Partnership Guide

We believe that partnerships and relationships are essential to building a liberatory and just world. This guide serves as an opportunity to learn more about our commitments, values, and needs. We are excited to collaborate, dream, and build with partners who understand our mission and vision and support us in building new paradigms with us.

The Lupine Collaborative is for Black women, non-binary, and transgender people. We recognize that to dismantle the systems designed to exclude this community, we need to be specific and targeted in centering these people in our solutions. We are unapologetic and unflinching in this strategy and wish to work with partners who are bold enough to stand with us in it.

Partnership Principles

We are unapologetically oriented towards joy and abundance. We do not believe in self-sacrifice or scraping by in this work. That means living wages, sustainable work practices, asking for what we need, and a devotion to delivering our work in the beauty, intention, and care we deserve as Black people.
We are not separate from this work. We do this work because it frees us, and with that, we hold space for and tend to the ways it impacts our bodies, minds, and hearts.

We are guided by the understanding that we are all interconnected and that partnering brings more depth, possibility, and intersectionality to our work. We are not capable of, nor do we wish to do it all.
We believe in relational reciprocity and understand that reciprocity looks different in every relationship.
We believe in authentic and ongoing conversations about needs, alignment, and shared goals with our partners and allowing partnerships to end when they are no longer aligned.
We hold our philanthropic partners in community, not above it. Under capitalism, funding is crucial, but it is far from being the only thing that supports us.
We believe in forming partnerships with the intention of longevity. We are eager to work with partners who can commit to multi-year engagement. Building takes time.

What kind of partnerships are we looking to build?

- Hold us lovingly accountable to being who we say we are
- Invite us to co-dream and experiment with radical and deliberate ways of living into our values
- Echo and advocate for affinity spaces for Black women, transgender, and non-binary people to exist

- Commit multi-year and unrestricted general operating funds
- Designate The Lupine Collaborative as a beneficiary of your DAF, event, or fundraiser
- Form endowments to support the longevity of Lupine
- Create giving circles to surround our work

- Challenge us to sharpen and deepen our intersectional and anti-oppressive strategies and goals
- Donate time and expertise on a range of topics, including legal, professional development, capacity building, fundraising, etc.

- Facilitate introductions to values-aligned donors and funders
- Invite us to events, conferences, and networking opportunities
- Share their platforms with us through guest blogging, interviews, and organizational spotlighting