The Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice (SRBWI) grew out of a meeting convened by the Ford Foundation in New York, in late 2000. A small group of women met there to discuss with representatives of the Foundation, their experiences working in the rural South assisting low income, low skill and underemployed Black women who were trying to improve the quality of their and their families’ lives. In January, 2002 a slightly larger group of women held a follow-up meeting which led to the formation of the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice which works in a 77 county target area across the Black Belt regions of Alabama and Southwest Georgia, and the Delta in Mississippi.

 Over the last 10 years, SRBWI has received funding and support from the following:

• Ford Foundation
• Marguerite Casey Foundation
• Kellogg Foundation
• Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
• Aid to Artisans
• Center for Social Inclusion
• Charles and Mary Grant Foundation
• Georgia Humanities Council
• MS Foundation
• National Trust for Historic Preservation
• Open Society Institute
• Southern Partners
• Samuel Rubin Foundation
• Southern Partners Fund
• USDA Rural Development
• USDA NRCS