• Most organizations do not identify as philanthropic, but rather as grassroots associations, collectives, and community spaces, often built on African worldviews and matriarchal principles.
• 91.5% of leaders in these organizations are Black women, showing the centrality of gender in racial justice organizing.

• Less than 2% of philanthropic resources in Brazil go to racial equity, and less than 1% reaches Black women.
• Many organizations operate with less than $200 USD per year, and often do not have formal legal status (CNPJ) — a technical requirement that blocks access to institutional funding.
• Agbara Fund does not require CNPJ registration for its support, recognizing this barrier as a form of structural exclusion.

• 72% of surveyed organizations said racism is a significant obstacle to fundraising.
• Groups also cited bureaucracy, lack of dialogue with donors, and invisibility within philanthropic networks as key challenges.

• The organizations surveyed work across multiple areas simultaneously — from education and health to human rights, culture, land rights, and food sovereignty.
• Their approach is holistic and intersectional, tackling the complex realities of Black communities often ignored by state and corporate actors.

Traditionally, philanthropy has operated through a top-down approach, where wealthy donors “give back” to marginalized communities — often without truly sharing power or fostering accountability. Reflecting this critique, the Agbara Fund chooses to define itself not merely as a philanthropic entity, but as a fund for economic justice for Black women. This signals a necessary move away from charity-driven models toward one rooted in systemic change and resource redistribution. In this reimagined approach, grassroots organizations must take the lead — not just as recipients of funding, but as strategic actors and decision-makers. Philanthropy, therefore, should no longer be something done to Black women, but something driven by and created in partnership with them.

Black-led organizations are vital to Brazilian democracy, often operating where state presence is absent — yet they are systemically underfunded and excluded from formal philanthropic channels.

Existing philanthropic models often treats Black organizations as beneficiaries rather than protagonists of change. True philanthropy is what grassroots actors are doing on the ground – not just foundation funding from above.

Requirements like CNPJ registration exclude grassroots groups with deep historical legitimacy and impact. The bureaucratic violence and gatekeeping from donor institutions limit black-led organizations, forcing them to alter their methods to fit ‘donor language’. Intersectionality matters. Effective funding must account for the layered realities of race, gender, class, and territory that shape Black women’s organizing in Brazil.

Without inclusive research and methodologies, Black organizations remain invisible in public policy, philanthropic strategy, and national narratives.

Agbara Fund emphasized that transformation begins when funders enter conversations not with judgment or rigidity, but with curiosity and commitment to shared learning. There is a need to encourage the building of organization’s own tables, rather than waiting for inclusion, where it is possible to dream collectively about a just, sustainable and autonomous future.

Researcher with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), an MBA in Project Management from UNIFACS, and currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), focusing on Brazilian youth through an intersectional lens of race, class, and gender.

She serves as Knowledge and Advocacy Manager at Fundo Agbara. Previously, she was a Racial Justice Officer at the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights.

She has extensive experience in monitoring and evaluating social projects, as well as in developing indicator matrices, having collaborated with organizations such as Criola and Motriz.

Her main areas of interest and expertise include qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning) methods, studies on Black and women’s movements, and topics related to philanthropy and social
investment.

Júlia Mota works as Advocacy Specialist at Fundo Agbara, the first Fund for the economic justice of Black women in Brazil, and is part of the 2025–2026 cohort of the Human Rights Advocates Program at Columbia University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy Management from the University of São Paulo and has years of experience in the nonprofit sector, working on projects aimed at strengthening community-based and grassroots organizations.

Her research focuses on the intersections of race, class, and gender, particularly in relation to public policy. She has also worked as a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Observatory of Public Policy Professor Dr. José Renato de Campos Araújo (OIPP). Júlia represents Fundo Agbara in networks such as the Women’s Budget Network and the Network of Afro–Latin American, Afro–Caribbean and Diaspora Women, and she works to strengthen strategic partnerships at both national and international levels, including the annual international forum Black Women Shaping Afrofutures.