Redefining Wealth Beyond Income: How Philanthropy Can Build the Infrastructure for Black Women’s Well-Being

We also have to ask what Black generosity has been forced to hold in the absence of just systems. We must ask what Black women have been building with too little, for too long. And, what it would look like to fund not only our work, but our wellness. Not only our organizations, but our imagination. Not only our response to crisis, but our right to joy.

This understanding prompts a question for me that feels both ancient and urgent: What does it actually mean for Black women to be wealthy?

Not defining wealthy in the narrow way this country so often defines it—as accumulation, status, or proximity to systems that were never designed for our wholeness. But defining wealth as freedom. Wealth as breathing room. Wealth as the ability to rest without fear. Wealth as health, safety, belonging, time, joy, family stability, spiritual grounding, and the power to imagine a future beyond survival.

That does not mean money does not matter. It matters deeply. Financial resources shape whether someone can pay rent, buy food, access care, leave an unsafe situation, start a business, support family, rest, recover, or plan for the future. Money matters because of the conditions it can make possible.

After years of listening to Black women through The Highland Project, we know those conditions matter just as much as the number in a bank account. Across our multi-year polling in collaboration with brilliant corners Research and Strategies, Black women have repeatedly described economic security in ways that extend beyond income: safety, health, care, joy, time, belonging, economic breathing room, and the ability to shape what comes next.

If Black women are telling us that wealth includes time, health, belonging, safety, joy, and the ability to dream, then the philanthropic sector has to ask whether its own definition of investment is too small.