As philanthropic promises around racial equity continue to face political and institutional pushback, one Minnesota-based initiative is radically changing lives and reshaping what community-driven investments can look like in practice.
The Open Road Fund, a bold $50 million wealth-building initiative managed by Nexus Community Partners, is more than just a grant program. It’s a deeply intentional act of restorative investment into Black and brown communities and people.
Designed to address historic and ongoing economic harms to Black Americans, the fund distributes $50,000 direct gifts to individuals across Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota who identify as descendants of the transatlantic slave trade.
“This wasn’t about work,” said Danielle Mkali, vice president of programs and strategies. “It was about a gift — the ability to get resources into the hands of Black folks across three states. And to leverage our experience was a very powerful gift for us.”
Mkali previously served as senior director of community wealth building at Nexus and led the Open Road Fund’s early implementation.
Since launching in 2022, the fund has awarded more than $10 million to 200 Black individuals, supporting wealth-building plans ranging from homeownership and business investment to education and cultural reclamation. But just as important as the money is the philosophy behind it: the belief that Black people — who have endured centuries of systemic wealth extraction — deserve not just opportunity, but restoration.
“We’ve always had this deep sense that who owns matters,” said Repa Mekha, founder and CEO of Nexus. “Economic stability matters. And all of our work has been rooted in cultural communities.”
The name “Open Road” is tied to long-standing struggles and opportunities for Black communities — a continuation of a journey. “When we heard about it, it was like, wait a minute, are we being called to do work that has [a] lineage to it over the years?” Mekha said.
“The second layer of lineage for us was we just knew that there were so many people that went before us who had lost their lives during the struggle. To tap into people’s sense of hope and possibility in their dreams and aspirations.”
The word “road” here becomes metaphorical, a path shaped by ancestral resistance, sacrifice and perseverance.
Unlike most philanthropic models that funnel dollars through 501(c)(3) organizations, the Open Road Fund puts money directly into the hands of Black individuals, allowing them to define what wealth means to them. The process is guided not by résumés or rigid metrics, but by lineage, lived experience, and self-determined dreams.
Applicants are not asked for deeds or bank records, but to describe, to the best of their knowledge, their ancestry as descendants of enslaved people.
“On the surface, it’s simple,” Mkali explained. “But for a fund working to invest in people with this lineage, it gets more complex. How we know we’re Black is often that we don’t know our ancestry.”
That complexity is embraced, not penalized. In fact, one of the fund’s wealth-building categories allows recipients to use a portion of their gift to research their genealogy.
And while applicants must live in Minnesota, North Dakota or South Dakota, Nexus staff are quick to note that the fund is not just for residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul. One story shared during the interview described a 60-year-old woman in South Dakota who received the gift and used it to purchase a home to open a daycare — her lifelong dream.
“She had already found the house,” Mkali recalled. “And she was just asking us, is there any way we can make sure she gets the gift in time for closing?”
But even access to wealth comes with obstacles.
“We’ve had recipients, especially in North and South Dakota, be harassed by their banks. Accounts shut down. Loans questioned,” Mkali said. “One lender even asked for a woman’s entire fund application. The financial system still doesn’t trust us with our own liberation.”
To address this, Nexus created letters and verification systems for financial institutions to ensure recipients aren’t left to defend their own legitimacy.
“People want to do so well when they receive this gift,” Mkali said. “So much so that we have to remind them: this is a gift. You don’t have to be perfect. You deserve this.”
Nexus’ work goes beyond financial transactions. The Open Road Fund is intentionally designed to support a cultural shift toward dignity, self-determination, and long-overdue healing. Community members are brought together to plan their financial futures — often for the first time in their lives.
“For many of us,” Mkali said, “no one has ever asked us how we want to build wealth. It’s always, ‘How will you survive?’”
To receive the gift is affirmation that Black life, labor and dreams are worth investing in — not just surviving, but thriving. And while Nexus makes clear that this fund is not reparations in the formal, governmental sense, they call it “a reparative act” rooted in ancestral accountability.
“We believe reparations ought to come from the government,” they said. “But foundations whose wealth was built on stolen labor also have a role. This is a model that proves it can be done.”
The Open Road Fund opens to applicants June 19, 2025.
For more information, visit nexuscp.org.
