We continued working alongside partners dedicated to creating equitable schools across the nation, such as Zinn Education Project, African American Policy Forum, Journey for Justice Alliance and their Equity or Else campaign, and Communities for Just Schools Fund. We were able to hire two staff and add an additional steering committee member. Our newest steering committee member, N'Kenge Robertson, was the Early Educator of Color Leadership Award Winner in 2022. We were supported by ninety individuals and received two grants and two honorariums. We continue our focus on youth, with a third of our budget dedicated to them. Using the feature on Open Collective, we sold tickets to an event for the first time and had over 100 people register. We were able to use these donations to cover the honorariums for the panelists who shared their expertise on renewing the radical project of Black education.

We lost the educational materials we had collected over the last four years of working to address educational injustice. We have taken it as an opportunity to collectively build back stronger while taking time to learn and evaluate our safety and security measures. We are committed to building and implementing safety and security protocols that align with our organizational principles and values. This allows us to continue operating as an organization fighting for racial and social justice in schools. 

As part of our annual Week of Action in February, we will soon debut our 2023 T-Shirt design. As an organization, we have decided to further explore fundraising through merch sales, and can’t wait to expand our offerings and continue supporting Black artists of all ages. Next year, we also want to be able to support on-the-ground organizing financially, so we created a fund 100% dedicated to our network doing Black Lives Matter at School advocacy. 

We look forward to expanding our impact, bringing new folks into our work and forming new partnerships with organizations such as the Teaching Artists Guild. We are excited to have people participate in our regular committee meetings, and will continue mapping our network to better support and grow with locals doing BLMAS activism in their communities. We await the growth and building of personal practices inside and outside classrooms as we introduce our Curriculum Resource Guide 2.0 in the beginning of the year...be on the lookout!

Thank you to our contributors; we are grateful for the ongoing support and trust. Thank you, Open Collective Foundation, for the platform; we look forward to utilizing more features OCF offers to move us closer to our vision. 

We envision a nation in which we live in an authentic and conscious relationship with ourselves, each other, and the lands we occupy with the least amount of harm and violence, in which we are unapologetically Black and collectively love and care for one another as extended intergenerational families.