Black Visions

Black Visions is a Black liberation organization whose work, events, and programs have been found to create public benefits under internal revenue code 501(c)(3), including relief of the Black poor, distressed and underprivileged, elimination of anti-black prejudice and discrimination, lessening neighborhood tensions in Black communities, as well as combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.black Visions reorganized and restructured in 2023. We also obtained 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the internal revenue service. These organizational developments only occurred after several months of planning, discussion, and dialogue among the Black Visions board of directors, Black Visions staff, and Black Visions members. During our year of reorganization and restructuring, Black Visions terminated both of our co-executive directors following a vote of no confidence in each of them by our entire staff. Their departure from the organization birthed a new organizational structure in which there is no single executive director at Black Visions, but instead, six co-equal department directors who make decisions collectively for the organization by splitting apart the primary functions of one executive director across multiple "expert" directors: the directors of finance, fundraising, human resources, operations, programming, and government affairs.in addition to the reorganization and restructuring that occurred in 2023, our staff redeveloped several workplace policies and procedures pertaining to diversity, inclusion, discrimination, harassment, wages, and other labor conditions. To ensure we had ample time and space for our conversations to reach a consensus, the decision was made by all staff in december 2022 to suspend all external programming in 2023 while we worked focused intensely on organizational development. The only exception to our programmatic hiatus was our year-round membership and leadership development program, which continued to serve the unmet needs of Black lgbtq individuals and their families in Minnesota.