WEALTH WORK IS MOVEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE
Freedom Was
Never Free.
It Was Funded.
Melanate. strengthens the people, practices, and narratives that move resources toward liberation. We treat wealth and fundraising not as transactions—but as movement infrastructure shaped by history, power, and responsibility.
What We're Building
Melanate. builds the conditions for movements to move resources with clarity, care, and staying power. Our work sits beneath campaigns and beyond cycles—strengthening the narrative, relational, and strategic infrastructure that shapes how wealth moves over time and how communities experience stability.
We prioritize leaders most proximate to economic and political instability—rooted in Black women’s resource leadership—and design infrastructure that strengthens the broader ecosystem over time. By centering those who have historically carried movement work without proportional access to capital or institutional reinforcement, we generate insight that strengthens the entire field.
Rather than offering quick fixes or one-size solutions, we focus on what movements need to endure: aligned leadership, shared language, and institutions and ecosystems capable of holding power without collapse.
Narrative Infrastructure
The language, frameworks, and cultural analysis that shape how wealth, responsibility, and power are understood—so funding decisions are grounded in history, accountability, and long-term impact rather than urgency or optics. This is where economic narratives are rewritten at their root.
Resource Leadership Pipelines
Structured pathways that strengthen the individuals who steward capital, relationships, and strategy—building technical skill, leadership endurance, and collective wellbeing so institutions remain stable and communities experience durable investment rather than leadership churn.
Ecosystem Durability
Long-term relational, institutional, and financial systems that help movements withstand pressure, circulate capital equitably, and grow power across generations—beyond short funding cycles or surface-level wins.
Why We Exist
Money has always shaped the arc of freedom:
Who holds it; who controls it; and who bears the cost when it’s absent.
Resource work is not back-office labor; it is frontline strategy, deserving of rigor, care, and long-term investment.
We begin with the leaders who steward capital and relationships: building the narrative, relational, and strategic infrastructure movements need to endure, grow power, and reshape the pathways through which wealth moves.
How We Hold the Work
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Wealth work as movement infrastructure
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Black women’s leadership and historical memory
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Narrative power as cultural strategy
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Durability over urgency
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Accountability to community
These commitments shape how Melanate. builds partnerships, makes decisions, and moves resources in service of collective liberation.
ROOTED IN AFRICAN-DIASPORA AND TAÍNO LINEAGE .
FOUNDED TO FORTIFY THE ARCHITECTURE THAT HOLDS MEMORY AND STABILIZES HOW WEALTH MOVES.
The Work in Motion
Melanate.’s work spans the United States—supporting leaders who steward capital, shape institutions, and influence how resources circulate across movements.
Our national heat map reflects where leadership density and ecosystem durability are taking shape. Color markers indicate the depth of our presence in the following regions:
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Deep Roots: sustained, multi-year leadership pipelines and long-term institutional partnerships.
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Growing Footprints: repeat participation and expanding engagement, increasing regional capital influence.
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Emerging Interest: early partnerships forming and resource leadership infrastructure in development.
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Future Expansion: areas not yet active but primed for partnership, where additional investment would catalyze leadership development and ecosystem growth.
CREDENTIALING COHORT + LEADERSHIP PIPELINE
CERTIFIED FREED
Certified FREed builds the credentialed leadership pipeline of Black women and femmes in resource roles through CFRE attainment, collective strategy, and ecosystem support. The program expands visibility, earning power, and influence—ensuring those closest to impact are equipped to steward capital with authority and longevity.
CONVENING + CULTURAL PRACTICE
COA DINNERS
Coas convene Black women in wealth and resource leadership for intimate, intergenerational dialogue. These dinners function as collective care, strategic exchange, and qualitative field intelligence—generating the insights that anchor Melanate.’s Framework and guide our measurement and learning process
RESEARCH + LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT + APPLICATION
PRAXIS LAB
The Praxis Lab is Melanate.’s research and experimentation space — where fundraising practice, narrative strategy, and movement needs meet in real time. Grounded in Black women’s leadership and designed for the broader field, the Lab strengthens equitable, values-aligned institutions.
CULTURAL ARCHIVE + STORYTELLING
SANKOFA IMPRINT
Sankofa Imprint is a digital storytelling and archival justice initiative honoring Black women’s legacy in fundraising and wealth movement work—while inviting the broader field into a deeper understanding of memory, belonging, and how narrative shapes the future of philanthropy.
OUR STORY
Melanate. emerged from a recognition that movements cannot survive without strong, values-aligned resource strategies—and that the leaders stewarding capital flows shape the economic and civic health of communities.
When resource leadership is unsupported, institutions fracture, capital concentrates, and burnout becomes structural. When it is strengthened, capital circulates more equitably, institutions stabilize, and communities experience greater economic and social durability.
Melanate. was built to bridge capital and community.
Founded by Sadé Dozan in 2023, the initiative grew from years at the intersection of fundraising, movement building, and philanthropy—where she witnessed firsthand how the people responsible for moving capital were rarely treated as infrastructure. What began as a response to isolation and extraction experienced by Black women in resource roles has evolved into a multi-arm infrastructure initiative—strengthening leadership pipelines, applied strategy, archival memory, and durable resource ecosystems rooted in those closest to impact.
Join the Movement
There are many ways to move with Melanate.—from staying close to the work, to moving into programs, to resourcing long-term change.
Stay Connected
Receive insights, essays, and invitations.
Partner With Us
Collaborate on narrative, strategy, or field-building.
Participate
Engage in Melanate. programs and convenings.
Support the Work
Fuel durable movement infrastructure.
LEADERSHIP. PRACTICE. STAYING POWER.
Melanate. is fiscally sponsored by POISE Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit located in PA—as such, all contributions are tax deductible.
The Melanate. Framework
A living architecture grounded in lived experience and field practice—organized around leadership, narrative, and ecosystem shift—serving as both Melanate.’s measurement and learning engine and a contribution to the broader field. It strengthens individuals, stabilizes organizations, and influences ecosystems—shaping how wealth moves, who holds power, and what it takes to build durable economic, civic, and community wellbeing.