About BlackFem
The greatest influence on a person’s ability to build wealth isn’t financial knowledge.
It’s redlining. It’s housing discrimination. It’s wage gaps. It is the total of all these unfair institutions and more that clearly hold back Black women from succeeding financially. With discrimination invisibly embedded in every policy, every school, every part of public life – it’s clear the mechanisms meant to hold up our communities instead inflict perpetual violence against those most vulnerable. The system isn’t broken. It is actively destructive.
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Together we can reduce harm and promote healing.
At BlackFem, we are unafraid of abandoning what is known for what is right. That’s why are on the ground, partnering with the nation’s most forward-thinking governmental bodies and activists to reimagine wealth-building opportunities for Black women. And we do this by addressing key areas of influence – cultural institutions, education systems, policymaking, and families. With a holistic, research-backed approach to healing financial trauma, we can nurture more lives and maximize impact for the long-term.
Our approach:
Actively undoes generations of
violent, systemic financial trauma, abuse, and shame through community programming;.
Teaches policymakers, educators, parents, and community leaders
how to acknowledge and understand the unique and intractable struggles people have against wealth inequality from an intersectional lens; and
Accomplishes intentional healing
by holding our social, political, economic, and cultural institutions accountable for perpetrating and transmitting financial trauma and abuse through activations that provide opportunities to build material wealth and change local policy.
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Our Founder: Chloe B. McKenzie
Chloe McKenzie is a celebrated wealth justice activist and 10Seven's principal research investigator. Before 10Seven, BlackFem, and the 10Seven Project. McKenzie experienced financial trauma firsthand but did not have the language to understand or explain what happened to her. She grew up in Prince George's County MD, one of only a handful of counties where Black families out-earned white families. She witnessed financial privilege and abuse work hand-in-hand.
She briefly found fulfillment as a mortgage trader on Wall Street and as financial counselor to Black women. The work and perpetual economic violence she witnessed at the hands of the financial system eventually made her question everything.
Committed to doing better for herself and the most marginalized groups forced to participate in an inherently harmful financial system, BlackFem was founded in 2015, followed by 10Seven and the 10Seven Project in 2021.
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Our family of brands
It all started with BlackFem. Founded in 2015, it is a non-profit organization that provides educational programming to Black women and girls. It has gained national recognition for its curriculum design, pedagogy, and research.
In 2021, 10Seven was created to meet increasing client demand for deeper organizational change and offer bespoke consulting services.
The 10Seven Project was founded to live alongside BlackFem as a non-profit organization focused on providing educational programming to groups beyond the Black community that are affected by financial trauma. It was important to us that BlackFem stayed focused on its core beneficiaries - Black women and girls. The 10Seven Project allows us to expand our reach to other groups that will benefit from our work.
What Does BlackFem Mean?
Working with us means having the courage to address our nation’s gravest inequalities head on. Break it down. Build it up. Start it right. Because when Black women rise, we all rise.
Read our presentation to learn more.