Movement for Black Lives Action Fund

Background

The Movement for Black Lives Action Fund (M4BL Action) is the lobbying and electoral advocacy arm of Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition of more than 50 left-of-center advocacy organizations associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. ²

M4BL Action was founded in 2014 as the electoral advocacy arm of the MBL’s Electoral Justice Project, which advocated left-of-center policies towards criminal justice, electoral systems, and reparations for slavery. ^{1  3} By 2020, M4BL Action’s expanded its scope towards political and electoral advocacy for all M4BL initiatives. ¹

Advocacy

The Movement for Black Lives Action Fund (M4BL Action) advocacy efforts are based on the policy platform of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). ⁴ This includes left-of-center policy proposals such as “an end to all jails, prisons, and immigration detention,” ending cash bail, opposing the death penalty, raising the age of adulthood for criminal charges to 23 years old, removing police from schools, decreasing the scale of activities by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security, free federally funded lawyers for immigrants, expanding access to abortion, federally-funded transgender care “from birth,” and a universal taxpayer-funded health care system.  ⁴

M4BL Action supports the creation of a federal “Division of Community Safety” within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that would replace traditional criminal justice systems with an “inclusive, holistic, and health-centered approach to public safety.” ⁵

M4BL Action advocates ending the Electoral College and “transform[ing] this country’s electoral process.” ⁶

M4BL Action has worked with similar left-of-center groups including Seed the Vote, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), Community Change, State Voices, Color of Change, and the Black Voters Matter Fund.  ⁶

Anti-Israel Activism

The Movement for Black Lives Action Fund (M4BL Action ) has promoted anti-Israel and Palestinian-nationalist views, such as supporting an arms embargo against the State of Israel and ending all U.S funding to the country.  ⁶

During the 2024 election cycle, M4BL Action worked with the Uncommitted National Movement to encourage voters in Democratic Party presidential primaries to support pro-Palestinian views. ^{7  8}

Activism

The Movement for Black Lives Action Fund (M4BL Action) has worked with left-of-center organizations that support the campaigns of Democratic Party candidates as well as candidates from other left-wing parties such as the Working Families Party (WFP). ^{1  9  6}

As of December 2025, its website read, “In the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections, M4BL member organizations are preparing for 2023 local elections and gearing up to contest for power in 2024.” ¹

The M4BL Action Fund took part in the “All Roads Lead to the South” voting rights rally in Montgomery, Alabama, in May 2026 following the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision concerning the Voting Rights Act. The rally drew thousands of participants and was organized by a coalition of national and local civic engagement organizations opposing new redistricting efforts in several Republican-led states. Rukia Lumumba, identified as director of both the M4BL Action Fund and the Mississippi VRA Rapid Response Coalition, addressed attendees and called for efforts to “build a democracy worthy of the people who bled to create it in the first place.” ¹⁰

Black November

During the 2020 election cycle, the Movement for Black Lives Action Fund organized “Black November,” in which it endorsed candidates and ballot initiatives in the states of Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. ⁹

The group released voter guides that endorsed state ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana use, increasing wind and solar electrical generation quotas, raising taxes on high-income individuals, adopting rent controls, increasing government-funded housing, restoring voting rights for felons, adopting same-day voter registration, increasing the minimum wage, increasing gas taxes, and increasing lobbying regulations.  ⁹

Funding

As a fiscally sponsored project of Tides Advocacy (The Advocacy Fund), the Movement for Black Lives Action Fund (M4BL Action) does not file its own annual reports with the Internal Revenue Service, and Tides Advocacy is not required to break out the Action Fund’s finances from its overall budget, which was $93,194,026 in 2024. ¹¹

The left-of-center Resource Generation’s Resource Generation Action affiliate has assisted M4BL Action in fundraising through its “Giving Pledge.”  ¹²