The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation Board of Directors recently convened in Durham, North Carolina, for its quarterly meeting and chose to double down. Grounded in the enduring truth that as the South goes, so goes the nation, the Board of Directors reaffirmed its strategic direction, extended its 11% spending-and-payout commitment through the next five-year horizon, and authorized $7.75 million in grants advancing racial equity and justice.
For more than five years, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation (MRBF) has followed an 11% spending-and-payout strategy, a deliberate choice that enabled us to respond with greater agility during the cascading crises of recent years. In a powerful reaffirmation of our mission, the Board of Directors authorized extending this 11% payout until 2031, a five-year horizon. We are choosing to remain in the fight alongside Grantee Partners and Communities, doubling down on our commitment.
The Board of Directors meeting was anchored in reflections from MRBF’s 2025 end-of-year Grantee Partner convening in Gulf Shores, Alabama, a gathering defined by deep listening, bearing witness, and holding space for healing. The Board of Directors witnessed what has always been true: Southern Communities have long demonstrated the leadership, vision, and capacity that warrant investment proportionate to their impact and ambition. The Board of Directors, MRBF leadership, and team remain steadfast in their commitment to protecting and advancing the racial equity, democracy, and justice that Grantee Partners and Southern Communities have fought for and continue to build upon.
Specifically, MRBF has sharpened its operations and capital deployment. The next strategy will run from 2027–2031, a horizon timed to the 2030 and 2032 census and redistricting cycles and a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the balance of power across the South. To match that moment, the Board of Directors approved a five-year payout of 11%, providing Grantee Partners with the sustained, long-term capital needed to compete and win. MRBF has also refined its infrastructure continuum to support differentiated strategies for power building, from strengthening networks to advancing governing power, ensuring investments meet Grantee Partners where they are while advancing collective impact. MRBF is also recommitting to bi-annual Grantee Partner convenings as essential infrastructure, not supplementary gatherings, but sites of healing and restoration where the relational, spiritual, and communal conditions necessary for liberation can take root and grow.
MRBF’s grantmaking strategy reflects the growth and opportunity it has witnessed across its 11-state Southern footprint. Regional organizations, those building power across state lines, will serve as the core of the five-year investment strategy, doubling down on the connective tissue that links local organizing to Southern-wide power. Multi-year general operating support remains central, with two- and three-year grants giving Grantee Partners the stability and flexibility to do their best work. MRBF will also continue resourcing the Democracy Protection Fund to counter threats to democratic participation and the Crisis Response Fund to meet urgent needs, sustaining Grantee Partners’ ability to mobilize, organize, and protect Communities across community defense, mutual aid, and policy accountability.
We invite philanthropic partners to join us as committed co-investors, resourcing Southern-led organizations at the scale their leadership demands and trusting Communities with flexible, sustained funding equal to the urgency of this moment.
