August 17, 2017 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Amid an emboldened white-nationalist presence in American public life, Black Lives Matter is looking for its first development director to raise money for the roughly 40 chapters of the loosely affiliated movement that sprang up in response to police shootings and killings of African-Americans.
The network’s fundraising to date has largely been the result of scattered efforts by individuals associated with the movement, said Prentis Hemphill, director of healing justice for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Support has often come in spontaneously, in response to events, they said. [Editor’s note: Hemphill identifies as gender-nonconforming and uses the personal pronoun “they.”]
“Most of the time we’ve gotten donations when big things happen or when people are feeling compelled about what’s happening in the world,” Hemphill said. “But we haven’t had anyone dedicated, coming up with a plan.”
Black Lives Matter would benefit from a national development director who can craft a strategy for building support for advocacy work across the network, Hemphill said. Details on what that would look like, and on how the network will share the money raised centrally, will need to be worked out by the individual hired in consultation with others in the movement, they added.
The network has not set a specific fundraising goal but hopes the new development chief can bring in millions of dollars, and it may add more fundraising positions in the future, Hemphill said.
The violent white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday lends urgency to the fundraising push, Hemphill said. Nine other far-right demonstrations are set to take place this weekend in cities across the country.
“It just signifies a growing — and really frightening — white-nationalist effort that’s going to try to roll back all the work that local organizers have been doing in those cities and try to scare people from doing their work,” Hemphill said. “Now more than ever, we need folks’ support so that all of our wins don’t get rolled back.”
