Building collective power through research

As we round out this final full week of #BlackHistoryMonth and head into #WomensHistoryMonth in March, the Joyce Foundation is highlighting the impactful work of some of our grantee partners, and their cultural influence in Chicago and throughout our region. The Black Researchers Collective was founded in 2019 by two highly accomplished Black women professionals, Glenance Green and Shari Runner, who said they were inspired to create the Collective to develop a pipeline of Black women researchers for community empowerment. The Collective is also part of a Joyce initiative designed to facilitate opportunities for people of color that supports our mission of advancing robust research, advocacy and policy making.

Since its founding, the Collective has hosted a “coffee chat” series engaging stakeholders about research and policy, and its Black History Month series has highlighted Black researchers and their work nationwide.

Said Collective co-founder Glenance Green: "We founded the Black Researchers Collective because we believe that we, as a Black community collectively, have everything we need to build, sustain, and make our communities thrive. Our mission is to equip communities with research tools to be more civically engaged and policy informed. In a nutshell, we're building the community's capacity to show up for themselves. We are a fierce collective of Black women who understand the power of research and impact of data on our everyday lives. As a result, it is our desire to unapologetically build a pipeline of Black women leveraging research tools with their empirical experiences to better support their communities. We are highly invested in strengthening the knowledge and skill set of this demographic…for the culture.”