BlackFacts Educational Foundation
Not just another tech nonprofit - but a movement to reclaim and rewrite narratives around technology and culture.
For 30 years, we have stood alone as Unapologetically Black technologists, creating platforms nobody else has, proving that our communities can OWN and CONTROL the digital tools of the future.
Today, we are seeking partners, referrers, collaborators and allies who understand and support the VISION we have been ready, willing and able to make a reality since 1995, who will take ACTION to help connect us with the people and material resources we need to complete our Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals.
Our Mission & Vision
🔥Our Mission
We are on a "Mission from our Ancestors" to build technologies that uplift, inspire, and empower historically silenced communities. We are not about playing "catch up" with the tech giants – we are about innovating ahead of them as we have been already doing since the 1990s.
Every line of code and every desktop or online application we have created is an act of resistance, remembrance, and reimagination. We build not for profit, but for power: the kind that comes from owning our stories and controlling our future.
🌍Our Vision
We envision a world where every child of the African Diaspora can access their heritage as easily as they stream music or movies. Where elders' wisdom is preserved in living digital libraries, not lost to the sands of time when they join the Ancestors.
Our vision is nothing less than a global paradigm shift: from fearing a future where technology ignores or erases us, to co-creating a future where technology amplifies us, dignifies us, and unites us.
Our Core Values
Unapologetically Black
We lead with our stories first, because no one else will. In doing so, we set the blueprint for every community to reclaim its voice.
Universally Welcoming
While we begin with the Black experience, our platforms already serve several other marginalized and silenced voices, and we have only just begun. If we can empower the most historically silenced, we can give voices to us all.
Technologically Inclusive
We invite all communities to tell their truth, ensuring technology becomes a tool of universal liberation - not exclusion.
Transformative by Design
Our work is not entry-level or me-too; it is disruptive, visionary, and meant to rewrite narratives at scale.
We are here to ensure that our brilliance, our history, and our humanity are never left behind, erased, or controlled by others. Our work is about more than preservation - it is about transformation: reshaping how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves.
Our Leadership
Ken Granderson
Executive Director
Ken is a visionary software architect, proud son of Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood, and the world's only technologist who has invested three decades building advanced systems rooted in Black culture. From putting Boston's Black communities online in 1996 to architecting the AI-powered Timbuktu platform, Ken has always been ahead of the mainstream.
As an MIT Alumnus and MENSA member, Ken delivers nothing but world-class technology expertise and solutions to historically underserved communities.
Dale Dowdie
Chair of the Board
Dale is a lifelong innovator and entrepreneur whose career began as NASA's first teenage hire. A Jamaican-born technologist with deep expertise in enterprise systems and community empowerment, he has led both Fortune 100 projects and grassroots digital initiatives.
As CEO of BlackFacts.com, Dale brings strategic leadership, operational excellence, and a global perspective to ensure the Foundation's long-term growth. Together with Ken, he anchors a legacy of building digital tools that are visionary in scope, grounded in community, and rooted in Black excellence.
Our Projects: BlackFacts.com (1997 - Present)
BlackFacts 1997
BlackFacts 2025
Launched in 1997 as the Internet's first Black History Search Engine, BlackFacts.com remains a trailblazing platform that redefines how history is accessed and shared. With over 1.5 million articles and the world's only "Black Fact of the Day™" video series, it is a living, breathing hub of global Black knowledge.
More than just an archive, it is a digital monument, reclaiming narratives that have long been ignored or distorted. By building the most comprehensive online destination for Black history, we are reshaping education, media, and cultural memory for generations to come.
Our Projects: Diversity Schoolhouse 2.0 (Spring 2026)
Diversity Schoolhouse is our groundbreaking K -12 ed-tech platform, currently adopted in schools across 14 states, helping educators teach the histories of five ethnic cultures with our social media-friendly videos and AI-powered instructional tools. Our next step - Diversity Schoolhouse 2.0 - takes this vision to the next level by harnessing AI agents and curriculum ingestion technologies to create highly interactive, personalized learning systems.
The first test case is the New York City “Black Studies as the Study of the World” K-12 curriculum - a 520-page open sourced Acrobat file-based curriculum that we will transform into a living, AI-powered educational experience. Instead of static documents, students and teachers will be able to navigate content dynamically, build customized pathways, and adapt lessons to age, learning style, and cultural context.
Our ultimate goal is to make Diversity Schoolhouse 2.0 a platform model for any community - enabling schools, cultural institutions, and even governments worldwide to build culturally grounded, adaptive educational systems. By making curricula truly accessible, engaging, and customizable, Diversity Schoolhouse 2.0 will redefine how cultural education is developed and shared at scale.
🔗 Links:
Our Projects: Griot 21 (Winter 2025)
Inspired by the griots of West Africa, Griot 21 reimagines oral tradition for the digital age. Youth will record, archive, and publish the wisdom of their elders, creating a global quilt of voices that spans generations and continents.
Powered by our StoryKeeper™ technology, these stories are not just preserved but woven into a living digital archive that connects past struggles to present victories. Griot 21 changes the paradigm of historical education itself - from textbooks written about us, to living legacies told by us.
Our Projects: Dream It Forward (Winter 2025)
Connect
Connecting Black youth with Vision Casters who embody possibility, starting with the Black Alumni of MIT
Inspire
Sharing real journeys that break through the ceiling of limited expectations
Transform
Shifting the culture of aspiration itself, seeding generations with the courage to dream
Dream It Forward is more than mentorship - it is an inspiration pipeline designed to connect Black youth with Vision Casters who embody possibility. By amplifying real stories from real people, we replace celebrity-driven fantasies with tangible role models drawn from our neighborhoods, schools, and families.
Our Projects: BlackFacts for Families (Spring 2026)
Our bold answer to an educational system that does not want to tell all cultural stories - an AI-powered platform that treats Black history with the same care and accessibility as Netflix treats entertainment.
Families will be able to create personalized playlists, share stories, and build intergenerational learning traditions that honor cultural pride. This project puts the power of cultural education back into the hands of parents, faith groups and grassroots communities, free from gatekeepers.
In doing so, it is rewriting how our children learn their heritage - at home, on demand, and on their own terms.

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YouTube

Blackfacts For Families Crowdfunding Reel

This video announces BlackFacts.com's latest project in our 30-year track record of using advanced technologies to teach Black History and Ethnic Studies - BlackFacts For Families, and our Crowdfunding campaign to accelerate putting the power to teach Black History directly into the hands of millions of families. https://gofundme.com/blackfacts-4-families

gofundme.com

Donate to BlackFacts For Families – Controlling Our Narratives in 2025, organized by BlackFacts Educational Foundation

A 30-Year Journey to Protect Black History - and Our Future … BlackFacts Educational Foundation needs your support for BlackFacts For Families – Controlling Our Narratives in 2025

Our Projects: Civic Chat (Summer 2026)
Transforming Democracy Through Technology
Civic Chat is a mobile-first, AI-powered civic engagement platform that will demystify government for everyday people by teaching them how local, regional and national government works, in their native language - and during election season, compare candidate and incumbent issue positions with their own.
By combining speech recognition, real-time translation, and data transparency, it will equip citizens with the knowledge they need to hold leaders accountable and make informed civic choices.
Open source by design, after an initial launch focus on the 2026 US mid-term elections, Civic Chat will invite communities across the globe to adapt and expand it to fit their local needs.
Our Projects: Voting While Black (Summer 2026)

Our direct response to gerrymandering and laws that result in voter suppression
Voting While Black is a comprehensive civic empowerment platform designed to mobilize communities nationwide. It will give grassroots organizers tools to power voter registration drives, door-knocking campaigns, "Souls to the Polls" and other voter turnout programs, leveraging both today's most advanced technologies and mobilization techniques from the game industry and influencer culture - all within a digital hub powered by conversational AI, implemented by chatting with their phones.
For more than half a century, a repeating refrain of the story of American politics has been that when more Black voters come out to vote, more politicians who support laws that provide the greatest benefits for the most citizens get elected.
VWB is not just about ballots - it is about putting the power of technology directly into the hands of grassroots organizers across the USA.
Contact Us
We'd love to hear from you! Whether you have questions about our projects, want to explore partnerships, or simply wish to learn more about the BlackFacts Educational Foundation, please don't hesitate to reach out.
To get in touch with us, just drop us a line at ken@blackfacts.org.
We look forward to connecting with you and exploring how we can work together to advance our mission!