This is a longer-form email. We invite you to slow down and spend some time with it. We’re reflecting on the full scope of our year…the labor, the redistribution, and the community that made it possible. As you read, you’ll also see where we’re heading next, including our One Thousand Hands initiative, which is about building steady, shared support for Black single mothers. If you can, grab something warm, settle in, and read when you have the space to really be with it. We're grateful that you're here.

 

 

In a lot of ways, this year flew by. And in a lot of ways, it didn’t.

If you live in the United States, you know exactly why. The heaviness of this political moment, the uncertainty, the fractures, the rising need, and the quiet (and not-so-quiet) grief underneath it all. You also know the possibilities that are opening, even if they’re opening slowly, unevenly, or in ways that demand more from all of us.

 

Loving Black Single Mothers sits inside all of that, not outside of it.

 

We do this work alongside you, inside the same conditions you’re navigating. Which is why it feels important to name: it is no small feat that we are still here, still steady, and still doing the work we’re doing. That is a testament to our team, our mamas, our financial partners, our collaborators, and our community who continue to show up…not just with resources, but with heart, with clarity, and with a commitment to something better.

 

So as we close 2025, we felt it was necessary to pause and look back at our year with reverence and gratitude…and yes, with a little bit of awe.

 

We are impressed with what we built together. We’re proud of what we were able to move, create, and hold. And we wanted to share some of the highlights with you, so you can see the impact of your presence, your giving, your solidarity, and your belief in this work.

 

Here is a look at what we created together this year.

 

 

One thing we want to begin with, because it rarely gets named, is the sheer amount of labor it takes to run an organization like Loving Black Single Mothers. People often see the smoothness of our programming, the clarity of our communication, the beauty of the experience, and assume it “just happens.” But nothing in this ecosystem is automatic. Everything is tended to with intention, care, and hours of real work.

 

In 2025 alone, our team spent over 80 hours in meetings, on top of several multi-day in-person work sessions. That’s just the hours we spent together getting clear, making decisions, building systems, troubleshooting, imagining, and aligning. Those 80 hours don’t include the actual work that happens after the meeting ends, which is where most of the labor actually gets done.

 

Behind the scenes, our labor looks like:

This is the labor that financial partners feel when they say our programming is “so intentional,” “so organized,” or “so beautifully held.” This is the labor mamas feel when they say the support was seamless, clear, and human. This is the labor that makes redistribution feel dignified instead of chaotic.

 

And it is labor — real labor. Physical, mental, emotional, political, relational. Labor that historically gets erased, especially when it is done by Black women. We don’t erase it here.

 

We name it because it matters, because it’s what makes this organization work, and because honoring the labor is part of honoring the mothers at the center of our mission. Redistribution doesn’t happen without people. 

 

We concluded the 4th cohort of Holiday Love in February 2025 and facilitated the redistribution of $90K. We also began the 5th cohort in November 2025, which will complete in February 2026. When this 5th cohort concludes in February 2026, this ecosystem alone will have facilitated $410K in redistribution.

 

We wrapped up the inaugural cohort of Forever Flourishing in June 2025. Forever Flourishing is our monthly, year-long program offering direct financial support of $2,500 and wellness grants to Black single mothers. In October, we debuted our first digital artifact (our impact report) detailing the inaugural cohort to a very warm reception.

 

This year, we ran an experiment for Mother’s Day. We invited our community to give a $100 gift directly to a Black single mother as an offering of love, acknowledgment, and solidarity. Our goal was to support 75 mothers through this initiative. With the support of 33 financial partners, we surpassed that goal and supported 90 mamas.

 

When the United States government froze SNAP benefits for millions, many of our mamas were impacted immediately. In response, we launched the SNAP Rapid Response Fund. With the support of our community, we raised $38,000 and moved it directly to mamas during this time of need.

 

We completed the pilot round of the Resource Mobilization Circle, a donor-formation and political-education container supporting white financial partners in practicing redistribution in community. Our pilot cohort was formed by longtime donors and co-conspirators of Loving Black Single Mothers, people who have stood with us, learned with us, and moved money with us over the years.

 

For this first round, we set a collective goal: each participant would raise $1,000, for a total of $12,000. They didn’t just meet the goal. They exceeded it by more than three times. Through their personal networks, political clarity, and willingness to invite others into this work, the cohort called in over $40,000.

 

We’ve been working for years to make this model a core part of our organization, not only as a fundraising strategy, but as a political education container and a direct challenge to the status quo of the nonprofit sector. This pilot showed us that it’s not only possible; it’s powerful. Our next cohort will begin in March 2026

 

The Dreamspace is a space we created a few years ago for Black single mothers to gather, connect, and speak honestly about their experiences. It has always been intended as a place of reflection, story-sharing, and collective grounding. While The Dreamspace has been on hiatus as we focused on other parts of our work, this year we brought it back in the form of a summer study group. We held space for our mamas to read and reflect on Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks — a text that speaks directly to healing, self-recovery, and the emotional lives of Black women. Reopening Dreamspace, even in this smaller seasonal way, reminded us how essential these spaces of connection are, and how deeply our mamas value a place to think, learn, and be in community together.

 

 

This year, our community widened in ways that deeply strengthen the work.

We closed the year by launching one of our most important initiatives to date: One Thousand Hands. We released it on Giving Tuesday with the goal of reaching 1,000 monthly financial partners by the end of Q1 2026.

 

If we reach this goal, it will mean a level of steadiness and sustainability that our organization has never had before. One Thousand Hands is our call for shared responsibility. For a broad, committed community of people who believe that Black single mothers deserve consistent, reliable support all year long, not only during moments of crisis or seasonal giving.

 

This initiative represents a shift from reactive giving to steady, collective care.

 

It is our attempt to build an infrastructure strong enough to support long-term redistribution, wellness grants, rapid response, and the expansion of our programming without relying on scarcity-driven fundraising cycles.

 

We launched 1,000 Hands with a clear hope: that more people will join us in building something durable and liberatory. We’d love it if you added your hand and joined us on this journey.

 

2025 was a year of expansion, stabilization, deepening infrastructure, and powerful redistribution. We strengthened the backbone of this work and widened the community that makes it possible. We head into 2026 clearer than ever that this ecosystem is not just a nonprofit — it is a practice of care, redistribution, community, and shared responsibility.

 

 

 

 

With Love,