2025 Annual Report
Dear Friends and Fellow Good Trouble Makers,
We are happy to share The Zacchaeus Foundation 2025 Annual Report, where we will share:
Our vision and mission
A review of what we have done in 2025
A preview of what we will do in 2026
A fund update
A reflection
Vision and Mission
The Zacchaeus Foundation is a non-profit named for Zacchaeus, who repented, repaired, and was healed.
We are working for racial healing in Northwest Arkansas (our vision).
We are repairing truth, wealth, and power (our mission).
We repair truth by educating white people and churches about reparations. We started events.
We repair wealth by raising funds from white people and churches for Black-led non-profits. We started The Zacchaeus Fund for Black-led non-profits.
We repair power by empowering Black people to decide who receives funds. Black board members decide who receives funds.
2025 Review
In 2025, we repaired truth.
We presented six events to educate white people and churches about reparations.
The Big Payback Film Viewing in January
White Too Long Book Discussion with Robert Jones in March
Dinner with The Zacchaeus Foundation Board and Friends in March
Racial Equity Training #1 with Robin Simmons in June
Lunch with Robin Simmons and Church Leaders in September
Racial Equity Training #2 with Robin Simmons in September
At Racial Equity Training #1, attendees said,
“There is hope for reparations in Fayetteville. It is a process, not a single event. More than 100 cities are working on reparations.”
“There is a moral and legal case for reparations. It is both urgent and work that future generations will have to continue.”
“Do something now.”
At Racial Equity Training #2, Robin Simmons shared a Reparations Movement Map, including The Zacchaeus Foundation and showing that we are part of the movement for reparations, and said,
“I see Evanston in you. I see the community that funds reparations here in Fayetteville. I want you to be encouraged that the work is not easy. We can share best practices, but it is for you all to do this work hyper-locally, based on your own history, led by your own leaders, informed by best practices that will get you to repair.”
In 2025, we repaired wealth.
Our 2025 goal is to raise $100,000 from white people and churches.
To date, we have raised $90,000 (90% of our goal).
To help us raise $100,000 in 2025, invest in The Zacchaeus Fund here.
2026 Preview
In 2026, we will repair truth.
We will present three events to educate white people and churches about reparations.
Reparations Book Discussion on Sat Mar 7th, 3-5pm, at St. Paul’s Church in Fayetteville
The Big Payback Film Discussion in July
Dinner with The Zacchaeus Foundation Board and Friends in November
In 2026, we will repair wealth.
Our 2026 goal is to raise $110,000 from white people and churches.
In 2026, we will repair power.
In 2026, the Black board members of The Zacchaeus Foundation will decide who receives funds raised in 2025.
The Zacchaeus Fund Update
The Zacchaeus Fund for Black-led non-profits is a donor advised fund held by Arkansas Community Foundation. The advisors of The Zacchaeus Fund are the Black board members of The Zacchaeus Foundation.
Our 2025 goal is to raise $100,000, which will enable us to invest $50,000 in a Black-led non-profit in 2026.
Our 2035 goal is to raise an endowment of $1.4M, which will enable us to invest $50,000 in Black-led non-profits annually, perpetually.
To date, we have raised $90,000 (90% of our goal).
To help us raise $100,000 in 2025, invest in The Zacchaeus Fund here.
Reflection
Sharon Killian is a board member of The Zacchaeus Foundation. Read Sharon’s reflection below.
When I arrived in Northwest Arkansas in 2005, I encountered a community in flux — one layered with remnants of Indigenous presence, the echoes of forced removal, and the deep shadow of enslavement. Beneath Fayetteville’s polite denial that slavery ever existed here, I found descendants of both the enslaved and the slavers, each carrying stories shaped by land, loss, and belonging. Over the years, our efforts at NWA Black Heritage to recover what was taken have revealed the enduring harm of systemic dispossession — the social, economic, and psychological weight borne by those who still fight to remain rooted here. Through persistence, we received stewardship of 1.2 acres in 2014 and, in 2021, the remaining 5+ acres of a once-forbidden place. This ground now anchors an organization devoted to creating a future where Black presence is permanent and visible.
The Zacchaeus Foundation came to me through its young white founder, Lowell Taylor, whose passion for justice is rooted in the church. Aware that the church has been complicit in enslavement and exclusion, he seeks to help transform that legacy. As a board member, I have witnessed the Foundation’s sincere commitment to learning, reflection, and repair. Our invitation to Robin Rue Simmons and Rev. Michael Nabors of First Repair in Evanston, Illinois brought the national reparations movement directly into Fayetteville’s orbit.
Their work — achieving tangible reparations for local Black residents — affirmed that truth, wealth, and power can indeed be repaired. I am filled with pride that my home place, Fayetteville, because of the Zacchaeus Foundation, is on the U.S. Reparations Map, which reminds us that this work is not theoretical; it is already happening. Robin Rue Simmons became a beacon for me — showing that the next phase of repair depends on intergenerational leadership and courage, especially among both white and Black communities committed to truth and transformation.
Thanks for reading The Zacchaeus Foundation 2025 Annual Report!
With hope for healing,
Lowell Taylor
Board Member, The Zacchaeus Foundation
info@thezacchaeusfoundation.org