Movement for Black Lives Marks a Decade of Progress: Building Autonomous Infrastructure and Advancing Black Liberation

When Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) approached Common Counsel Foundation (CCF) in the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, they were in urgent need of a new fiscal sponsor. They were looking for a fiscal sponsor that offered sound reporting and could help them build systems that would suit their needs rather than fit them into a system designed for someone else. They were hopeful that CCF could be a values-aligned home due to our deep commitment to racial justice and our work to center, support, and resource movements. CCF moved quickly to provide the backend financial management and administrative support tailored to meet the needs of their membership, which consists of over 100 organizations and groups across the country focused on Black liberation. 

They have since inspired many activists and energized large-scale mobilization efforts across the country that dramatically increased public awareness of systemic racism and police brutality against Black people, shifted public discourse around race, and changed policies at the local and state level. 

CCF is honored to have partnered and contributed to M4BL’s growth and impact, and celebrate their milestone of gaining their 501(c)(3) status to mark their 10-year anniversary. Our partnership has deepened our learning and solidarity as a movement partner. We learned not to automatically apply “off-the-shelf” solutions to the challenges we faced as they grew. Just because a solution wasn’t the traditional way of doing something didn’t mean we should rule it out. We started with what M4BL and CCF’s ideal outcome would be and worked backward from there.

While they are their own independent organization now, our relationship with M4BL will evolve as we will continue to support their grantmaking. We will also continue providing FSP services to Rising Majority, a former M4BL program that builds collective strategy across movements.

In an interview with CCF, M. Adams, Co-Executive Director at the Movement for Black Lives, reflects on the partnership with CCF over the last four years.

M4BL is now its own independent organization in 2025. As M4BL looks back on its FSP journey, what learnings have you gained as you moved towards being a 501c3?

One of the biggest learnings is the relationship between infrastructure and culture as we pursued our own autonomous structure. The practice of being a formation that had little of its own administrative infrastructure to now being an organization that is going to provide for itself and support our member organizations was a process. We learned that we had to take into account the histories of Black folks—like understanding the ways that people have trauma around money—so organizational practices needed to include educating on financial compliance, the ways in which we want to relate to one another in a movement system, and think through how those relationships interacted with human resources and employment law.

As their FSP partner, we also gained experience from adopting CCF’s progressive policies, such as their sabbatical policy. CCF helped us codify our values into our systems and practices. CCF was also flexible with us adding our own policies to go beyond what CCF was already doing, so long as we weren’t violating any employment or labor laws. CCF was flexible with experimentation around how infrastructure needed to work for us.

What were the key milestones or celebrations at M4BL since becoming an FSP?

We’ve been able to do a few key things:

We were able to grow our staff from a team of five to a team of over 50. It was a big thing for us to match our programs with the capacity and infrastructure that was actually needed in the field.

We have also been able to build a stronger connection between our 501(c)(3) work that was happening as an FSP with our 501(c)(4) entity. Our C3 and C4 projects were fairly separate before, but we’ve been able to establish important things, like cost sharing and develop systems that meet the needs of both entities. That has really helped us advance our work in areas such as compliance. When you have a better system that speaks across the M4BL ecosystem, it improves people’s work experience and what we’re able to accomplish.

M4BL’s structure and growth trajectory are very unique. Can you speak to how CCF was able to grow and be nimble with M4BL?

We chose CCF because we really wanted to use the services of a fiscal sponsor that was progressive and values aligned, but also really understood what it meant to be doing that work with a radical Black formation. In addition to CCF’s movement-aligned values, their technical knowledge really allowed us to learn and think through how we’re going to build our own autonomous infrastructure. 

We were a pretty substantial project within CCF. They increased their staffing and other types of capacities to be able to support us and provide even better services for other FSP partners.

We have a reciprocal relationship with CCF and we look to them as a partner. We helped them deepen their work and political understanding of the Black movement—what it means to be in solidarity and provide infrastructure services to Black movement organizations. 

They were also creative in responding to some of our needs. For example, M4BL has been incubating the infrastructure of an organization called Rising Majority as part of our strategy to build a multiracial left that organizes and builds power with other communities. CCF understood the relationship and took us on as one project, but was creative and flexible in terms of how we actually functioned to allow us to operate as two separate projects. In 2024, M4BL and Rising Majority separated our infrastructures. Rising Majority is now fiscally sponsored by CCF. That is an example of one of the good creative ways in which we’ve been able to work and grow together. 

How will M4BL be pivoting or deepening its strategy as it becomes its own 501C3?

M4BL is growing as a multi-entity structure. We will have a family of entities: a C3 that is autonomous, a C4 that will eventually reach autonomy, and then we’ll also have a fund housed at CCF to support our annual member redistribution. One of our principles of practice that’s really important to us is that we redistribute at least 20% of our budget every year to our membership. 

One of the things that M4BL is doing strategically is ensuring we have the right vehicles to execute particular strategies. Having our own autonomous C3 is really going to allow us to scale our grassroots organizing and advocacy work to engage with more members and communities. As a C3, we will also deepen our shared work with our C4 entity—whether that be improving cost sharing systems or creating greater strategies inside of our own autonomous structure.

The other thing that we’re really excited about is creating an infrastructure hub that is going to allow us to actually serve as the back office of these different operations. In our fiscal sponsor relationship with CCF, we learned how important the back office functions and capabilities were. If you do not have the ability to move money in an efficient and compliant way that helps us better execute our strategies in the field, it’s really difficult to have big mobilizations. Those are some of the things that we are going to be able to pursue for our national infrastructure and provide values-aligned infrastructure for our members. 

We chose CCF because we really wanted to use the services of a fiscal sponsor that was progressive and values aligned, but also really understood what it meant to be doing that work with a radical Black formation. In addition to CCF’s movement-aligned values, their technical knowledge really allowed us to learn and think through how we’re going to build our own autonomous infrastructure. 

What is on the horizon for M4BL? 

One of the projects that I want to uplift is that in 2025, we are going to do an ambitious update to our policy agenda, which is called the Vision for Black Lives, that will involve our full ecosystem. We’re heading into an even more hostile administration towards Black people, so we need a clear vision on what exactly we are trying to accomplish. As movement scientists, we believe that if we’re not clear about what we’re fighting for, we’re not going to win. This is our response to the opposition’s Project 2025. We need to lift up the vision of the kind of society we want. 

M4BL turns 10 in 2025, so we’ll be having some celebratory activities over the next year that we’re excited about. We’re also going to be doing strategic planning, which is really important right now because of the terrain and big shifts that are coming. We want to ensure that our next 10 years are going to help us build power and see material changes in people’s lives. 

What brings you joy and sustains your work at M4BL?

When we have a sobering assessment about what we’re up against, especially with the new administration, what brings me joy is M4BL’s effectiveness in moving closer to Black liberation. The feeling that what I actually do matters toward getting us closer to that vision brings me a lot of joy and excitement. It’s re-energizing for me to be part of a group of folks who are very rigorous and serious about advancing our communities and building power, but also doing it with an air of levity that invites humor, culture, and celebration. I think that combination of elements together is very buoyant and joyful. 

To learn more or stay updated about Movement for Black Lives, please visit https://m4bl.org/.