NABC

Welcome to the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities

A catalyst for collective change and wisdom

About us

Network Initiatives

A Perspective on Evaluation
We are at crossroads when it comes to evaluation, its purpose, and how it is used. Before the pandemic and into the recovery phase, evaluation has been largely used to artificially enforce “accountability” and maintain a transactional relationship between funders and non-profit organizations. Demand for “accountability”; expectation to do more with less; and reporting on impacts are phrases that keep leaders of non-profits, including B3s awake at night. These phrases are particularly disempowering in an environment of transactional relationship between funders and non-profits. You might ask, what does this have to do with evaluation? Everything
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A Look at Networks and Mapping
Most of us in the non-profit sector think of networks as groups of people or organizations working towards a common goal: prison reform, educational justice, food sovereignty, housing or equitable health care, to name a few. Often, we envision networks as a series of ‘dots and lines.’ And at the most basic level that is accurate. Yet, behind the dots and lines are people with specific functions to truly make a network transformational. As June Holley contends, most successful networks have four carefully crafted interlocking aspects that support and complement one another: an intentional network, relationship network, action network, and support network.
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Grounding Perspectives for Grant Seeking & Writing
Most non-profits, particularly black-led, black-focused, and black-serving organizations, groups, and networks (B3s) operate in precarious financial positions. Accessing funding and capacity-building supports to sustain their work is a challenge. Many are faced with capacity and system related barriers and increasing demands for accountability and expectation to demonstrate impact.
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Evaluation Capacity Building Pilot
Black-led, Black-focused, and Black-serving (B3) organizations, groups, and networks have not fared well before the pandemic hit, in terms of access to funding and capacity building supports. The pandemic exacerbated the challenges they faced to the extent that many of them struggled to adequately support the Black communities they served. NABC continues to advocate for B3s in the recovery phase and post-pandemic reality for long-term investment to strengthen their capacity to recover from the pandemic and thrive post-pandemic
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Cultivating Change: Advancing Black Community Housing Through Collaboration
In May 2023, the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities (NABC) welcomed Black community housing leaders from across Canada for a retreat on Wasan Island to ignite discussions that speak to the evolution of Black community housing. Historically, systemic racism and discriminatory practices have created significant barriers to safe, affordable, and equitable housing for Black people.
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What We Offer

Long-standing systemic challenges confronting Black Communities cannot be addressed unless we tackle the underlying causes. Through our systems thinking, network impact, and systems change approaches, we provide organizations and leaders with a range of tools to address systemic challenges. 

Learning is at the core of systems change. We provide innovative supports to organizations and groups to strengthen their adaptive capacity to be effective participants and leaders in driving positive outcomes for Black Communities. 

Training, complemented with mentoring, coaching and other learning effectiveness activities, is key to building individual and organizational capacity.  The training we offer through workshops, webinars, etc. is complemented with access to high quality capacity building resources and tools. 

Our evaluative activities, beyond the provision of expertise and advice to organizational leaders, include collaborative efforts to integrate Africentric values in the field of evaluation

Our network brings together organizations, groups, partners, funders and allies to create optimal conditions for collaboration. Through network weaving and convening, and network capacity building activities, we engage in order to address root causes of systemic challenges of Black Communities. 

Our government relations and public policy work aims at advancing the interests of Black Communities in creating transformative relationships with governments and sector allies to address long-standing systemic challenges confronting our communities.

We generate, synthesize and disseminate knowledge that impacts programs, organizational practices and government policies.

We provide service coordination supports under the Enhanced Ontario Black Youth Action Plan to various clusters of Black-led organizations providing various services to children, youth and families.

We work with Black-led organizations, governments, philanthropic and sector allies to design and implement grants that build organizational and collective capacity in Black-led organizations, networks and grassroots. Our grantmaking practices create collaborative opportunities for learning and deepening impact.

News & Events

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Our Impact

“Having led a network of 11 Rwandan Canadian agencies during the pandemic, I can’t imagine what the pandemic would have been like for our members without the Network’s support. 

The Network for the Advancement of Black Communities (NABC)’s support allows our member agencies to deliver much needed COVID-19 Emergency Support, and as we transition into the recovery phase, NABC continues to support our work by offering facilitation programs & services, such as capacity building training, collaborative support, and perhaps more importantly; NABC continues to represent African Canadian community issues at the decision tables, while working to influence policy change in various areas at local, regional and federal levels.”

Kizito Musabimana
Founder & Executive Director of the Rwandan Canadian Healing Centre

Our People

Nafisa Mohamed (She/Her)
Grants and Special Projects Coordinator 

nafisa@nabcnet.ca

Sarah Mekonen (She/Her)
Communications & Digital
Content Coordinator  

sarah@nabcnet.ca

Rosemary Erskine (She/Her)
Senior Coordinator for Organizational Development and Technical Assistance

rosemary@nabcnet.ca

Allan Boesak (He/Him)
Senior Coordinator for Strategic Initiatives

a.boesak@nabcnet.ca

Denise Challenger (She/Her) 
Director of Network Weaving and Communication

denise@nabcnet.ca 

Yonatan Ghebray (He/Him)
Senior Director of Evaluation, Learning and Quality Improvement

yghebray@nabcnet.ca

amanuel melles (He/Him)
Executive Director

a.melles@nabcnet.ca

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