Our Work
The Black Equity Collective (BEC) is an ecosystem of nonprofits, funders, partners and allies committed to strengthening the long-term sustainability and impact of Black-led and Black-empowering organizations (BLOs) across Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties. BEC’s current membership includes 65 BLOs, with 72% of its member organizations located in Los Angeles.
At the core of BEC’s work are three interdependent long-term goals:
- Building a strong, connected network of Black-led and Black-empowering nonprofits to enhance collaboration and collective power.
- Developing the organizational resilience of these networked organizations to ensure their long-term viability and ability to drive systems change.
- Shifting philanthropy’s approach to working with Black communities by building the capacity of funders to adopt trust-based, equity-centered grantmaking practices.
BEC operationalizes these goals through network-wide programming and tailored, cohort-based learning tracks, which provide members with culturally affirming training, peer support, and multi-year funding. This approach enables organizations to strengthen their leadership, infrastructure, and advocacy capacity while remaining deeply rooted in the communities they serve.
Our participatory co-design model ensures that BLOs are not just recipients of funding but active partners in shaping solutions, reinforcing BEC’s commitment to modeling bidirectional trust-based philanthropy.