Alfiee M. Breland-Noble is the founder of Mattie Fund. A psychologist and scientist, she is one of 12 global leaders who will be provided with a $20 million fund to distribute to various organizations dedicated to charitable work to improve women’s health worldwide. The fund will be supported by the Melinda French Gates-supported Pivotal Ventures. Breland-Noble spoke with the Amsterdam News about the fund, her career, and re-imagining philanthropic giving. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
AmNews: Could you speak about Pivotal, the Mattie Fund, and Advancing Women’s Justice?
Melinda French Gates really believes in trust-based philanthropy which she talks about in a New York Times Op-ed. As a part of her investment in women and girls globally, one of the things that was important to her was to put funding out into the world to back “Global Leaders” who have their finger on the pulse and who can help support getting those funds out to the people and organizations who are actually doing the work to make our world more just and fair with a specific focus on women and girls.
I am one of the dozen Melinda French Gates Global Leaders who was selected to manage a $20 million fund where we get to uplift and support diverse women and girls and diverse women and people. What Melinda French Gates is doing out here in the world is very powerful.
AmNews: What is your role in shaping the fund process?
Our goal is to reach a diverse set of organizations because equity, belonging, and inclusion have always been a core feature of my work for my entire career. It’s always been important to me to center, amplify, and uplift organizations and people who are out there trying to make the world better for everybody, particularly for those folks who are on the margins. Our goal is to seek out organizations that are deeply rooted in their communities and that have a mission and a vision that is aligned with how I have envisioned the Mattie Fund. My priority is to ensure that at the end of the day the funds go to entities and organizations who are appreciative of and invested in doing work to uplift people who are the most marginalized, with the focus on women and girls. It’s an honor to be selected, it’s an honor to be a person who gets to manage a $20 million budget, and it’s an honor to be able to reach out into the world and provide support for people who in many cases are often struggling to do what they do for the communities that are so meaningful to them.
AmNews: How important is it to have people involved with lived experiences?
People from communities with lived experience are scholars in their lived experience and I can’t do what I do if I don’t have their expertise. The idea of empowering people — when I talk about empowerment, it’s not an exchange of power — it’s how do I support you in what I call embodying the power that’s already there? What Melinda French Gates has done is, she has taken these diverse 12 people, from different corners of the world. People know what’s important for their communities and so how do we provide an opportunity to empower those folks to do what they know is right? I hope other people will pay attention and follow this model of trust-based philanthropy and allow people to do the good work that they’ve been doing for years and that they know how to do to serve their communities
AmNews: What is the future of the Mattie Fund?
We’re trying to be very strategic and at the same time disruptive of traditional ways
that funds are dispersed. I say the best example of that is what Melinda French Gates did. To be mentioned in the same breath as someone I really admire: Ava DuVernay who’s always done [work] outside the box as a movie maker. Allyson Felix and all her gold medals and silver medals and bronze medals and being who she is and then Jacinda Arden, that to me speaks to another part of the process which is the power and the validation that can come from someone witnessing how you move in the world and saying I’m looking at these dozen people each one of them is bringing something to the table. Our goal is, right now, we’re in the process of carefully planning how we are going to distribute the funds effectively and equitably. We’re trying to think about what organizations are the right ones to start with. I think the biggest thing for me is not relying on traditional ways and traditional selection processes. People self-select into it but we have to remember when we think about people with intersectional identities, sometimes we don’t see ourselves nominating ourselves for certain things because we’ve never seen people who look like us win. In my case, I care about mental health and emotional well-being.
AmNews: Is there anything else you want to tell our readers?
Having the opportunity to create this fund and name it after my mother who is a child of the
Civil Rights Movement, it’s an honor. I am very grateful. I feel like it’s really important to express my gratitude. Finally, something my dad always said to me was, when you do good work, just keep doing the good work, somebody will see you. What I say to your readers is, whatever your field is, you have to stay focused on your vision. You’re going to have twists and turns and ups and downs, but if you can stay focused on your vision, I think those good things will come. Keep doing what’s important to you and the right people will find you.