About the Initiative

The Horning Family Foundation (HFF) created the Racial Justice Initiative (RJI) to invest $5 million over a ten-year period to support Black-led organizing and advocacy and to administer the process through a grant-making team made up primarily of members of the community.

RJI will make five-year grants to support efforts to change systems, policies, narratives, and practices that oppress and harm Black communities and other communities of color in Washington DC, Prince George’s County Maryland, Montgomery County Maryland, Alexandria Virginia, Arlington County Virginia, and Fairfax County Virginia.

What do we mean by Black-led, Advocacy, and Organizing?

  • Black-Led: Has Black people in key leadership positions with significant decision-making power and develops and supports Black leadership. Ending anti-Black racism is central to the mission and strategies of the work (which necessarily includes strong Black leadership)

  • Advocacy: A process of informing and influencing people to bring about a desired change in attitudes, policies, and systems that adversely impact a community of people. An advocacy group’s strategy is initiated from the lived experience of those impacted and involves a racial equity and racial justice analysis of the issue(s). 

  • Organizing: A democratically-led sustained process by which people come together to build and exercise their power and their leadership in order to collectively identify harmful conditions in their communities and pursue just solutions (Maximizing the Moment, 2021).  We understand organizing to include racial equity and racial justice analysis, issue and/or policy campaigns, healing justice, and the holistic support of people engaged in movement work.

What are some examples of organizations/projects we would likely fund?

  • An organization that works with parents to understand the education system and develops leadership among its members to organize and advocate for policy changes. 

  • An initiative to organize residents to improve housing within their communities and advance policies that prevent displacement.

  • A youth-led campaign for the removal and defunding of police in their school system.

What are some examples of organizations we would not likely fund?

Organizations that provide direct services to address the immediate needs of communities without a connection to an advocacy or organizing strategy for system level change. For example:

  • Workforce development/training  or school-based programs

  • Academic, arts, sports enrichment programs 

  • Counseling, case management, legal services

  • Food distribution program

  • Other direct service programs

  • Organizations not currently working with communities in the geographic areas mentioned above. 

Questions? You can reach out to us at: racialjustice@horningbrothers.com

Grant Info Session

The RJI Grant Information session was held on Tuesday, August 17, 2021. In case you were unable
to attend or would like to re-watch the session, the recording can be viewed here.