Narrative Power Grantees

Supporting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-authored narratives that challenge anti-Black, Native erasure, and racist narratives that have been used to advance structural racism.  

Narrative change is long-term, generational work. Weissberg Foundation provides multi-year funding to both Virginia-based and select national efforts building the capacity and infrastructure of grassroots organizations to hone and deploy narrative change strategies. This investment, along with funds for content creation and dissemination, is helping seed the ground in Virginia and the surrounding region to continue moving toward racial justice.

Narrative Power
Political Power
Economic Power
Organizing Power

CORE GRANTEES

OrganizationAboutGrant AmountMulti-YearWebsite
Black in Appalachia https://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/BIA-NEW-Black-2-scaled.jpgBlack in Appalachia: Research Education & Support is a non-profit that works in collaboration with public media residents university departments libraries archives and community organizations to highlight the history and contributions of African-Americans in the development of the Mountain South and its culture. We do that through research local narratives public engagement and exhibition. We are a community service for Appalachian residents and families with roots in and through the region.$100,0005Learn More
BLIS Collective (Black Liberation Indigenous Sovereignty Collective)https://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/01_BLIS_Logo_Digital_FullColor.pngBLIS Collective sparks radical collaboration and narrative alignment between and within Black, Indigenous, and progressive social movements to repair, decolonize, and transform culture. BLIS Collective is fiscally sponsored by Possibility Labs.$75,0003Learn More
Collaborative Arts (Reclaiming the Monument)https://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/RTM-LOGO-NEW-BIRD-PNG-1.pngCollaborative Arts is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit organization which provides development, production, management, media production, and fiscal sponsorship for artist led projects. The aim of the organization is to be a clearing house for bold and visionary projects, facilitating the grant making process for artist and community based collaborations and organizations to make the possible and imagined a reality.$100,0005Learn More
Media 2070 https://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Media_2070_Logo.pngThe Media 2070 project, launched in 2020 as a project of Free Press, calls on media companies, government media and technology policymakers, philanthropy and the broader public to reckon with and repair the historical and ongoing harm our nation’s media system has caused Black people. Our vision is a future where Black people have the capital and power necessary to own and control our own stories, from ideation to production, through to distribution. Media 2070 utilizes narrative, cultural, and advocacy strategies that support the wide promotion of media reparations as a tool for media accountability and Black liberation.$75,0003Learn More
Reframehttps://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Gradient-Horizontal-Gradient-Logo-3.pngWith a deep commitment to racial, gender, climate and economic justice, ReFrame builds the human-centered ecosystem for narrative power that social justice movements and organizations need in order to create lasting change across society.$160,0003Learn More
Represent Justicehttps://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/RepresentJustice-Logo-TealGold-1.jpgThe Represent Justice mission is to turn stories into action by building narrative power within system-impacted communities and mobilizing audiences to transform the legal system.$100,0003Learn More
The Jxn Projecthttps://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/JXN-Black-Logo.jpgThe JXN Project, also known as JXN, is a research-based reparative historic preservation non-profit organization that is dedicated to driving restorative truth telling and redemptive storytelling by capturing the pivotal role of Richmond, Virginia, in particular Jackson Ward, and recontextualizing its origin story as the nation’s first historically registered Black urban neighborhood — which is an often under-told narrative in the evolution of the Black American experience.$100,0005Learn More
Waymakers Collectivehttps://weissbergfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/WaymakersCollective_Primary_Logo-scaled.jpgThe mission of The Waymakers Collective is to advance an Appalachian Futurism rooted in equitable justice, creative cooperation, and sustainable stewardship. We strive to sustain creative practice, land, livelihoods, and dialogue across neighborhoods and disciplines. We envision an Appalachia that supports the joy, imagination, and hopes of our artists, activists, and culture bearers. We sustain community organizations led by Black Indigenous and People of Color, young people, LGBTQ+ folks, non-English speakers, new immigrants, and those unlikely to get mainstream funding.$100,0005Learn More
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Tamara Copeland
Tamara Copeland

(she/her)
Independent Trustee

In 2019, Tamara retired as president of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers where she envisioned and implemented “Putting Racism on the Table”. Currently, she co-facilitates The Onion Dialogues, a racial justice training. In 2018, her memoir, Daughters of the Dream: Eight Girls from Richmond who grew up in the Civil Rights Era was published. Her latest book is REVEALED: A Once a Week Reading on Racism, Prejudice and Bias. She loves walking and traveling, having visited all fifty states and countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.