A VISION
FOR A NEW
MEMPHIS

DONATE NOW

What would it look like for Black creative youth development organizations to receive significant funding without being subject to traditional philanthropic gatekeeping that was designed to exclude them?

Memphis Music Initiative is launching an ambitious fundraising campaign to provide $1 million each to 17 Black- and brown-led and -serving organizations plus additional resources, by raising $25 million by the end of 2025.

THE GOAL

To create a new funding model so that high-impact grassroots organizations are capitalized with a level of funding that allows them to:

Program at scale

Focus on creative practice and impact.

Hire adequately and pay market rates.

Plan for the future.

Have higher risk tolerance and lower fear of failure.

Build financial resilience and establish operating reserves.

Reduce application writing and reporting burden — even with unprecedented investment.

THE PLAN

With $25 million, Memphis Music Initiative can provide:

$17M

Partner Grants

$2M

Incubation and
Responsive
Grantmaking

$3M

Centralized
Operations

$3M

Capacity
Building

$1M each for 17 vetted partner organizations serving Memphis youth of color.

$2M for incubation, emergency, off-ramping, capital projects, and sustained grantmaking.

$3M to MMI as intermediary and central clearinghouse for data collection and reporting.

$3M for scaled capacity-building supports and technical assistance.

WHY WE KNOW
THIS WILL WORK

Organizations can use the funds according to their own needs toward institution and community building, in which:

#1

MMI builds on our proven successful model, scaling up supports to enable partners to attract additional investments.

#2

MMI provides centralized reporting
to funders for data, evaluation, and accountability.

#3

Shared back-end resources result in improved organizational performance, which in turn fuels better data capture, analysis, and reporting on individual organizations as well as the collective ecosystem.

DONATE NOW

THE
PARTNERS

MMI has identified 17 current organizational partners, including MMI, who serve young Memphians in 28 zip codes across Memphis, Shelby County, and the Mid-South.

Thank you for these early commitments of support for 25x25:

ELMA Philanthropies

Target Foundation

DeMarcus Akeem Suggs
Kenyatta Andrews
Anonymous
Ashley Ashby
LaDell Beamon
Joey Beckford
Lawrence Blackwell
Laces Boo
Erin Bowley
Dian Brown
Caitlin Brune
Glenn Caldera
Laura Cantrell
Shannon Casey
Brandy Casséus
emily chew
May Chew
Jennifer Ching
Shannon Dixon
Kate Dowd
John Doyle
Barbara E L'Eplattenier
Sara Espinoza
Debra Farrar-Parkman
Brenda Ford
Charlotte Freeman
CC Gleser
Abigail Guay
Amber Hamilton
Marie Hamilton
Casandra Hammons
Yvonda Higgins
Catherine Hooper
Darren Isom
Rachel Johnson
John & Kay Lang
William Lang
Kathy Lindenmayer
Dee Lofton
Colby McAnally
Victoria Bransford McClendon
Amelita McGrath
Jennifer McGrath
Colleen McLellan
Kerem Munoz
Kath Murray
Leah Nosek
Nicole O'Connor
Cardel Orrin
Aerial Ozuzu
Valerie Peavy
Anne Perry
Jen Prince
Shannon Prince
Jessica Rawlins Smith
Eleanor Savage
Tom Sawyer
Alyce Lee Stansbury
Lucie Thompson
Kamilah Turner
Janet Ware Thompson
Richard Watkins
Lisa Watson
Sherece West
Danita Beck Wickwire
Dwayne Wilson