About the Pilot Program

The Racial Healing + Justice Fund (RH+JF) was established by Forward Through Ferguson, Deaconess Foundation, and the Missouri Foundation for Health to invest in racial healing as a core component of achieving Racial Equity and to make space for affected residents, Black and Brown St. Louisans (defined regionally), to have direct power over the distribution of resources for healing, justice, and transformation. Through these investments, the Racial Healing +Justice Fund aligns local and national philanthropy, community-set priorities, and community-led grantmaking that puts racial equity, healing and justice at the center, creating a future St. Louis where all residents have the opportunity to thrive. During the 2020-23 pilot of the fund, $1.6 million was committed over a three year period by approximately 20 philanthropic partners, with the largest investment from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This pilot paves the way for one of the Ferguson Commission’s calls to action–the creation of a “generational” managed or endowed fund that intentionally supports Black and Brown changemakers in the St. Louis region.

Granting Philosophy

The Racial Healing + Justice Fund leverages a holistically healthy, racially equitable, and justice-based grant-making approach that distributes charitable funding across the St. Louis region in support of Black, Indigenous and people of color-led (BIPOC) community members, organizations and project ideas. The fund uses a participatory grantmaking approach to scale and sustain Racial Equity work through trust-based philanthropy, community-centric fundraising and capacity building. Under this model, the founding organizations and contributing foundations do not have decision-making power over the allocation of funds—these decisions are made by the Community Governance Body made up of Black and Brown residents that were chosen by the St. Louis region via a community participatory process. The fund seeks to foster regenerative and authentic partnership between philanthropy and community that explicitly dismantles the traditional power dynamics between the grantmakers and grantees.

Why Healing + Justice?

The Healing focus of the Fund invested in:

Creating space to share truth narratives, communal grieving, and communal connection on race and systemic racism;
Enabling restoration, reverence, respect, and trust, at all levels of a community;
Building and exercising individual power and resilience;
Providing support for the spiritual and emotional health of community organizers and advocates.

The Justice focus of the Fund invested in:

Changing the conditions of racial inequities by continuously supporting current and future leaders of color;
Centering, growing, and activating grassroots knowledge;
Broadening resident engagement to operationalize policy maker accountability structures and practices;
Uplifting communal mobilization for systems change.

Who leads RH+JF?

The Community Governance Board (CGB) is a voting body of nine to fifteen BIPOC community members from St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and St. Clair County who are directly impacted by structural racism at the intersections of their assigned identities. The CGB guides the granting and community engagement processes, reviews applications, and has full decision-making power over how funding will be distributed to St. Louis Black and Brown communities’ healing efforts, programs, and initiatives. Deaconess Foundation and the Missouri Foundation for Health have served as the core funder partners of the pilot of this fund. Deaconess Foundation is the pooled fund fiscal host, and FTF is the project manager and lead facilitator of the community engagements related to the fund.

Institutional Mandate

The Racial Healing + Justice Fund seeks to:

Uplift reciprocal accountability within philanthropy to achieve racial equity, healing, and justice.
Demonstrate the power of healthy, transformative collaboration between community members impacted by racial oppression and organizations that hold financial power and resources.
Build and strengthen philanthropy by embracing a community-centric model vs traditional white-dominant philanthropic practices.
Foster a culture that empowers the spirit of exploration and questions traditional philanthropic practices and frameworks.
Embracing mistakes by learning and growing from them and accepting multiple forms of success that may not be traditionally identified or uplifted.
Learning and growth to improve the positive impact on Black and Brown community

Outcomes of RH+JF:

FTF led a community participatory process to set funding priorities and structures of the fund, and in 2020 welcomed the first Community Governance Board of 9 members
By 2022 the group has brought in new members and expanded to a Board of 14 members.
Over $1.35M of the Fund’s $1.69 million has been granted to Black and People of Color-led initiatives that directly address community wellness, access to quality mental support capacity-building, public safety, social innovation and more
77 awards granted to approximately 70 organizations and initiatives over three grant cycles
Fiscal sponsor accessibility partnerships secured for grantees without formal 501(c)3 nonprofit distinction. This enabled approximately 1/3 of grantees to receive funding that they would not have received without 501(c)3 status.