2026 Funding Cycle
Overview of BIPOC Intentional Community Council 2026 Grant
We are excited to announce our BIPOC Intentional Community Council 2026 grant program. The intention of this grant is to support BIPOC Intentional Community member organizations with priority projects or initiatives that are self-determined directly by those Black, Indigenous, People of Color-led (BIPOC-led) communities.
Our mission is to cultivate radically safe and inclusive communities for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color by providing inspiration, solidarity, and support to those seeking to find or found communities, and to those already living in community. We value BIPOC contributions towards collective liberation, healing, and community building, and are committed to combating anti-Blackness and building racial justice within intentional communities.
We have $16,600 total available in our fund to redistribute to chosen applicants.
We will have 2 grants awarded at a $5,000 level and 3 grants awarded at a $2,200 level. Groups have the option to determine what level they apply for based on the scope and capacity of their outlined project and/or their group’s needs.
What is intentional community?
We grieve that when we think of this term “intentional community”, the image that may come to mind may be majority white spaces. Yet, our diverse ancestors of the global majority have always lived in village. We’ve always lived communally, speaking our languages, upholding our roles of aunties and elders, weavers and medicine people. We were in village before those ways were systemically removed from our way of life, before we were targeted for having daily ceremony with the earth, and the colonizer cosmovision did the savagery that they did and continue to do onto our Native lands.
“Intentional communities” have many shapes and formations. They can be residential communities, collectives, land bases, and healing spaces, etc, that embody the values determined from within their community. They can have ancestral tradition rooted in that place, or be made of diverse lineage of peoples reconnecting to land and ancestors. They often explore the intersection of land and housing justice, food and medicine, education and alternative schooling, ecological stewardship, health and healing, spirituality, community governance, etc.
We understand that BIPOC people of the global majority have been systemically removed from lands for many unjust reasons. Given the disproportionate nature of land access by race and other identities, we do not expect our BIPOC intentional community members to have a land base. Often they are working towards this goal, but of more importance to us is that they are a community group holding collective intention that is meeting the needs of their community.
Criteria: Please only apply if your group meets all of these criteria.
- Your project must be BIPOC-led. It must support a BIPOC-led intentional community (BIPOC IC), which means that more than half of the leadership is BIPOC. It must support majority BIPOC folks.
- The use of funds should support priorities identified by your BIPOC Intentional Community. These should be reflective of meeting the needs of your respective communities in these times, and should support the ongoing viability of your BIPOC IC.
- Your BIPOC group/community must be a member of the BIPOC Intentional Community Council. Our intention is to cultivate ongoing relationship building with our network of BIPOC-led Intentional Communities. We strive to deepen ongoing solidarity, analysis, and strategy with each other, weaving as a movement of BIPOC peoples reconnecting to land, remembering how to live in village, share decision-making, collectivize resources, and move through conflict and struggle together.
- If you are not currently a BIPOC ICC member, you will not be eligible for this grant cycle. If you are interested in becoming a member to apply for our next funding cycle, see steps for how to join here.
- Your group does not have to be a 501c3. You can take the formation of a 501c3, fiscally sponsored project, collective, mutual aid group, tribal nation, etc. Your group/project can have for-profit intentions if it is serving the economic stability of BIPOC Intentional Communities in a generative, thoughtful, and non-extractive way.
- This grant is not for individual applications, rather it is for collective processes that are accountable to BIPOC-led and BIPOC-serving communities.
- While the BIPOC ICC is primarily U.S. based, we also have groups outside of the US and are an international network. We welcome applicants from our members anywhere in the world.
Values
In this grant cycle, we are interested in supporting projects that advance the growth and thriving of a BIPOC-led Intentional Community and efforts that strengthen their autonomy, self-sufficiency, and collective stability.
We value groups focusing their projects on topics such as solidarity economy and economic sovereignty that builds up regional networks and divests from dominant genocidal and eco-cidal economies. We value BIPOC Intentional Communities as sites of sanctuary space. This means building up climate resilience infrastructure, food and seed sovereignty, health and medicinal sovereignty, alternative schooling, abolition, land stewardship, etc. We value this work coming into being through investments in infrastructure development, organizational capacity, start-up costs, and other mechanisms towards achieving the above goals.
We value supporting BIPOC Intentional Communities that have struggled with under-resourcing, and projects where the desired funding amount will make a significant impact.
We appreciate when groups and projects have social media or other strategies to spread the word about their work. However we acknowledge that not all groups have this due to capacity or outright choice. We acknowledge the tension of public visibility in these times as it relates to surveillance and repression against BIPOC communities. We will not score groups based exclusively on their virtual appearance.
We value when groups are working tight-knit within their intentional community, yet also weaving collaboratively with the broader community, building trusted partnerships and alliances with other community groups and organizations.
Submission
Please respond to the questions in one of the following forms:
- Filling out the application and answering all questions in written form
- Opening the application form and uploading a maximum 10 minute video that answers the application questions
- Opening the application form and uploading a maximum 10 minute audio recording that answers the application questions
Decision Making Process
Depending on incoming applications, our BIPOC Intentional Community Council Regranting Committee will make decisions for passing the funds out. We uplift that we are offering what we have with the hopes that this funding can support tangible steps towards the success and thriving of BIPOC-led Intentional Community groups/projects.
Our grant review committee is made up of 1 member of the BIPOC Intentional Community Council’s Board of Directors, 1 part-time staff member, 3 BIPOC Intentional Community Council regular members, and 1 BIPOC network member.
Applications will open on Feb 1st, 2026 and close on March 15th, 2026. When applications close, the grant review committee will review the applications based on a developed rubric matrix. The matrix will score applications based on meeting the outlined criteria and aligning with BIPOC ICC values listed above. Awardees will be notified by mid-May 2026! Awardees will have 2 weeks to respond to our communication about receiving the funds.