The Land Knows Our Names: A Six-Year Love Letter to the Carolinas and to Home
Six years ago, I said yes to a seed; an invitation, a possibility, a vision not yet fully named but deeply felt. That seed became Cypress Fund and our sister fund, Grove Action Fund. And this year, as I reflect on our sixth anniversary and my sixth year as the Chief Reparations Officer (CRO), I return to the word that has carried me through every season of this journey: Simuneye.
In Zulu, Simuneye means “together we are one.” It is not just a word; it is a worldview. A way of naming the deep interdependence that sustains us. A reminder that our power doesn’t come from any one individual, but from our willingness to move in alignment, in care, and in collective commitment.
That’s the spirit Cypress was born from and the spirit that still animates our work.
The Beginning: A Coming Home Story, Shared
Cypress Fund was never mine alone. From day one, it has been a collective endeavor. A bold act of co-creation among movement leaders, philanthropic disruptors, and Southern visionaries who knew that the Carolinas deserved better from philanthropy.
I had the immense privilege of founding this organization alongside three extraordinary co-founders, David, Maggie and Bryan. Together, we imagined what it could mean to build a funding body rooted in cross-race and cross-class solidarity, Southern resilience, and deep trust. But we didn’t stop at imagining.
We built.
And we weren’t alone. Twenty movement leaders joined us as the founding Movement Committee, not as advisors in name only, but as full co-architects. They challenged us, guided us, and grounded us. They made sure we didn’t replicate harm in the name of innovation. They infused this work with values drawn from their own lived experiences. Of being organizers, cultural workers, healers, and visionaries in the Carolinas. Together, they anchored our political clarity and kept us accountable to the communities we aimed to serve.
Cypress began as a coming-home story for me. A way of returning not just to my beloved South Carolina, but to a deeper version of myself. But through the process of building this with others, that story expanded. Cypress became not just my homecoming, but a collective home-building project. One built on the belief that Simuneye — together, we are one — could be more than a principle. It could be a practice.
Six Years In: From Seed to Root System
In six years, Cypress Fund has grown from an idea into an infrastructure. In this place, organizers across the Carolinas, especially Black, queer, rural, and community-rooted leaders, can find a political home and real resources.
We’ve moved millions to BIPOC-led organizations across North and South Carolina. We’ve prioritized general operating support, multi-year commitments, and flexible funding because we know movements need more than short-term fixes; they need time, stability, and trust.
We’ve invested in civic infrastructure, tenant power, abolitionist practices, climate justice, land reclamation, arts and cultural organizing, and healing justice, not because they are buzzwords, but because they are the conditions of freedom in our region. We’ve supported grantee partners through capacity-building, shared strategy, and space to vision boldly, even when philanthropy pushes for neat outcomes and fast deliverables.
Cypress has become an ecosystem where local brilliance is resourced without apology. Where rural and urban strategies meet. Where cross-state solidarity is not just aspirational; it’s funded. But more than what we’ve done, I’m proud of how we’ve done it: in deep relationship. In dialogue with the people most impacted. In joyful,
rigorous commitment to the belief that transformation is possible and fundable.
Cypress as Love Letter
Six years in, I often return to the emotional landscape of this work. What has it meant for me, as a Black Southern femme, to lead in this way? What has Cypress required of me, and what has it given back?
The truth is: this work has changed me. Cypress started as my return: to the Carolinas, to myself, to a way of being in leadership that doesn’t require me to contort. But over time, Cypress became my love letter to this place.
A love letter to the land that shaped me. To the people who refused to be counted out. To the organizers who dream bigger than the budgets they’re offered. To the elders who hold memory. To the youth who carry fire.
In a region too often written off by national philanthropy, we are choosing to write ourselves in with funding, with infrastructure, with care. Because the Carolinas are not a proving ground. They are a home. A political terrain rich with movement lineage, ancestral wisdom, and electoral possibility.
Cypress has allowed me to say to this place: I see you. I am of you. I believe in what we can build together.
What I’ve Learned
Leading Cypress for six years has taught me many lessons; some beautiful, some hard, all essential. A few that I carry closely:
- We are only as strong as the “we” we invest in. Our power comes from our interdependence, knowing that Simuneye is not sentimental, but strategic.
- Being rooted in the South is not a liability! It’s a lineage. We walk in the legacy of maroon communities, freedom schools, mutual aid, and Southern insurgency. Our location is our superpower.
- Philanthropy must be transformed, not reformed. We cannot tweak our way to justice. We must redistribute power, not just money.
- Leadership is not individual heroism. It’s a collective practice of listening, accountability, and staying in relationship when it gets hard.
- Healing and infrastructure go hand-in-hand. The most sustainable movements are those that care for people and build systems at the same time.
- Emotional safety is strategic. A truly liberated workplace cannot exist without space for people to be honest, to be messy, to make mistakes, and try again. Building something new means we will sometimes bump into one another’s rough edges. But over time, those same edges, if treated with care, become the very contours of growth. They sharpen our self-awareness, deepen our trust, and remind us that vulnerability is a form of leadership.
What’s Next
Cypress Fund is still becoming. And I am still becoming alongside it.
In the year ahead, we’ll continue deepening our democracy portfolio, launching the Marronage Fellowship, expanding our C4 presence, and holding space for both strategic experimentation and collective care.
We’ll invest in the rural Black Belt. We’ll grow our community of donors who want to fund change and not charity. We’ll build out our endowment campaign to ensure this work endures long after any of us.
And we’ll keep showing up, not with all the answers, but with the courage to ask better questions.
Personally, I am also recommitting to leadership that is spacious. That makes room for rest, reflection, and the next generation. Leadership that is rigorous without being rigid. That trusts the people and trusts the process.
To the People Who Made This Possible
To my three co-founders, David, Maggie, and Bryan: thank you for the audacity to begin. You taught me that collective vision is more powerful than solitary clarity.
To my Rozz, my first teammate, and unwavering co-designer, thank you for building Cypress alongside me every step of the way. Your consistency, vision, and deep belief in this work made room for a version of leadership I couldn’t yet imagine, but have grown into because of your steady presence. So much of what we've built, and what’s still possible, carries your spirit.
To the 20 founding Movement Committee members: your fingerprints are on everything we’ve built. Your values shaped our roots. You saw the gaps and offered pathways. You believed in the Carolinas and demanded that philanthropy believe too.
To our grantees, donors, MLAB members, and staff: you’ve helped us build something that is not only strategic, but sacred. You’ve allowed Cypress to be a site of possibility, repair, and momentum.
And to the Carolinas, thank you for welcoming me home. For making space for me to lead, to fail, to grow, and to be seen. For holding me through grief and joy. For showing me again and again that together, we are one.
In Closing
Six years in, Cypress Fund remains what it has always aspired to be: a container for liberation. A place where power is grown, not extracted. Where movements are not surveilled, but trusted. Where Simuneye is not just a phrase, but a guiding truth.
Together, we are one. And together, we will continue to build the infrastructure our people need and deserve, not just for now, but for the generations to come.
Forever a child of these red dirt roads,
