How to join Cannabis for Black Lives and support black owned cannabis companies
Cannabis for Black Lives is a non-profit organization that wants you, venture-backed, liquid cannabis companies to put your money where your lips are.
“What many of us realized was that there were so many organizations that promised that they would make big changes within their organization, that they would do more for people affected by the war on drugs, and then what happened ? It fell so flat.”
-Kasia Graham
They recognize that social justice will not be what it needs to be unless the majority of cannabis companies speak out in favor of cleaning up the US government’s drug war garbage and, more importantly, some of theirs Dollars into public action behind their support.
Many companies actually care about change, but analysis paralyzes “I don’t know how”.
The work that the people and businesses of Cannabis for Black Lives do monthly aims to make that answer obsolete.
What does cannabis do for Black Lives?
Cannabis for Black Lives (CfBL) was founded in June 2020 by Mary Pryor of CannaClusive with the help of Bianca Monica of Limone Creative.
It was created to address a new phenomenon that began at the height of the Black Square era. you know him
The one where companies across all industries said they would make some internal changes to empower people of color inside and outside their companies, including hiring, better pay, philanthropy, and creating a fair playing field full of deserved opportunities.
Well, a lot of that didn’t happen, and Cannabis for Black Lives saw the whole thing. But unlike the companies that watched them use social justice as a ruse, they found ways to bolster Black-owned cannabis companies with purpose and expediency.
“What many of us realized was that there were so many organizations that promised that they would make big changes within their organization, that they would do more for people affected by the war on drugs, and then what happened ? It fell so flat. We want to make sure that people who are a part of Cannabis For Black Lives keep those promises,” said Kassia Graham, Director of Community & Strategy, during a zoom with some members of the CfBL leadership team.
To help companies deliver on these promises, Cannabis for Black Lives serves as the connective tissue that has collected cannabis brands, done the work of raising community funds, and created a system where they partner with a different organization in the region every two months and financially support Social Justice Space.
Related
How the Hood Incubator is driving change in the cannabis industry
“When we started structuring this group of brands, we thought, ‘Hey, when brands work together, set themselves standards and hold themselves accountable in three key areas: raising money and donating it to organizations that get the work done; diversifying their social media feeds and emphasizing black and brown voices in cannabis; and employee development, hiring, mentoring, all things that involve building diverse teams at all levels, then this industry would be better off,” said Luke Anderson, co-founder of CANN and active member of Cannabis for Black Lives.
How to become a member of Cannabis for Black Lives
Becoming a member of Cannabis for Black Lives is as simple as making appropriate, consistent donations, attending mandatory monthly virtual meetings, and committing to three pillars of support for Cannabis for Black partner organizations:
- Reinforcement of partner organizations via digital channels
- Financial support from partner organizations
- <$1M annual sales: $250-2.5K
- $1-10M Annual Sales: $2.5K
- >$10M annual sales: $2.5K+
- Advancement of Black people in the cannabis space through business hiring, corporate culture and mentoring
Commit to leaving the Black Square era behind
While it’s easy to join, there’s a lot more to Cannabis for Black Lives membership than just money. Businesses must commit to long-term changes in operations and culture, and embrace all that social justice in cannabis stands for.
“[Cannabis for Black Lives} is an entirely volunteer-run organization. It really illustrates the power of getting companies with resources to all agree to come together, and how quickly you can pull together real sums of money without having to spend on headcount.”
– Luke Anderson
“It’s not just a matter of us wanting new members. We want people to modify their way of thinking, and have the actions that come from that be a reflection of this more informed thought when it comes to how cannabis has impacted people of color, queer folks, and people with disabilities,” Graham tells me.
In 2020, plenty of companies said they were down for this, joined CfBL for a couple of months to do some performative allyship, and then they dipped out. Since then, CfBL has moved towards a long-term commitment system that will hopefully prevent this in the future.
Anderson says “We had 50 people show up at first, and 20 turned. Largely it was all within the first couple of months. They wanted to make a statement, performative allyship, and when the rubber hit the road, nothing.”
On membership, Graham states “Even if someone is not ready to join us, if they are just able to amplify who we are and what we do for people in the space who they think would be a good fit and interested in this, that would be fantastic.”
Cannabis for Black Lives impact thus far
Each year, Cannabis for Black Lives works with partner organizations that are selected by the CfBL Board of Directors. Supernova Women was CfBL’s first-ever partner.
Since then, they’ve also partnered with Equitable Opportunities Now; The Hood incubator; Copperhouse Detroit; and Our Dream and their associated workshops, Our Academy.
“We are pretty plugged into what these organizations do, who they are, who’s operating them, so it doesn’t necessarily take us too long to figure out who we want to work with. Once we do, we also look at what the need is, how many folks they are able to impact, and what it is that they’re doing. While we have some people that are more so set in their organizations, we have the Hood Incubator and Our Dream, which have been more of national organizations,” Kassia tells Leafly about how they select organizations to partner with.
Related
Supernova Women fight for equity-focused cannabis businesses in Oakland
Despite existing for such a short amount of time, Cannabis for Black Lives has had some tremendous accomplishments. For one, just being able to bring together so many companies to support such an important cause is a feat in itself.
Kassia runs a monthly meeting that’s attended by 30-plus cannabis brand leadership team members, in addition to having successfully led 5 campaigns that have donated tens of thousands of dollars to all of CfBL’s partner organizations.
For example, one of their partners, Copperhouse Detroit runs 420-friendly bed and breakfast with a focus on body positivity and queerness in the cannabis industry. Together with Cannabis for Black Lives, they were able to raise nearly $40,000. And that’s just one partner. In total, CfBL has raised over $170,000 to date.
“I think it’s as much as the Last Prisoner Project raised in its first year of operations,” Luke says. “[Cannabis for Black Lives] is a completely voluntary organization. It really illustrates the power of getting companies with resources to merge and how quickly you can raise real amounts of money without having to spend on staff. We don’t even have a budget. Everything we do happens by itself.”
Dante Jordan
Danté Jordan is a former member of the Leafly Subject Matter Expert team and currently a freelance writer, video producer and media consultant specializing in cannabis culture, strains, products, education and everything else related to this little green flower. Contact him at smokingwithdante on Instagram or datenetworks(at)gmail(dotcom). His website is www.dantejordan.com.
Check out Dante Jordan’s articles
By submitting this form, you are subscribing to Leafly news and promotional emails and agreeing to Leafly’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe from Leafly email communications at any time.
Post a comment: