Shifting Our Mindset from Scarcity to Liberation: A Call to Action for National Black Business Month
Co-Authored by: Marlissa Hudson, CEO of English Hudson Consulting & Founder of The 25 Initiative, and Monica Mitchell, Chief of Staff of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
From Scarcity to Liberation
As two Black women working at the intersection of racial equity, strategy, and systems change, we’ve seen firsthand how easy it is to talk the language of justice — and how much harder it is to fund it. Racial equity work is being tested. We’ve witnessed the retreat — of language, of dollars, and of commitment. Yet we also see opportunity: to move from performance to practice, from scarcity to strategy, from broken systems to liberated infrastructure. This is both a reflection and a call to action — to stop investing in what’s failing us and to start resourcing what can sustain us.
We’re in a moment of national contraction. Diversity initiatives are being dismantled. Equity-focused language is vanishing from websites, grant applications, and strategic plans. Government contracts and grants have been abruptly ended. Philanthropy, in many cases, is pausing under the banner of “strategy-setting,” assessing the impact on grantees and weighing legal considerations for its own interests. Nonprofit organizations, especially those serving Black communities, are being forced to do more with less — again. Black-led nonprofits, in particular, are grappling with the tension between staying aligned with their values and staying fundable in a climate that treats equity work as controversial. Meanwhile, in the social impact space, under mounting political pressure, budget cuts, and public backlash, we’re seeing backsliding from many of the same organizations that were quick to adopt the language of racial equity in 2020 — just five years ago.
Rather than viewing this as a moment of collapse, we see it as a moment of clarity. For decades, we’ve navigated systems that exclude, underfund, and fail to protect us. So why hold on to institutions never meant for our liberation? At the core is a powerful question: What if this feeling of scarcity isn’t a cue to retreat, but a call to reimagine and rebuild?
What’s undeniable is this: even as the language comes under fire, the urgency only deepens. Our communities continue to face disinvestment, economic exclusion, and extraction — and the need for bold, liberatory alternatives has never been greater.
Austerity doesn’t have to mean absence. It can mean alignment. If the language of equity is under attack, let our practices speak louder; if the usual funding streams are drying up, let us redirect our capital and creativity toward ecosystems that center community, not compliance. Because this moment, difficult as it is, is also a doorway — a chance not merely to survive within inherited systems, but to build new ones grounded in values, rooted in justice, and funded by intention. Instead of mourning what’s being dismantled, it’s time to stop relying on structures never meant to sustain us, and double down — not just on the language, but on the practice of building power and resources within the communities we serve.
Liberation Economics: A Strategy for Survival and Power
At its core, a Liberation Economy is about more than fair pay or equitable representation. It’s about creating the conditions where Black communities can thrive on our own terms — where capital doesn’t just touch our neighborhoods but stays, circulates, and builds power.
Despite the promise of this vision, many organizations doing vital work in Black communities still default to the same vendors, consultants, and service providers they’ve always used — often because it feels familiar or convenient. When those providers are never Black-owned, we end up reproducing the very disparities we’re working to disrupt. When we ignore who gets paid, we ignore where power lives.
Due to historic disinvestment and persistent racial bias in lending, contracting, and employment, dollars that enter Black communities often don’t stay long enough to fuel sustained growth. When capital flows out quickly—rather than circulating through local Black-owned businesses and institutions—so do opportunities for job creation, business growth, and generational wealth. This isn’t just a moral issue—it’s a structural crisis with accelerating consequences: Today, the median Black household holds just one-eighth the wealth of the median white household, and without intentional reinvestment and systemic transformation, Black household wealth is projected to fall to zero by 2053, according to research from Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies.
Real transformation means asking hard questions about where our money goes and making intentional choices to keep more of it circulating in the communities we say we serve. That’s not politics — it’s best practice. And it’s something every organization can start doing today.
One of the most effective ways to begin is by directing spending toward Black-owned vendors and community-rooted businesses. When organizations make this shift, three powerful things happen:
Immediate Impact: Every dollar spent with a Black vendor is an investment in local reinvestment. These vendors often live in and give back to the communities your organization serves. Many become donors, advocates, or collaborators — not out of obligation, but because they see shared purpose.
Mission Alignment: When our procurement choices reflect our equity commitments, we close the integrity gap between what we say and what we do. We stop outsourcing excellence and start building ecosystems that embody our values.
Economic Return: Local investment begets local strength. Black businesses hire from their communities. They create internship pipelines, train future leaders, and stabilize neighborhoods. That’s not just immediate impact — it’s systemic transformation.
The urgency of these shifts cannot be overstated. Consider the numbers: Of the $12.6 billion in recent federal spending cuts, only one percent affected Black businesses, because Black businesses only accounted for one percent of the pie to begin with. The problem isn’t that we lost too much — it’s that we were never equitably included in the first place.
A Liberation Economy is poised to correct that — not just through rhetoric but through receipts, strategy, and spending. If we want to build lasting change, our budgets must become blueprints for the world we’re trying to create.
Putting Liberation into Practice: Steps to Shift Your Spend
At English Hudson, when we talk to clients about aligning spending with values, the question isn’t “Where do we start?” because most organizations are already spending. The real question is: “How do we expand who we work with, without sacrificing quality, accountability, or time?”
That’s why we don’t just advise clients to shift their spending — we model it. In collaboration with The 25 Initiative, we’ve committed to directing at least 25 percent of our firm’s annual spend to Black women-owned businesses. That includes everything from facilitation and design to research, catering, and strategy support. These partners aren’t just values-aligned — they’re top-tier professionals who deliver exceptional work with deep cultural insight. Through this commitment, we’ve built a trusted ecosystem of collaborators who now bring us into new opportunities, refer other partners, and expand the reach of our work.
Every organization — no matter its size — can begin making moves like this. It starts with a few practical steps:
Audit your current spending: Pull the last 12 months of payments to vendors, consultants, and contractors. Who are your top ten? Where are they located? Who owns them? Are any of them from the communities your work is designed to support? You don’t need a perfect picture — you just need a clearer one.
Set a baseline goal: We encourage clients to commit to shifting just 10 percent of their organizational spend to Black-owned businesses over the next year. That might be one catering order, one training vendor, or one design contract. Every intentional dollar strengthens the same communities that strengthen your mission.
Talk about it: Report your progress publicly. Share the names of vendors you’ve worked with and loved. Celebrate their excellence. When we normalize transparency around spending, we normalize accountability — and we build the muscle of trust.
Use available tools and networks: There are plenty of resources to help. Directories like Buy From a Black Woman, BuyBlack.org, By Black, and Facebook communities like the Black-Owned Business Collective are great places to start. Even better, ask your team, donors, and community for recommendations. There’s no shortage of talent — just a shortage of proximity. And these conversations also serve as critical cultivation for future donations and investments.
We’ve experienced firsthand how these shifts ripple outward. One example: a Black woman vendor partner, initially hired for a small design project, became a strategic collaborator and vocal advocate for our work, introducing us to new clients and increasing our reach. That’s what happens when people feel trusted, paid fairly, and treated as more than a checkbox. They don’t just deliver — they build with you.
If your organization is serious about equity — even if cautious about the language right now — this is one of the clearest ways to act. You don’t even have to call it a justice strategy; just call it what it is: good practice, sound infrastructure, and long-overdue alignment.
Where you spend matters, and how you build your vendor ecosystem can reflect your values — or become a missed opportunity to live them.
Building the Table, Not Just Fighting for a Seat
Having spent years navigating this ecosystem, we’ve witnessed the power of organizations aligning their values with their spending: trust deepens, networks expand, and Black communities don’t just get served — they get paid.
The shift we’re talking about isn’t charity — it’s strategy, survival, and solidarity. If we want institutions that last, we can’t solely shift narratives — we have to shift dollars. Because when we zoom out from the noise of policy rollbacks, philanthropy retrenchment, and language under attack, we see just how high the stakes have become. We’re in a window where imagination is not optional. If we want our communities to thrive beyond this fiscal year, we have to stop centering compliance and start investing in conditions for collective freedom. That means capital that moves with intention, local control, and unapologetic redistribution — not in theory but in practice.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: where you spend matters. But we’re not just asking organizations to spend differently; we’re inviting them to build differently — toward a future where our people don’t have to perform or plead to belong.
To us, this future looks like:
A philanthropic sector that funds abundance, not just emergencies.
Black women securing contracts without needing to code-switch.
Community-rooted organizations having the resources to pay their employees fairly and offer family-sustaining benefits.
Budgets that prioritize healing, rest, and ownership — not just optics and outputs.
Neighborhoods where community-led organizations own the buildings in which they operate.
Procurement policies that favor those closest to both the problem and the solution.
Money that circulates because we trust each other enough to keep it moving.