Healing The Black Body

What Healing The Black Body does

Healing The Black Body is a Brooklyn, New York-based nonprofit organization founded in spring 2019 by performance ritualist Nana Chinara. The organization offers arts-based healing justice programs and fellowships for Black communities, with a primary focus on Black queer, trans, and gender-expansive youth between ages 16-21. Its core programmatic offerings include the Chinara Healing Justice Fellowship (a structured 7-week program originally serving cohorts of 5 youth studying Audre Lorde and developing solo performance rituals), the Kinetic Altar Artist Residency (a paid residency program for Black queer, trans, and gender expansive artists with stipends), and performance rituals delivered at venues such as Dixon Place, Gibney Dance, Governor's Island, and The Shed.

The organization's underlying methodology is the Healing the Black Body Framework, a proprietary approach developed by founder Nana Chinara that integrates meditation, memoir writing, movement research, storytelling, and community building. This framework is grounded in the Healing Justice Framework created by the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective and informed by Black Feminist organizing principles from Black Feminist Future. The framework explicitly rejects western medical models of healing, centering collective safety, embodied wellness, and political liberation as integrated outcomes.

Healing The Black Body operates as a donation-funded nonprofit with no commercial pricing model. Revenue derives from individual donations across multiple platforms (CauseVox, Resilia, Venmo, CashApp, PayPal) and institutional support through fiscal sponsor Pentacle and partner foundations including Bay and Paul, Mertz Gilmore, and New York Women's Foundation. An active $25,000 CauseVox fundraising campaign is underway. The organization employs 1-10 staff and is led by Founder & CEO Nana Chinara and Program Director Tj Squire. Geographic operations are currently concentrated in New York, with no evidence of multi-market expansion. The organization does not use technology products, APIs, or AI/ML systems; its primary digital assets are a Squarespace-hosted website and email newsletter.

Name

Healing The Black Body

Legal name

Healing the Black Body

Website

https://healingtheblackbody.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Healing The Black Body is a Brooklyn-based nonprofit offering arts-based healing justice programs, including the Chinara Healing Justice Fellowship and Kinetic Altar Artist Residency, for Black queer, trans, and gender-expansive youth through performance rituals and embodied wellness practices.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Community Arts and Healing Justice Programming

NAICS

Human Rights Organizations (813311), Social Assistance (624)

akta.pro primary industry

Arts Education & Community Arts Programs (BPAGAHAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Indigenous, Ethnic & Folk Arts/Heritage Organizations (BPAGAHAI), Human Rights & Anti-Discrimination Organizations (BPAGAFAB)

Keywords

• Healing justice programs
• Community arts fellowship
• Performance rituals
• Artist residency programs
• Embodied wellness practices

Headquarters

HQ city

Brooklyn

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations and Fundraising: The organization accepts donations through multiple platforms including CauseVox, Resilia, fiscal sponsor (Pentacle), Venmo (@nanachinara), CashApp ($nanachinara), and PayPal (PayPal.Me/NanaMinder). Currently fundraising $25,000 on CauseVox.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Healing The Black Body is a nonprofit that runs healing justice programming for Black communities, anchored by the Chinara Healing Justice Fellowship (a 7-week fellowship for Black queer and trans youth ages 16-21) and the Kinetic Altar Residency (a paid artist residency for Black queer, trans, and gender-expansive creatives). The organization delivers these offerings through performance rituals, movement-based practices, storytelling, and community organizing informed by Audre Lorde's writings and the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective's Healing Justice Framework.

Product overview

Healing the Black Body is a community building and cultural organizing offering for Black communities, comprising multiple interconnected programs. The core offerings include the Chinara Healing Justice Fellowship (a structured fellowship for Black queer and trans youth focused on collective healing through performance art and Black feminist organizing) and the Kinetic Altar Residency (an artist residency supporting Black queer, trans, and gender expansive creatives in developing embodied healing practices). All offerings use performance rituals, movement, creative practices, and community building to address systemic oppression and create spaces for intergenerational healing and liberation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Chinara Healing Justice Fellowship A healing justice community organizing fellowship for Black communities, designed to help Black queer and trans youth study influential texts (e.g., Audre Lorde), develop creative practices, define healing and liberation on their own terms, and build solo performance rituals to process and practice their liberation. The first cohort served 5 youth in a 7-week program.
• Kinetic Altar Residency A paid artist residency program for Black queer, trans, and gender-expansive creatives that integrates how these communities heal from institutionalized violence and grief, challenging and confronting institutionalized dance/creative spaces that often neglect them. Residents receive paid stipends and snacks and participate in co-devising creative work.
• Performance Rituals Community healing practices using performance art, movement, storytelling, memoir writing, and meditation as tools for processing trauma, achieving liberation, and reclaiming narratives for Black queer, trans, and gender-expansive communities. Includes public performances at venues such as Dixon Place, Gibney Dance, Governor's Island, and The Shed, and the Black Abundance Festival.

Quantifiable outcome

• First fellowship served 5 Black queer and trans youth ages 16-21 in a 7-week program
• +1 more outcomes

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Kindred Southern Healing Justice CollectivecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCreated the Healing Justice Framework that informs all of Healing the Black Body's work. The framework centers collective safety and healing as integral to political liberation.
• Black Feminist FutureminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOrganization whose definition of Black Feminisms provides ideological grounding for Healing the Black Body's Black Feminism praxis.
• Just As I Am Youth EmpowermentminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNonprofit where Tj Squire serves as Program Coordinator and facilitator. Co-creates with youth to promote mindful, healthy, and safe communities through transformative personal/leadership development.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Southerners on New Ground (SONG): Regional organizing collaborative working for LGBTQ liberation across the U.S. South. Comparable as a Black-led, healing-centered LGBTQ organizing body that integrates community care with political mobilization.
• Black Feminist Future: Strategic partner that provides the ideological framework (Black Feminisms) underpinning Healing the Black Body's praxis. Directly comparable as a Black feminist organizing and resource hub advancing collective liberation through movement building.
• Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective: Created the Healing Justice Framework that underpins Healing the Black Body's entire methodology. Directly comparable as a healing justice organization focused on collective care and political liberation for BIPOC communities, particularly in the U.S. South.
• Just As I Am Youth Empowerment: Nonprofit where Program Director Tj Squire serves as Program Coordinator. Directly comparable as a youth-focused organization promoting mindful, healthy, and safe communities through transformative personal and leadership development for young people of color.
• Marsha P. Johnson Institute: Black transgender-led organization protecting and defending the human rights of Black transgender people. Directly comparable in mission focus on Black trans liberation through organizing, advocacy, and community-based healing work.
• Audre Lorde Project: Brooklyn-based community organizing center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, trans and gender non-conforming people of color. Directly comparable as a NYC-based organization serving Black queer and trans communities with a similar organizing and community-building model.

Emerging players

• For the Gworls: Black transgender-led collective providing mutual aid including rent, therapy, and gender-affirming care. Comparable as an emerging Black trans-serving organization with community-driven fundraising and direct service delivery model.
• Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNAP): Black trans-led coalition building safety and economic power for transgender and gender non-conforming people in the South. Comparable as a community organizing body addressing systemic violence against Black trans communities through collective care frameworks.

Broad incumbents

• Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice: International philanthropic foundation funding LGBTQI movements globally. Comparable as a funder and ecosystem participant in the Black LGBTQ+ healing and organizing space, with broader scope but overlapping grantee network.
• The Brotherhood/Sister Sol: NYC-based Black youth development and arts education organization serving Black and Latinx youth. Comparable as an established arts-and-justice youth organization in New York with broader programmatic reach and longer operational history.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/healingtheblackbody
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/healing-the-black-body

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Healing The Black Body