The Open Road Fund is a unique funding program designed for Individuals. Nonprofit organizations may not apply. Individuals may invest their grant award funds into a business. Individuals may also form groups of up to 5 members to work on a shared wealth building project: if selected, all members of the gift receive an award that they pool together to resource their project. Gifts from the Open Road Fund may not be used to establish or fund nonprofit organizations.

Eligibility for the Fund is restricted based on ancestry, geography, and age. 

An eligible applicant must be: 1) a Black person who is a descendant of African people who were kidnapped and subjected to chattel enslavement in the Americas; 2) age 14 or older; 3) A resident of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, or any of the 23 Native nations whose territories are occupied by those states.

To register for the Open Road Fund, applicants must submit Identifying Documents to verify their identity. Access the list of accepted documents here. Previous Open Road Fund Awardees will not be eligible for the Open Road Fund and may not apply again.

The Open Road Fund uses an equitable random selection process to choose applicants for award. We developed a computer program that randomly selects finalists from the pool of eligible applications who have completed registration.

The selection process is observed by Open Road Fund Advisory Members and Nexus Black Staff members. After applicants are selected, their responses are reviewed by our selection committee for eligibility, completeness, and alignment with our funding criteria. Only eligible, complete, and aligned applicants are invited to participate in the second round of our application process. In cases where selected applicants do not advance, withdraw, or otherwise drop out of the process, we select another finalist from the eligible applicant pool using the random selection tool.