The Giving Black Podcast
Sade Dozan: Trust Black women. Invest in Black women. Build power.
92% of African American women did not vote for the current US President. Yet Black women are now among those experiencing some of the sharpest economic consequences of the change in administration. During the Biden era, Black women reached historically strong levels of employment. Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, those gains have been eroded, with unemployment among Black women rising sharply and reaching 7.6% in the first quarter of 2026. The impact has been particularly significant in the federal workforce, where Black women have long had a strong presence, and where tens of thousands of Black women have lost their jobs amid widespread federal workforce reductions. Against this backdrop, I sit down with philanthropic advisor and culturist Sadé Dozan, Vice President of Advancement at Borealis Philanthropy and Founder of Melanate , for a provocative Black Philanthropy Month conversation about freedom, power and money. What does freedom look like in our time, and how are we going to finance it? Drawing on Sadé's work through Melanate., we contrast what happens when Black women are expected to withstand political and economic pressure and are also trusted with the capital, authority and resources to determine what comes next. Sadé challenges us to move beyond seeing Black women as beneficiaries of philanthropy or negotiators for resources, and instead recognize them as leaders, investors, decision makers and architects of solutions. Where does our power live? What happens when we invest in our capacity to act on what we already know? And how do we build power that does not depend on permission from institutions? This is a conversation about moving from equity towards equity by investing in ourselves and each other. As Sade states, "Trust Black women. Invest in Black women. Build power." Freedom Was Never Free. It Was Funded!
