Fund Black Ideas

We Know How To Fix This (Even Though We Didn't Break It)

Please quit it with the accelerator programs and business incubators for Black women. Are there technical skills that some of us need to learn? Absolutely. But for the most part, we’ve got this. We have the the ideas. What we lack is cold hard (no strings attached) cash so that we can breathe life into our visions - visions which would serve the entire collective community.

Do you know how we fix this dumpster fire of a society?

To start, we give the land back to the Indigenous community and put Black and brown women in charge of everything else.

I’m an idea person. My execution is hit or miss but my ideas are solid.

Here are a few…

1. End of Life Support Services

As for me, I doubt I’ll be here much longer. Please hear me, I am not suicidal. However, I feel my body breaking down from decades of chronic stress. I’m exhausted. I’m not ok with that but I don’t know what else to do. No one is coming to save me and I’m too fucking beat down by life to save myself.

While I am afraid of death, the main part that causes me anxiety is that I don’t have anyone to carry out my final wishes. I want my apartment (mainly my books) packed up with care. I want the ashes of my Mom and I to be scattered together in a beautiful place near the water. I want to know that my littles (Nico, Nalo and Mila will end up in good homes together with patient and loving folks.

For those who are severely isolated, they could name the End of Life Support service as their beneficiary to ensure that all costs were covered. This would give people, such as myself, peace of mind when it comes to their end of life care directives.

Everyone deserve a good death, especially those who have lived a harsh life.

2. A Patient Advocacy App

I avoid the hospital mainly because, I’m Black. When I went in the past, I was constantly accused of drug seeking and no one believed my pain. I needed an advocate because I was unable (thanks to excruciating pain) to stand up for myself and clearly articulate my needs. I’ve never left a hospital visit feeling cared for, seen or validated - I’ve usually left feeling more traumatized.

I want to create an app where folks can contact an advocate (for example a retired healthcare worker) to come be with them at the hospital. As messed up as it is, having a white person in the room can increase the quality of care you receive if you’re Black. To be clear, anyone could be an advocate. I was using this as an example of how trash and racist our healthcare system is.

3. A Community Care Fund

I’ve had this idea for a while but since my priority has been on trying to survive, I haven’t had the energy to put any effort towards it. I don’t know how your online feeds are set up, but mine are filled with folks who are desperate for support with basic needs: a meal, diapers, medicine, gas, one more night in a run down motel room…

The Community Care Fund would be a mutual aid hub where donors could contribute funds and those resources would go directly to a person in need of support. My Vision is to create three branches: A Fund for Black women, a Fund for Trans, Queer and Non-Binary family and a General Fund that anyone could apply for.

My goal is manage the Fund for Black women. I have two incredible humans in mind to run the other branches. We are still in search of a financial advisor (with lived experience) who would be willing to volunteer a handful of hours to help us set up the structure of the funds. As the program expands, every administrative position and advisor in the program will be paid an equitable living wage.

-This is not a non-profit.

-Contributions are based on trust based giving.

-The only requirement to apply is that you have a need

-There will be no red-tape, no waiting periods and no bureaucratic bullshit.

People need money now.

Colonization and rugged individualism have destroyed our sense of community. These ideas are a start towards repairing the ways that we care for one another.

All of the systems that currently exist were made up, probably by self-serving white men who didn’t consider many of us as human…

We can make it up better. We deserve better.

This is not how we are meant to live.

Liberation to all who are oppressed.

#PovertySucks