Judith sees BCSEs as emerging to address the kinds of systemic failures that she experienced first as a student and later as a teacher. For her, schools had become increasingly institutionalised and were no longer safe for Black students. BCSEs’ early successes were due to the strong connection between the organizations’ leadership and the community, but they later began to struggle under growing pressure and out-of-touch demands from funders, and because of fragile internal governance. Judith believes that funders from outside of the community pull organizations away from their core missions.