By Alex Daniels
It wasn’t a stretch for Kiyomi Rollins, founder of Ke’nekt Cooperative, to feel threatened in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term. The president forbade federal diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts through an executive order and called for investigations of organizations that make race-based grants.
Her group, an Atlanta community hub that provides microloans to Black-owned nonprofits and coordinates mutual-aid programs, directly counters Trump’s vision.
“Our mission statement literally is, ‘We are a Black liberated third space,’” she says.
Trump’s policies were not a huge shock to Rollins. But the reaction from philanthropy was. In many cases, grant makers fell in line with the administration’s position, reversing years of vocal support and the commitment of billions of dollars to racial equity following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Today, that effort “is at risk of crumbling” according to a report jointly produced by Candid, which compiles data on nonprofits, and ABFE, formerly known as the Association of Black Foundation Executives.