorf MD

New Jersey Institute for Social Justice– Newark NJ

Marijuana Justice– Richmond VA

Black Lives Matter Minnesota– Saint Paul MN

Equal Justice Society– Oakland CA

Chicago Torture Justice Center– Chicago IL

California Black Power Network– Long Beach CA

DC Justice Lab– Washington DC

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement- NY Chapter– Brooklyn NY

New Democracy Coalition of Mass Civic Education Fund– Boston MA

Truth Telling Project/ Grassroots Reparations Cpgn– Ashfield MA

Why We Can’t Wait Coalition 

Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)– Los Angeles CA

Racial Justice NOW!– Silver Springs MD

Joanne M. Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resilency, and Joy– Washington DC

Conrad Worrill Community Reparations Commission– Glenwood IL

Reparations Finance Lab– Bethlehem PA

Descendants of the St. Louis University Enslaved, Inc.– Creve Coeur MO

KC Reparations Coalition– Kansas City MO

National Reparations Network  (NRN)– Washington DC

Media 2070 (a project of Free Press)– Washington DC

Black Wall Street Business Center/Power Group– Tulsa OK

Reparations Stakeholders Authority of Evanston– Evanston IL

Institute of the Black World-21st Century– Elmhurst NY