Liberation Ventures (LV) is a fiscally sponsored project of PolicyLink that gives grants to nonprofits that promote race-based reparations in the United States. LV primarily focuses on encouraging cultural change but seeks the eventual enactment of reparations policies at the federal level.

Goals

According to Liberation Ventures, the United States has an “ideology of white supremacy” which has recently been expressed by restrictions on voting rights, challenges to affirmative action, and education curriculums that “prohibit students from learning the history of chattel slavery and its legacy, and the magnitude of contributions Black Americans have made to this country since its founding.” ¹

LV claims that numerous “false narratives” in American culture are also hindering racial equity, including “meritocracy,” “the American Dream,” and “racial progress,” as well as “anti-Black, capitalistic, and misogynistic narratives that situate the long Black struggle for reparations as impossible and impractical by painting Black people as undeserving of repair, economic stability, and healthy lives.” ²

To challenge this culture, LV seeks to develop what it calls a “culture of repair” to ready the United States to enact legal racial reparations over a 25-year time frame. The first five-to-ten-year phase consists of increasing fundraising by five to ten times and focusing on local and state policies. The second phase, across the next five-to-ten years, aims to spread the culture of repair and pass the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act (H.R. 40) through the U.S. Congress. Phase three, covering the final two-to-four years, aims for the federal government to pass comprehensive reparations, including a public apology from the U.S. government and plans to close the racial wealth gap. ^{3 4}

Though LV is Black-led and supports other Black-led organizations, LV asserts that non-Black people “must be able to see themselves in the work of repairing the harms of slavery and its legacy.” ⁵

Grants

In 2022, Liberation Ventures made $2.2 million worth of grants to left wing organizations that promote racial reparations. New grant recipients included the Black Veterans Project, the Brownsville Project, Equity and Transformation, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, the Redress Movement, the Reparations Education Project, the Reparations Finance Lab, and Reparations United. Organizations that received grant renewals included the African American Redress Network, FirstRepair, the Legacy Coalition, the National African-American Reparations Coalition, the National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants, and the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. ⁶

LV prioritizes grants to Black-led organizations. ⁷

LV claims to maintain low reporting requirements for grantees to prevent grantees from being excessively dependent upon LV. ⁸

Funding

From its founding in 2020 to March 2023, Liberation Ventures raised about $6 million. ⁹ LV takes donations through PolicyLink. ¹⁰

LV has received funding from the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the Donors of Color Network, the Ford Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence, Humanity United, the JPB Foundation, the Kataly Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, New Media Ventures, New Profit, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundations, PolicyLink, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Stupski Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Threshold Foundation, Threshold Philanthropy, True Ventures, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the William R. Kennan Jr. Charitable Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Women Donors Network. ¹¹

Leadership

Liberation Ventures was co-founded and led by Aria Florant, a board member of Public Allies. ¹² Florant was previously an engagement manager at McKinsey and Company where she consulted clients on “issues related to strategy, organizational design, racial equity, and financial sustainability.” Her work eventually developed into the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility. Earlier, Florant was an education consultant at the Obama Foundation and the San Mateo County Private Defender Program. ^{13 14}

Garrett Neiman is another co-founder of LV and was a partner at the organization until 2021. Neiman was also an associate at McKinsey, and was a co-founder and CEO at CollegeSpring, a nonprofit that promotes college access. Neiman is the author of Rich White Men: What it Takes to Uproot the Old Boy’s Club and Transform America. ^{15 16}

LV’s advisory committee includes Bridgespan Group co-founder Jeff Bradach, New Profit co-founder Vanessa Kirsch, PolicyLink president Michael Mcafee, and Millenium Leadership Initiative executive director John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. ¹⁷

1. “Why a Culture of Repair.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.liberationventures.org/why-a-culture-of-repair/.
2. “Building Narrative Power.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://medium.com/@liberationventures/building-narrative-power-d650c3e045e.
3. “Why a Culture of Repair.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.liberationventures.org/why-a-culture-of-repair/.
4. “Our 25-Year, Three Phase Plan.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://liberation-ventures.onrender.com/Liberation%20Ventures_Long%20term%20strategy.pdf.
5. “Liberation Ventures Organizational Beliefs.” Medium. February 12, 2023. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://medium.com/@liberationventures/liberation-ventures-beliefs-be1f497807ae.
6. “Liberation Ventures Moves $2.2 Million to the Black-led Reparations Movement.” Medium. March 27, 2023. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://medium.com/@liberationventures/liberation-ventures-moves-2-2m-to-the-reparations-movement-28ccfe36aca8.
7. “Liberation Ventures Organizational Beliefs.” Medium. February 12, 2023. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://medium.com/@liberationventures/liberation-ventures-beliefs-be1f497807ae.
8.  “Liberation Ventures Organizational Beliefs.” Medium. February 12, 2023. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://medium.com/@liberationventures/liberation-ventures-beliefs-be1f497807ae.
9. Wolfe, Dawn. “Backed by Diverse Funders, Liberation Ventures Is Pushing for Reparations and a “Culture of Repair.”” Inside Philanthropy. March 3, 2023. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kB4NGJqyFmIJ:https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2023/3/3/backed-by-diverse-funders-liberation-ventures-is-pushing-for-reparations-and-a-culture-of-repair&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.
10. “Donate.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://donate.policylink.org/give/317056/#!/donation/checkout.
11. “Funding Partners.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.liberationventures.org/.
12. “Public Allies Selects Aria Florant, Alumna Class of 2012 and Co-founder of Liberation Ventures, to its National Board of Directors.” PR Newswire. March 3, 2022. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/public-allies-selects-aria-florant-alumna-class-of-2012-and-co-founder-of-liberation-ventures-to-its-national-board-of-directors-301494184.html.
13. “Aria Florant.” LinkedIn. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariaflorant/.
14. “Aria Florant.” Fearless Communicators. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.fearlesscommunicators.com/aria-florant/.
15. Baranowski, Michael. “Garrett Neiman on Rich White Men.” The Politics Guy. June 29, 2023. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://politicsguys.com/garrett-neiman-on-rich-white-men/.
16. “Garrett Neiman.” LinkedIn. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettneiman/.
17. “Advisors and Supporters.” Liberation Ventures. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.liberationventures.org/.