Nov. 18, 2025
The video below is an excerpt from the Forum’s Nov. 18 meeting. Facilitator Steve Johnston shared the work under way to ensure the continuation of communications and livestreaming elements of Forum meetings. No changes in the Forum’s structure or leadership are involved.
“As I tried this summer to understand how to acknowledge mortality without harming what the Forum has built, I was approached by the North Carolina News Lab Fund, which offered funds for an organization it wanted to support,” said Steve Johnston. “All details are not yet resolved but the process is under way.”
An anticipated $30,000 Lab Fund award will pass through My Brothers Keeper, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit acting as fiscal agent. Initially, funds will begin the process of archiving digital video and other records related to the Forum at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library. The funds will finance tech and livestream expenses. More projects will be added as details are worked out. My Brothers Keeper will be paid 5% of the corpus for its fiscal agent services, and CMalikArt, a Charlotte multimedia marketing, networking and data analysis company, will be paid for administering and managing the programs.
The Forum will not have access to the grant funds. Forum leaders do not plan to make any changes in leadership or the weekly platform for discussion of community issues facing Charlotte’s African-American community. Communications expenses since 2003 and livestream expenses since 2015 have been borne by retiring facilitator Steve Johnston.
Meeting since around 1980, the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum was renamed in 2022 in honor of former Community Relations mediator, school board member and longtime Forum leader Sarah Stevenson.
My Brother’s Keeper Charlotte-Mecklenburg is part of the Obama Foundation-supported My Brother’s Keeper Alliance.
The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund is a pooled fund established in 2017. It issues invitations to organizations it seeks to support, but does not accept applications.
Nov. 18, 2025
Here are some of the documents behind today’s announcement of a fund to support livestream and other digital support for the Forum.
July 28: An e-mail outlining the interest of the NC Local News Lab Fund in offering financial support of the Forum’s work.
July 28: Steve Johnston’s expression of interest, but also a request for clarification of the ways in which the Fund could support a group without nonprofit status.
Aug. 21: Johnston and fellow Forum facilitator Ché Abdullah collaborated on an application on the Lab Fund’s website form and submitted it, along with a rundown of 2024 expenses.
Oct. 22: Lab Fund’s approval of a grant.
Oct. 25: Johnston prepared a budget outlining a way to stretch the grant across a three-year period beginning January 2026.
Nov. 6: Lab Fund’s announcement of its fall cycle of grants totaling $590,000 to 23 local news and community organizations. Mecklenburg recipients include Davidson Local, QCityMetro, Charlotte Ledger’s Election Hub and the Charlotte Post. The summer cycle included a two-year, $100,000 grant to WFAE.
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Forum co-convenors Jackie Edwards Walton and Laura asked that all questions about the Lab Fund initiative be addressed to Steve Johnston, by e-mail.
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