Dear Friends and Colleagues,

If you’re like me, you’re still making sense of this tumultuous season. Perhaps you’re reading post-election think pieces about what went wrong and where we go from here. Maybe you’re turning to the books and art that shaped your political consciousness—seeking lessons from the past to help you understand and confront our present challenges. Or maybe, along with many Black women, you’re taking time to grieve, rest, and tend to your community.

At Frontline, we’ve found solace and strength in the understanding that our work is rooted in a rich legacy of Black institutions.

For centuries, Black people have been foundational to holding the United States accountable to its stated ideals of freedom, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all. For just as long, we’ve built communities and organizations to advance rebellion, resistance, joy, and care. Even when it was illegal for enslaved Black folks to gather, they organized underground dances where they invented new art forms and practiced liberation. Religious organizations fundraised for secret schools where children learned to read and write, and adults nurtured a shared political consciousness.

From these seeds grew movements and institutions—from abolitionism to Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter. From freedom schools to HBCUs. From the NAACP to today’s vibrant, Black-led philanthropic, nonprofit, and social impact research ecosystem. From the nightclubs of the Harlem Renaissance to Motown and Def Jam. From the National Domestic Workers Union to the National Black Farmers Association. From Black Wall Street to financial innovation firms like Runway and the Fearless Fund.

As Frontline approaches its 20th Anniversary in 2025, our team has been actively reflecting on this legacy and how it will continue to shape our future. One thing we know for sure is that we must remain unflagging in our commitment to our North Star of justice and liberation. This commitment has guided us throughout our journey.

Since 2005, we’ve grown from a small and scrappy firm founded to ensure an equitable recovery in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina into an institution, helping some of the world’s most impactful social change organizations to learn, imagine, and implement their boldest visions.

For example, this year, we partnered with the Solutions Project to conduct a scan and analysis of the impact of its climate justice field-building ecosystem approach. We helped Grantmakers for Effective Organizations develop its new strategic plan for transforming philanthropic culture and practice in the service of nonprofits and communities. And we expanded our partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a third cohort of organizations doing on-the-ground work to remove structural barriers and accelerate economic mobility for communities of color.

We’re proud of our accomplishments this year and over the past two decades. At the same time, we’re acutely aware that social impact organizations are experiencing heightened pressure, stakes, and attacks. The coordinated movement to dismantle racial justice efforts nationwide has grown. Yet, we’ve watched many folks and organizations in our network confront these attacks with brilliance, moral clarity, creativity, and determination, refusing to become distracted from their missions. These folks also remind us that we have always made a way out of no way.

So, as you make sense of this moment, the Frontline team wants you to know that we see you, we’re here for you, and we’re deeply grateful for your work and partnership. May 2025 be a year in which we care for ourselves and one another. We’re excited to support you as you stay the course and keep up the good fight.

I know you’ll likely receive many end-of-year messages, but if you’re looking to close out 2024 with some inspiration for what’s possible when we work in community, check out a few of the projects that energized us this year.

Melissa DeShields

CEO

Check out our end-of-year highlights for more about the projects that energized us, our incredible staff, and the research we contributed to the field.