2025 GrantS AwardEd,

Review Process, & Resources

Congratulations to The 2025 GRant Awardees!

We’re delighted to award funding to eight outstanding, descendant‑led projects that exemplify creative storytelling, community engagement, and historic preservation across Black settlements.

These selected projects span California, Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, and Nova Scotia, Canada, reflecting the geographic breadth and cultural richness of Black placemaking traditions. Thank you to all applicants—your creativity and commitment are truly inspiring.

  • Project Title: Lineages of Kinship: Kinkeeping as Place Preservation

    Project Location: Los Angeles, California

  • Project Title: Revitalizing the Legacy: Empowering Black Communities through Disability Advocacy and Historic Preservation

    Location: Zachary, Louisiana 

  • Project Title: Preservation First, Weymouth Falls Forever 

    Location: Nova Scotia, Canada  

  • Project Title: Rise

    Location: Austin, Texas

  • Project Title: The PECAN Project (Preserving Essential Cultural Archives and Narratives) 

    Location: East Texas

  • Project Title: Preserving Sacred Spaces of the Contraband in Public Memory 

    Location: Hampton, Virginia

  • Project Title: Land, Legacy, and Spirit: Reconnecting to Pleasant Springs 

    Location: Pleasant Springs, Texas and Richmond, California

  • Project Title: Reviving Roots: A Community Redemption 

    Location: El Centro, California

Acknowledgement and Transparency

Thank you for applying to the 2025 Out(sider) Preservation Initiative grant. We were humbled and inspired by the incredible range of descendant-led projects submitted—so many, in fact, that the volume exceeded our expectations and underscored just how vital this work is. We deeply appreciate the dedication and vision that went into every application. Grant writing requires tremendous effort, and we’re committed to honoring that work by sharing as much transparency as possible about our review process and final decisions.

Unfortunately, we could only fund a percentage of proposals after an extremely competitive review process. While we cannot support every outstanding idea, we deeply value your vision and the potential of your work.

To offer further transparency, here’s an overview of how proposals were reviewed and considered:

  • Applications Received: 166 submissions for the 2025 OPI grant cycle

  • Finalists Reviewed: 64 proposals, each reviewed by at least three evaluators

  • Diverse Review Panel: One-third descendants of historic Black settlement communities

  • Rubric Development: Informed by feedback from past Mellon awardees and experienced grantmakers

This process ensured a fair, rigorous, and community-centered evaluation of every application.

Below, you’ll find a resource guide with additional funding opportunities to help you continue advancing your important work.

Resources & Funding

For a curated list of additional funding sources and support opportunities, please download our OPI Resource & Funding Guide (PDF).

Out(sider) Preservation Initiative as a Research Study

The Out(sider) Preservation Initiative will ask descendants of Black settlement founders, applicants for artist grants, students in courses, and portal contributors to answer these questions during all activities:  

  • How do we best tell freedom colony stories? What is my freedom colony's story, and how does it relate to my core story?  

  • What are the traditions, spaces, and rituals that sustain connections to your freedom colony, and how can they catalyze return and recommitment?  

  • What would I like the future of my freedom colony to be?  

Your application was never collected for ideas, but rather, your shared consent helps us understand real-world strategies, challenges, and aspirations.

By documenting and analyzing this collective body of work, we aim to: 

  • Identify the most effective digital and artistic methods for sharing place-based stories back to descendant communities. 

  • Surface best practices and common barriers so that funders, cultural organizations, and policymakers can better support grassroots preservation efforts. 

  • Foster networks of peers and mentors that turn individual projects into sustained, intergenerational communities of practice. 

In short, your submission contributed both to making direct funding decisions and to shaping a research-driven model for how descendant-led work can thrive. We remain committed to honoring every idea you shared and to translating our findings into tangible resources, programs, and partnerships that uplift and empower Black settlement preservation for years to come. 

Why Strong Applications May Not Be Funded 

  • Limited Budget & Portfolio Balance: We must distribute a finite pool of resources across different regions, project types, and scales. 

  • Funding Thresholds & Scoring: Even high-quality proposals may fall just below our numerical cutoffs after staff and board scoring. 

  • Geographic & Thematic Priorities: We aimed to ensure diverse representation from Nova Scotia, and the East, West, and the Gulf Coasts to include a mix of storytelling, tech, and event-based projects. 

  • Program Fit: Some applications, while strong, may not align closely enough with OPI’s specific goals (e.g., diaspora return, descendant-led leadership, focus on designated locations). 

  • Technical Capacity & Readiness: Projects needed sustainable plans and demonstrated ability to execute; those requiring substantial preliminary development may be deferred. 

  • Duplication of Effort: Proposals too similar to already funded initiatives can be held for future rounds to avoid overlap and to broaden our impact. 

Our University of Virginia research identification number is UVA IRB-SBS # 5460.

previous Grant call

Our last grant opportunity closed on January 17, 2025.

You can review the full Grant Call details and eligibility requirements here.