Apply for Black Wellness Innovation Fund – United States

Black Girl Wellness Grants – (August 2023)

$10,000 Grant Awards

A Long Walk Home, Black Girls Healing Retreat – Chicago, IL

A Long Walk Home will host a Black Girls Healing Retreat and publish an artistic anthology based on participant reflections from the Retreat. This publication will be composed of original poetry, paintings, photos, and journal prompts from the Girl/Friends and will impact more Black girls and young people.

Hitha Healing House, “Journey to Radiance: Empowering Black Girls Enrichment Program” – Detroit, MI

The enrichment program focuses on the wellness of Black girls and will promote positive self-perception, provide coping mechanisms and stress management skills, foster positive connections and support networks, empower informed decision-making, challenge colorism, and provide skills and resources for future success.

The Dinner Table Doc, “Beyond the Table” Book Club – Brooklyn, NY
The “Beyond the Table” book club will positively impact Black girls’ social and emotional development via peer community-building through reading.

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Joseph Beam Black Gay Men’s Wellness Grants – (March 2023)

$10,000 Grant Awards

Brothers of the Desert & Let’s Kick ASS Palm Springs – Palm Springs, CA

The organizations, respectively, recognized a great need in their community and have partnered to provide a wellness-focused discussion group with facilitators trained by a local Palm Springs therapist to overcome isolation, build and reinforce a self-affirming community, and overcome prevailing stigma present in Black gay male centered activities. Their missions seek to empower Black gay men through education, advocacy, social networking, mentorship, and philanthropy. This successful collaboration will oversee the development of an expanded wellness summit and online speaker series for Black gay men over the age of 50 living with HIV.

Grant Support: Funding supports paying facilitators and programmatic costs

Sankofa HIV Initiative – Lakewood, OH

The Sankofa HIV Initiative, expressed that they “experienced many of the same valleys and pitfalls as other gay men, such as the struggle to find safe spaces of identity and self love.” The word, Sankofa, means “to go back and get.” With this in mind, he endeavored to create the Sankofa Healing Weekend retreat to see Black gay men over the age of 50 living with HIV overcome barriers and promote healing; mentally, physically, collectively. Many of the wellness-focused activities during weekend retreat are supported by experienced program facilitators from across the state of Ohio. The retreat’s planned activities bring together opportunities to explore meditation, yoga, personal spirituality, therapeutic massage and other body-mind connection activities will be available to participants as well as messages about the importance of staying engaged in one’s own HIV care with tools such as peer-led support informed by healing justice.

Grant Support: Funding supports planning and implementation of weekend retreat

The T.R.U.T.H. Project – Houston, TX

The Telling Real Unapologetic Through Healing (T.R.U.T.H.) Project, Inc. is an organization whose mission is to educate and mobilize LGBTQ communities of color and their allies through social arts that promote mental, emotional, and sexual health. The T.R.U.T.H. Project will host “Phase II” wellness retreat that will focus on the narrative and wellness of Black Same Gender Loving men 50+ living with HIV. This Peer and Licensed Professional Counselor facilitated retreat will incorporate wellness practices such as yoga, sound bath, facilitated discussion, and space simply to connect and bond.

Grant Support: Funding support planning and implementation of weekend retreat

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Black Peer Support & Community Care Grants – (March 2023)

$10,000 Grant Awards

Ballet After Dark  – Baltimore, MD

Ballet After Dark (BAD) is a supportive non-profit organization that provides women and girls with innovative ways to heal their traumas. Their mission is to offer somatic interventions, trauma-informed care, dance therapy, and other holistic methods to encourage survivors of sexual assault and various levels of trauma to heal their bodies using movement.

Grant Support: Funding supports current BAD programming, including The Black Swan Cohort, Aqua Ballet, The BAD Girls Club, and BAD Babies.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Group for Black Women  – Atlanta, GA

This DBT Skills Group for Black Women provides Black women with an opportunity to learn new ways to cope with the cognitive, emotional, physical, and relational impacts of daily oppression and to learn how to live a more full and effective life. DBT is an intervention shown to be effective in supporting folks living with OCD and personality disorders.

Grant Support: Funding supports maintaining DBT groups for Black women, reducing costs for attendance, and supporting efforts to tailor DBT to better serve Black women.

Project Q  – Los Angeles, CA

Project Q developed project “Introspection,” a Black-led Black family reunity project. This project is a workshop series that helps introduce caregivers and parents to thriving Black trans/nonbinary adults and engage them in meaningful discussions.

Grant Support: Funding supports paying facilitators and programmatic costs

Native Son  – New York, NY

Native Son is an intergenerational movement, community and platform created to inspire, empower and celebrate Black gay men. Native Son harnesses the collective power of Black gay and queer men, with the goal of ensuring that our voices, visibility and lived experiences are elevated in all of the communities in which we exist and never again disregarded.

Grant Support: Funding supports the “Your Silence Will Not Protect You” Program which includes dynamic conversations with mental health and wellness professionals on topics relevant to Black gay men 50 + years old living with HIV.

Sober Black Girls Club Retreat – (July 2022)

Sober Black Girls Club (SBGC) is hosting its first retreat to celebrate and highlight Black girls, women, femmes, and gender non-conforming people in recovery. During the two (2) day event, SBGC members will be able to experience the relationships and sisterhood created in their weekly, virtual support meetings within the last two years in person. This SBGC event is all about fellowship, connection, and having fun – learning to enjoy life again. Attendees can expect music and rhythm, live guided meditations, silent time, a lakeside BBQ, hiking, relaxation, and bonding with others who wish to live a substance-free life or practice harm reduction.

Award: $10,000

Black Birth Wellness Grants – (May 2022)

We provided six Black families in Memphis, TN with a local doula and a $750 wellness stipend to support their birth journey. Information from their experiences will be used to draft a brief on the impact of doulas on the mental health and wellbeing of pregnant, Black folks.

• Ladedra Fields
• Zeori Harper
• Kimberly Smith
• Charniqua Thompson
• Lauryn Webber
• Alexis Yarbrough

Black Trans Women’s Wellness Grants – (February 2022)

$10,000 Grant Awards

TAKE Resource Center, Healing Justice Program – Birmingham, AL
Grant funds will allow the TAKE Center to expand their services and wellness resources and will sustain their mental health groups led by therapists.

Reuniting of African Descendants (ROAD), Artivism Program – Brooklyn, NY
Grant funds will help reinstate the ROAD Artivism Program, which provides TLGBQIA+ artists with opportunities for expression and mentorship from more experienced artists to promote wellness & positive self-perception.

Yakinii’s Love Mentorship Program – Atlanta, GA
Grant funds will support a mentorship and rites of passage program for young Black trans women between the ages of 14- 22.

REBUILD – (November 2021)

• Project REBUILD supports people who are formerly incarcerated with getting access to Black therapists to support their healing journey. Funds were provided to support the maintenance and sustainability of this project.

  Award: $15,000