Announcing 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate Microgrant Awardees
4.0 is excited to announce the 2023 Angel Syndicate Microgrant awardees! Each awardee received an unrestricted grant of up to $5,000. Collectively $35,000 was awarded through the Angel Syndicate Microgrants.
The Angel Syndicate Microgrant is funded through the collective investments of Black leaders who have joined together to advance their philanthropic journeys in partnership with 4.0 and other allies through the Angel Syndicate Fellowship. These Funders are committed to helping advance the work of diverse education innovators who are addressing equity challenges of families in their communities.
About the Angel Syndicate:
In 2020, inspired by the potential of shifting power and pooling funds to garner influence and address racial inequities in giving, 4.0 launched the Angel Syndicate to further the decentralization and democratization of philanthropy in the philanthropic education ecosystem.
The Angel Syndicate organizes people across the country to see themselves as philanthropists, pool their funds, and fund the future of education together without restrictions. The program pushes participants to reimagine and reclaim philanthropy in order to build a sustainable ecosystem that has a seat at the table for everyone.
Aitalohi Amaize, Administrative Director of OURSPACE WORLD INC
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “This grant is yet another affirmation of our Journeys work providing culturally-centered support to Black families, Black youth, and Black farmers by providing engaging mixed-age, hands-on outdoor educational programming that builds real-world skills of relevance to the future. The funds will be used to support a growing number of Journeys leaders.”
Aiyeshia Hudson-Wong, Founder & Executive Director of Liberation Journeys
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “This grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate will support our efforts to create liberating spaces for Black youth to develop their identity and amplify their voices. We plan to use the funding to expand our student leadership fellowship, which aims to affirm student identity through experiential learning and centering student voice in school policy design. High school students who engage in our cohort learning model develop real-world skills for disrupting institutional racism and inequity.”
Cescily Phillips, Founder & Executive Director of Inspired Aesthetics
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “This grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate will positively impact my organization, Inspired Aesthetics, by providing funding to help us continue to grow and tell our story, in order to best serve our community. We are excited to continue working to keep young people safe by filling the gap in after school programming for teens and leveling the playing field in arts related careers and post secondary paths. This funding will help us to move our programming from pop-ups to pilot, allowing us to run a more authentic pilot that mirrors what our program will look like year round. This will also allow us to capture the work we’re doing throughout the pilot, which will provide opportunities for updated advertising, marketing, and funding requests as we work to continue to grow.”
DeShaunya Ware, Executive Director of Ase Learning Academy
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “As a recipient of 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate, Ase Learning Academy will be able to carve out monthly community programming including classes, training, and workshops to provide parenting classes and support for families around goal setting, identify new anti-oppressive parenting practices, restorative parenting strategies, and develop strong parent-parent and/or parent-child relationships giving families strategies to utilize. We will now also purchase some technology for our STEM centers in 2 of our classrooms. In addition to that, we will be able to pour back into our community by offering part-time and substitute employment and a scholarship for continuing education courses for our current lead teachers. We are grateful for this gift to bring joy to Ase and all of our stakeholders. We are proud to continue our part in creating generational wealth in love, nurturing, care, support, and freedom of mind and spirit. Thank you Angel Syndicate for being part of our start to liberating our community through early education and parenting support.”
Jacob Adams, Founder & Executive Director of STEM to the Future
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “This grant from the 4.0 2023 Angel Syndicate will support STTF redefine what education looks like by creating science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) programs grounded in social justice that puts education in the hands of Black and Brown elementary and middle school students, supporting them to develop solutions to real world problems such as climate change, public safety, and poverty.”
Lora Smothers, Founder & Director of Joy Village School
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “This grant will allow the Joy Village School to finish paying its teachers for the 2022–2023 school year. After a long year of fundraising nearly $300k, it is such a relief to have the 4.0 Angels get us across the finish line! The women that these funds will go to have fully embodied Black excellence, joy, and love for our students. What a privilege that our students have been able to learn from teachers who truly understand them and celebrate them!”
Psacoya Guinn, Founder of TRINITY: Creativity. Community. Reflection.
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “A grant from 4.0 Angel Syndicate will positively impact Trinity in supporting the set up of the organizational infrastructure and supporting our upcoming pilot program.”
Sebastián Martín, Founder & CEO of Cambio Labs
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “Support from community-centered social impact investors, such as the 4.0’s Angel Syndicate powered through the Community Advised Fund, serve as a catalytic force for emerging non-profits like Cambio Labs. At our present phase of growth, this grant signifies more than just monetary assistance — it’s a springboard to harness invaluable feedback from our partners and users to make our platform and curriculum as responsive, culturally relevant, and supportive as possible for rising young social entrepreneurs.As a BIPOC-led nonprofit, the opportunity to connect and evolve with the dynamic social impact community fostered by 4.0 Schools is incredibly encouraging. Their support means that we’re not working in isolation, but rather as part of a collective with a shared commitment to fostering more inclusive social entrepreneurship.”
Shannon Hawkins, Founder & CEO of Leading A(head) Collaborative
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “Our organization is grateful for the 4.0 2023 Angel Syndicate grant, which will allow us to create spaces where educators and caregivers can feel supported, nurtured, and included. With this funding, Leading A(head) Collaborative will launch community wellness workshops that equip educators and caregivers with the skills and knowledge to create healing-centered environments for children at home and in school. By prioritizing the wellness of our stakeholders, we enable them to share joy, liberation, and self-love with the children they care for, while also fostering healthy social-emotional practices in young people. We are excited to make a positive impact with this grant.”
Trey Pratt, Founder & Director of New Voices New Orleans (NVNO)
How will this grant from 4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate impact your organization and the community that you serve?: “4.0’s 2023 Angel Syndicate has truly blessed New Voices New Orleans (NVNO)! With this $2,500 in unrestricted funding, NVNO is well on its way to fulfilling its budget at an additional school site, serving up to 45 new singers in a new community. We are humbled to receive this grant, and will leverage this award to guarantee a new program in our developing portfolio of schools. New Voices New Orleans engages singers in the city’s public charter schools in performances that unlock creativity, embolden self-expression, and empower civic voice. Each program takes singers through weekly rehearsals that result in two distinct concert programs. Our 2023–2024 season is entitled “Roots” with concerts surrounding the 3,000-year and 300-year history of song in New Orleans.”
