Samwise Nonprofits and Charities Newsletter
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Black Faith-Based Nonprofits Return Stolen Land Through Community Trusts in the Rural South
Nonprofit Quarterly reports Black faith-based nonprofits and community land trusts are returning land to Black families in the rural South. In Selma, Alabama, the Black Belt Community Foundation, led by Christopher Spencer, worked with the Selma Housing Authority and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America to build homes for 14 women federally classified as homeless, in a community destroyed by a tornado in 2023. The foundation’s 2025 annual report lists 141 grants to 126 organizations totaling $344,447 across 12 counties. Kavon Ward, founder of Where Is My Land, said Black people owned about 15 million acres at the beginning of the 20th century; 90 percent was gone by its end.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Preeclampsia Foundation Paddle Out in Santa Cruz Raises Awareness of Pregnancy Complication
Dozens of surfers, many of them mothers, gathered at Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz for a Paddle Out event hosted by registered nurse and three-time preeclampsia survivor Chelsea Woody in partnership with the Preeclampsia Foundation. Participants formed a circle in the water and released pink flowers into the ocean for those affected by preeclampsia, a life-threatening hypertensive disorder that occurs in 5 to 8 percent of US pregnancies and is a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. Woody, who founded the W.E. P.U.S.H. campaign to build awareness of warning signs, hopes to bring the Paddle Out to other cities.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
NPQ Analysis Challenges the Power of Wealthy Donors to Define Social Good
In an analysis for Nonprofit Quarterly, India-based research and fundraising professional Arpita Biradar questions whether the nonprofit sector’s goals should be dictated by individuals who acquired wealth from markets and businesses. Biradar writes that a new wave of philanthropists is assuming an operational role, producing social goals rather than just consuming them, and applying corporate metrics such as ROI and KPIs that can be mistaken for impact. She cites an India nonprofit sector report in which 83 percent of micro-organizations and 66 percent of small organizations report a deficit, while new-age philanthropists reroute wealth through operational foundations positioned as implementing agencies rather than grant-making foundations.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Project South Director Links Repression in the US South and Global South
Nonprofit Quarterly published an interview with Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director for Project South, on why repression in the US South and the Global South are interconnected. Shahshahani, an Atlanta-based human rights attorney, argues that US militarism abroad cannot be separated from government repression of Black, brown, and Muslim communities in the US South. She points to Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center, one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the country, where 14 known deaths have occurred, at least four by suicide. Project South runs delegations and a quarterly webinar series connecting organizers in the US South with counterparts in the Global South.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
NPQ Series Traces How the Mothers of Soacha Turned Grief into Political Action
Nonprofit Quarterly published the first installment of “Searching Mothers: The Untold Story of Latin American Resistance,” a three-part series by Colombian lawyers Xilene Margarita Díaz Palacio and Carolina Lozano Martínez. The essay examines how the Mothers of Soacha turned private grief into political action after their sons were killed in Colombia’s “false positives” scandal, in which military forces murdered marginalized civilian youths and falsely presented them as combat casualties to fulfill performance quotas. Colombia’s National Center for Historical Memory documents at least 282,879 lives claimed by the armed conflict since 1944. The authors describe the movement as a “politicization of grief” carrying mourning into plazas, Congress, and the courts.
Sources: Nonprofit Quarterly Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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