August is Black Philanthropy Month, a time to uplift Black-led giving and fund community-driven change. Black LGBTQ+ organizations like Black Alphabet are underfunded year-round. Invest in cultural equity and support our fundraising campaign with AIDS Foundation Chicago today.

August is Black Philanthropy Month, and it has us thinking about where we started. Black Alphabet NFP began in 2013 with a conversation about how rarely Black LGBTQ+ people saw themselves in media. That conversation became the Black Alphabet Film Festival (BAFF)—Chicago’s first Black LGBTQ+ film festival, and the seed of everything we’ve done since. The festival turned out to be a beginning, not the whole thing. In the years since, we’ve used media and the arts to push for social equity:...