Black Family Summit (BFS)

Black Family Summit

BFS Mission Statement

To restore the Black Family to its traditional greatness, by establishing collaborative and partnership efforts with National and International Black Organizations, in order to address the current issues affecting these families.

Purpose/Philosophy

The Institute of the Black World 21st Century has established the Black Family Summit as one of its major program initiatives, in order to ensure that issues affecting the Black family are systematically examined and recommendations to address these are developed.
Through a network of collaborations and partnerships with National and International Black Organizations, The Black Family Summit is committed accentuating and mobilizing the collective skills of each of these groups.

Background/Need

The Black Family summit is an outgrowth of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan vision of pooling the collective resources and expertise of Black professional organizations, to support the Victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Minister Farrakhan and Leonard G. Dunston as part of the Million More Movement Celebration convened the first session, on October 14, 200, at Howard University, Washington, DC.

The Black Family Summit is designed to be a “pro-active” as well as a “re-active” collaborative partnership in order to ensure that adverse issues, which affect the well-being of the Black Family, are immediately identified and a system for corrective action is effectively and efficiently established.

Objectives

• Effectively and efficiently, examine what resources and services show disparities in addressing the needs of the Black Family.
• Remain grass roots focused, while collaborating and mobilizing efforts with its National and International partners, on issues confronting the Black Family.
• Maintain an on-going effort to ensure that policy and program issues, which adversely the Black Family is kept in focus at the local, state, and national levels.
• Convene an annual Black Family summit Symposia at the Congressional Black Caucus weekend conference.
• Identify and appoint young people to serve as interns on Black Family Summit committees.
• Convene Regional Forums that will be designed to foster dialogue around local issues affecting the Black Family.
• Remain flexible and mobile in form and function, in order to have the ability to respond to urgent issues that require immediate action.

The Purpose and Mission

The Black Family Summit (BFS) of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) is a national network of primarily Black professional organizations, institutions and agencies committed to the preservation and strengthening of the Black Family in its various forms as the foundation for the survival, restoration and development of Black communities and nations in the U.S. and worldwide. Consistent with the vision of (IBW), the mission of BFS is rooted in the values of cooperation, collaboration and collective work as reflected in the traditional way of life of people of African ancestry. Adhering to the principles of operational unity, BFS will pursue its mission through the formulation of holistic private and public programs, projects and initiatives.

Basic Programming Activities

• Periodic information-sharing conference calls to gain familiarity with the work of the participating organizations, institutions and agencies.
• Annual Public Policy Forum with representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus and key national civil rights/human rights organizations to review and present policy priorities to members of Congress.
• Periodic leadership dialogues with broad range of national organizations to exchange analyses and perspectives on the state of the Black America and the Pan African world. Such dialogues may include participation of notable national leaders such as Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam, Benjamin Todd Jealous, President/CEO, NAACP, Marc Morial, President/CEO, National Urban League, Dr. Elsie Scott, President/CEO, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc, Congress Members John Conyers, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Yvette Clarke.
• In the spirit of operational unity, joint work on programs, projects and initiatives by mutual agreement of participating organizations. Such initiatives may involve all or a sub-group of the whole.
• Based on need, as policy issues emerge, which affect the Black community, collaborate with other national organizations and agencies to convene Community Forums in targeted regions and cities to discuss these issues and publish position papers on these.

Criteria for Membership

• Agreement to participate in at least one information-sharing conference call a year and where possible, share in the planning and participation at Community Forums, as policy issues which affect the Black community are identified.
• Share  organization’s top policy priorities and good faith effort to attend/participate in the Annual Public Policy Forum.
• Honor commitment(s) to implementing BFS programs, projects and initiatives as agreed to by the organization.