2025 Open Road Fund Application

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Thank you for your interest in our program. This application is short and only has a few long answer questions. Most of what we request in this form is contact information and multiple-choice survey questions. The due date to submit your application is July 21, 2025 at 11:59 PM CST. We will make no exceptions for late applications. Please plan ahead! This application is very easy to fill out, but some of the questions require a thoughtful response. Don’t rush to complete the application, but don’t wait until the last minute either.

If you need any other technical assistance with this application, please contact us at ORFSupport@nexuscp.org. 
Eligibility & Application Rules
Eligibility Requirements:
  • Applicants under 14 years of age will not be eligible for this opportunity.

  • Applicants living outside of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota and applicants who have lived in this region for less than one calendar year will not be eligible for this opportunity.

  • Applicants who are not descendants of African people who were enslaved in North America, Central America, South America, or the Caribbean will not be eligible for this opportunity.

  • Bush Foundation Staff and Board Members, and their immediate family members will not be eligible for this opportunity.

  • Nexus Community Partners Staff and Board Members, and their immediate family members will not be eligible for this opportunity.

  • Previous and current awardees of the Open Road Fund will not be eligible for this opportunity.
Application Rules:
  • Submission Limits: You may only submit one application to the Open Road Fund per year. You can either apply as an individual or as a member of a group, but not both. You also may not apply as a member of multiple groups.

  • Electronic Submissions Only: We will only accept applications submitted electronically, through this form. If you just want to see what questions are on this application, click here.

  • Email Requirements: When you register you must use your personal email address. Do not use the same email address for more than one person.
  • Ineligible uses for Open Road Fund gifts: Gifts from our program may not be used to support or start a nonprofit organization nor may they be used primarily for charitable activities (including donations to political campaigns and faith institutions). Applicants whose wealth building projects focus on nonprofit and charitable activities will be disqualified.
 We will investigate any instances where people submit multiple applications or engage in other unfair practices. We reserve the right to disqualify applicants who do so.

Open Road Fund Application & Selection Process Information
Before you apply to the Open Road Fund, we recommend you take some time to learn about our application and selection process.

For your convenience, we have everything you need to know on our website: click here to visit the Open Road Fund Frequently Asked Questions page.

Please take some time to review this information before you continue.

For your convenience, here are the essentials:
  1.  The Open Road Fund uses a computer program to randomly select applicants for an award after they have been reviewed by our team.

  2. Only applications that meet our criteria for eligibility, completion, and quality will be entered into the selection process. Please put effort and thought into your application.

  3. If you are selected to be a finalist for a grant award: you will be invited to fill out a second application where you provide a detailed plan for your wealth building project and 2 Letters of support from Black community members who have reviewed your plan.

  4. Data Storage Information: By submitting an application, you agree to let us store your application responses for up to 10 years. We do so in case we are audited, so that we can contact you about future grant opportunities, and so that we can retrieve your application. We also will share your application responses with our partner Research In Action, a Black woman-led research company. They are helping us to learn more about the impacts of the Open Road Fund on our community over the next 8 years.


A pair of large, dark brown hands cradle a smaller pair of dark brown hands. The small pair of hands holds a bundle of sumac.
Saving Your Application
We suggest saving your application frequently as you work on it. To save, look near the top of this page, near the page numbers and progress bar. Click on the small box next to text that reads "Save my progress and resume later". It will ask you to enter your email and a password. Please enter your email correctly, and write down your password. If you don't you may not be able to access your application again later or reset your password if you forget it. Our staff will not be able to help you reset your password.
When you want to resume your application, come back to this form and click on the text that says "Resume a previously saved form". A message will pop up that begins with, "Are you sure you want to resume a previous response?" Click the OK button. Another pop-up may appear and ask you if you want to leave this page. Click leave page. After that you will be taken to a log-in page.

The log-in page will ask you to enter the email and password you used to save your application. Once you correctly enter your information, you will be returned to your application.

You may save, resume, and edit your application until you submit it or this application closes. We will not make changes to anyone's application after they hit submit.

Please consider saving your application early and often.
Pre-Application Warm Up
Before you begin, we want you to know something:

You are worthy of this opportunity. Who you are, as you are, is enough. We may not know one another, but you are our people. City blocks or hundreds of miles may separate us, but we are part of the same community. We want you to be successful in all your endeavors, including this application. We want you to be successful in your journey to build wealth. And we want you to be successful in any project you join to create economic justice for Black people. May this be only one of many opportunities ahead of you.

Please make yourself comfortable before you start. We want you to answer the questions thoughtfully, give yourself time to do so. For some of these questions, you may need space and time for you to think before responding to them. Please plan ahead for however much time you think you might need to submit clear, well thought out answers.

Optional Grounding Exercise: 

To help you settle your mind and get ready to respond to the application, here is something to meditate on. You don’t need to write or answer any of these questions. This is a creative exercise. Feel free to go to the next part of the application if you’re ready.

Imagine that you are with your family. You are talking with your people about the wealth that you want to give to them before you leave this earth. Many, many years ago, you received a gift of money from the community. Your wealth building plan was successful. Through dedication, you, your family, and community created enough wealth to pass on to the next two generations.

What do you want your wealth building legacy to be?

What wealth building goals do you want to achieve for yourself over your lifetime?

What will be different about your community because of what you contributed to it?

If you are applying as a group, you all will submit one, single application together. To qualify for this opportunity all your group members must be eligible for the Open Road Fund. If any group members are not eligible your whole group will be disqualified.

People applying as a group must work on a single project together.

Group wealth building projects may only focus on establishing businesses and cooperatives, investing, or acquiring real estate property (whether residential or commercial).

Groups may not use Open Road Fund gifts to start or support a nonprofit organization or for primarily charitable activities.


Note for groups
If you are the first member of your group to fill out this form, we will consider you the Primary Applicant. That means you will be the main contact between The Open Road Fund and your group. Once you complete this section, the rest of your group members will be able to fill out their responses to the Eligibility and Demographics questions.
Primary Applicant - Contact Information





Please enter the best mailing address we can reach you by.




Primary Applicant: Eligibility Survey
Please answer the following questions to help us determine if you are eligible. Try to answer these questions as best as you can. 







Primary Applicant Demographic Survey
Thank you for completing the previous eligibility section. In this section we would like to know more about you. We ask for this information from all applicants, so that we can make sure awards are fairly distributed throughout our community if needed.



We’d like to understand more about you and your current financial situation. Your responses will not affect your eligibility for the grant program or impact your chances to receive an award from the Open Road Fund. We ask these questions to help us learn more about the economic situation of Black people in our region.

Please rate how often the statements below apply to you.
  • If you are under 18 and still live with your family, please rate how these statements apply to your family/household.
  • If you are an emancipated youth, please describe your personal situation.
  • If you are applying as a group, please rate how often the statements apply to most of your group members.
Prefer not to say Unsure Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always




Group Applicants Section
Please answer the following questions to help us determine if your group members are eligible for a gift from the Open Road Fund.

We ask for this information to help us determine if all your group members are eligible for the Fund and to better understand the composition of your group.
ORF Image
Group Member 2: Application

Group Member 2: Contact Information









Group Member 2: Eligibility Survey

Please answer the following questions to help us determine if you are eligible. Try to answer these questions as best as you can. 







Group Member 2: Demographics Survey

Thank you for completing the previous eligibility section. In this section we would like to know more about you. We ask for this information from all applicants, so that we can make sure awards are fairly distributed throughout our community if needed.






Group Member 3: Application

Group Member 3: Contact Information





Please enter the best mailing address we can reach you by.




Group Member 3: Eligibility Survey

Please answer the following questions to help us determine if you are eligible. Try to answer these questions as best as you can. 







Group Member 3: Demographic Survey

Thank you for completing the previous eligibility section. In this section we would like to know more about you. We ask for this information from all applicants, so that we can make sure awards are fairly distributed throughout our community if needed.






Group Member 4: Application

Group Member 4: Contact Information





Please enter the best mailing address we can reach you by.




Group Member 4: Eligibility Survey

Please answer the following questions to help us determine if you are eligible. Try to answer these questions as best as you can. 







Group Member 4: Demographics Survey

Thank you for completing the previous eligibility section. In this section we would like to know more about you. We ask for this information from all applicants, so that we can make sure awards are fairly distributed throughout our community if needed.






Group Member 5: Application

Group Member 5: Contact Information





Please enter the best mailing address we can reach you by.




Group Member 5: Eligibility Survey

Please answer the following questions to help us determine if you are eligible. Try to answer these questions as best as you can. 







Group Member 5: Demographic Survey

Thank you for completing the previous eligibility section. In this section we would like to know more about you. We ask for this information from all applicants, so that we can make sure awards are fairly distributed throughout our community if needed.






Ancestry Questions

Primary Applicant - Ancestry

The Open Road Fund is open to Black people who are the descendants of Africans who were stolen by Transatlantic Slave Trade and enslaved in the Americas. Our program is for descendants who live in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota and are committed to Black communities here. 

We do not expect or want you to “prove” eligibility by sharing personal records and documentation about your stolen ancestors. For many of us that would be impossible, whether by DNA tests or by genealogical records. The fact that many of us cannot describe our lineage is evidence of how intense the violence of enslavement was on our ancestors as well as we their descendants. 

However, our people responded to our displacement by making community. Over time, we have grown into many distinct peoples who share a common experience: we are the descendants of stolen Africans who for the past 300 to 500 years have built communities, social movements, and nations across the Americas. Our people made a way out of no way.

What is important to us is that you are able to describe your ancestry in your own words. Focus on sharing what you know about your roots, your personal journey, your family, and the Black communities you are a descendant of.



Group Member 2 - Ancestry





Group Member 3 - Ancestry





Group Member 4 - Ancestry





Group Member 5 - Ancestry





How We Define Black Wealth
We want to share with you our values around Black wealth, and learn more about your own. Please read our definition of Black Wealth, and then tell us what you think. This definition was created in collaboration with our community and reflects the values of the Open Road Fund. We would like to know how well this definition aligns with your ideas about wealth building.
  • Black wealth liberates us from dependency on a culture of anti-Blackness that robs Black people of our creativity.

  • Attaining Black wealth is a self-determined process of: (1) restoring what has been stolen from us, and (2) rebuilding our communities.

  • By reclaiming our ancestral birthright we seek restoration. Our ancestral knowledge and familial connections have been taken from us. Through healing, we restore our most sacred traditions rooted in family, love, and community. This enables us to take control of our minds, bodies and soul and forge a path of self-determination.

  • By reclaiming sovereignty over our lives, we rebuild our communities. We seek the freedom to strengthen our connection to the land and take control of what we produce, build or invent. We seek to enrich the next generation by gaining new tools and knowledge to build and resource new institutions. This allows us to creatively assert what quality of life we deserve and what we need to achieve it.

  • Black wealth is–but is not limited to–healing from over centuries of labor and livelihood stolen from us on this stolen land. Black wealth is owning what we produce. Black wealth is building and inventing for our families and community. Black wealth is a creative and sovereign practice of restoration that reaffirms the excellence that has always been in us. 



Wealth Building Project Idea
We'd like to know more about your ideas for Wealth Building. A goal of the Open Road Fund is to support Black people in increasing their quality of life by building wealth.

Please Remember that you cannot use the funds to create or support a nonprofit organization or engage in primarily charitable activities.

Based on what you shared about your Wealth Building Project, please select the category of wealth building that best describes your project. If your plan includes more than one of these categories, select the one that most of the grant funds would support.

Identity Verification Documents

Please upload a photo or scanned copy of your Identifying Documents. We require that you submit EITHER: 1 form of Primary ID or 2 forms of Secondary ID.

Primary Identifying Documents we accept (upload 1):
  • State-issued Driver's License or Photo ID Card
  • U.S. Permanent Residenct Card or Employment Authorization Document with a Photo
  • Tribal Nation ID Card
  • If you are Under 18 please submit your school or State ID along with your parent or guardian’s ID.
Secondary Identifying Documents we accept (upload 2), atleast one must display your current address, and atleast one must have a recent picture of your face.
  • Secondary ID with Photo (Choose 1):
    • Passport (US or Foreign issued)
    • US Military ID Card
    • Student ID
    • Veteran ID Card
    • If you are an Immigrant to the US, you may use a photo ID card or ID Document issued by your home nation
    • Expired Photo ID or Driver's License issued by Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (no more than 1 year expired)
  • Secondary ID with Address (Choose 1):
    • Official School Transcript
    • Valid Voter Registration Card
    • Public Assistance Letter
    • Pay Stub with a current MN, ND, SD, or Indigenous Nation address
    • Utility Bill (Water, Gas, Electric, Internet, or Cell Phone) with a current MN, ND, SD, or Indigenous Nation address
    • Lease Agreement
Primary Applicant - Verification Documents


Data Storage Information: Once we select this year's finalists in August, we will destroy all copies of the ID you share from our database.

Please take a clear photograph or scan of your identifying documents. If it's too blurry for you to read it, then it's probably too blurry for us. If we can't read your documents we will not be able to accept your application.


Group Member 2 - Verification Documents


Data Storage Information: Once we select this year's finalists in August, we will destroy all copies of the ID you share from our database.

Please take a clear photograph of your identifying documents. If it's too blurry for you to read it, then it's probably too blurry for us. If we can't read your documents we will may not be able to accept your application.


Group Member 3 - Verification Documents


Data Storage Information: Once we select this year's finalists in August, we will destroy all copies of the ID you share from our database.

Please take a clear photograph of your identifying documents. If it's too blurry for you to read it, then it's probably too blurry for us. If we can't read your documents we will may not be able to accept your application.


Group Member 4 - Verification Documents


Data Storage Information: Once we select this year's finalists in August, we will destroy all copies of the ID you share from our database.

Please take a clear photograph of your identifying documents. If it's too blurry for you to read it, then it's probably too blurry for us. If we can't read your documents we will may not be able to accept your application.


Group Member 5 - Verification Documents


Data Storage Information: Once we select this year's finalists in August, we will destroy all copies of the ID you share from our database.

Please take a clear photograph of your identifying documents. If it's too blurry for you to read it, then it's probably too blurry for us. If we can't read your documents we will may not be able to accept your application.


Ready to turn in your application?
Congratulations on successfully answering the application questions and uploading your verification documents.

If you are not ready to submit, you will have until July 21, 2025 at 11:59 PM Central Standard Time to complete the application. Once you are ready to submit your registration application, please click on the button below that says Submit.

Please note, once you hit submit you will not be able to change your responses.
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