Annual Impact Report
2025
A Letter from Leadership
To Our Beloved Community of Witness Bearers
2025 did not ask permission to be hard.
Executive orders dismantled decades of equity work. Courts rolled back civil rights protections. Digital platforms suppressed the voices of those daring to name injustice. And the name of Jesus was wielded—again—as cover for harm rather than herald of liberation.
In the middle of all of that, The Witness showed up.
We showed up with a private pilgrimage—small by design, significant by intention—where fourteen leaders sat together, told the truth, and refused to let the weight of the moment have the last word. We showed up with a campaign—“Not My Jesus”—that drew a clear theological line in the sand and reminded our community that they are not alone in their refusal. We showed up for two extraordinary Fellows, Lora Smothers and Charlotte Crabbe, investing not just money but mentorship, community, and the kind of trust that says: we believe in your vision before the world does. And we showed up for two cohorts of emerging BIPOC leaders through our pilgrimages with Tenx10 and Chasing Justice, planting seeds of embodied faith in the next generation.
None of this looks like a headline. That was never the point.
The Witness has always understood that movements are built in the quiet years—in the infrastructure laid, the relationships deepened, and the leaders formed before the cameras arrive. 2025 was one of those years. A year of faithfulness. A year of foundation.
As we step into 2026, we do not step timidly. We are launching new podcasts, expanding our media suite, hosting justice-centered gatherings, growing our Fellowship cohort, and inviting our community into deeper participation than ever before. The rebuild is real—and so is the momentum.
Thank you for staying with us. Thank you for believing in work that does not always announce itself. Thank you for understanding that the most important things take time.
The table is still set. The story is still unfolding. And there is more room here than ever before.
With gratitude, hope, and holy resolve,
President and CEO, The Witness Inc.
THE MOMENT WE’RE IN
Faithful in a Hostile Season
There is a particular kind of courage required to hold your ground when the ground is shaking.
In 2025, Black Christians across this country navigated a landscape that grew more hostile by the month. DEI programs—hard-won spaces of belonging in workplaces, universities, and even churches—were dismantled by executive order. The language of civil rights was weaponized to silence the very communities those rights were meant to protect. And Christian nationalism grew even louder and more emboldened, continuing to fuse whiteness, American identity, and faith into a single idol.
In that environment, the work of The Witness did not just continue. It became more necessary.
Because when the stories being told about Black people are stories of deficiency and suspicion, the antidote is not argument. It is testimony. It is a community. It is the stubborn, Spirit-led insistence that Black people are made in the image of God—imago Dei—and that any theology that cannot say that clearly has already lost the Gospel.
That is what The Witness exists to say. And 2025 was a year we said it, in as many ways as we could, with the resources we had.
“We are not starting something new. We are taking our place in a long line.”
The Justice Table was never conceived as a conference. It was conceived as a covenant.
In October 2025, fourteen carefully chosen community members gathered for a private pilgrimage—a curated, high-trust space to bear witness to the past, to name the present, and to dream the future together. Small by design. Significant by intention. Because The Witness has always believed that justice work must be relational before it can be transformational.
What happened in that room cannot be captured in a metric. But here is what we know: people came in carrying weight they had not been given permission to put down. They left lighter—not because the problems had disappeared, but because they were no longer carrying them alone.
That is what The Justice Table does. It does not solve injustice in a weekend. It builds the kind of community that can sustain the long work of justice over a lifetime. In 2026, The Justice Table expands. More seats. More cities. More of the reparative, relational work that this moment demands.
KEN & ROSE
MOUNINGPROGRAM HIGHLIGHT
The Justice Table: Fourteen Seats, One Altar
“We came to know about The Witness through the Pass the Mic podcast. When we first listened, it spoke to us while in a place of hurt and frustration… What has excited us recently is The Witness’s commitment to identifying and supporting people of faith doing impactful work in their local communities.”
Stories shared at the table revealed the grief we’ve carried and hope for a more just future.
CAMPAIGN SPOTLIGHT
“Not My Jesus”: A Theological Line in the Sand
When the name of Jesus is used to justify deportation, to bless border walls, to sanctify the silencing of the poor—that is not a political disagreement. That is a theological emergency.
The “Not My Jesus” campaign was The Witness’s public response to that emergency. At a time when Christian nationalism was gaining both cultural currency and political power, we invited faith communities across our network to do something countercultural: to say plainly, publicly, and together—this is not the Jesus we follow.
This campaign was not primarily about a signature. It was about solidarity. It was a reminder
to every Black Christian who has sat in a pew wondering if they imagined the contradiction, to every believer who has been told to choose between their faith and their dignity: you are not alone. And the Jesus you actually know—the one who stood with the poor, the marginalized, the disinherited—is worth claiming loudly.
The campaign also became a mirror for our own organizational discernment. As we engaged our community around questions of theological identity and public witness, we began to reimagine what our learning platforms could be. The seeds planted in 2025 are already becoming curriculum for 2026.
Pilgrimage as Formation: Tenx10 and Chasing Justice
There is a difference between knowing history and walking it.
In partnership with Tenx10 and Chasing Justice, The Witness offered something rare in 2025: embodied formation. Two cohorts of BIPOC emerging leaders—young people committed to developing Gen Z disciples at the intersection of faith and justice—participated in racial justice pilgrimages that invited them to encounter history honestly and let it shape not just their thinking but their faith.
PARTNERSHIP SPOTLIGHT
We do not romanticize pilgrimage. These were not tourist experiences. They were confrontations—with the reality of what this country has done, and with the question of what people of faith are called to do in response. Participants left changed. Not fixed. Not certain. But formed.
At a moment when so many emerging leaders feel isolated, overwhelmed, and unsure whether their faith has anything meaningful to say to the world’s crises, partnerships like these are acts of resistance. They say: you are not alone. The tradition you carry is deeper than the despair you feel. And the work of justice is not something you invented—you are joining a long line.
This is the kind of leadership formation The Witness is committed to: not just inspiring the next generation, but rooting them.
Dr. Jemar Tisby, Danielle Marck &
G. Tyler Burns
MEDIA & NARRATIVE
Why Bearing Witness Matters More Than Ever
Storytelling is not a communications strategy. It is a spiritual practice.
It is how memory is preserved when institutions refuse to hold it. It is how distortion is challenged when power insists on its own narrative. It is how new futures are imagined when the present feels like a ceiling.
The Witness exists to hold the microphone—not to be the voice, but to amplify the voices that too often go unheard. In 2025, that calling found new expression in our “Not My Jesus” campaign, our Justice Table pilgrimage, and our ongoing partnership with the communities and leaders whose testimonies are the raw material of liberation.
What’s Coming in 2026: The Expanded Media Suite
In 2026, The Witness is expanding its media presence in ways that reflect both the urgency of the moment and the depth of the community we serve. Three new digital experiences are coming:
Can I Get A Witness is a new podcast hosted by Danielle Marck, featuring curated conversations with Black Christian faith leaders, writers, and tastemakers who are navigating this cultural moment with clarity and courage.
The Black Christian Experience with G. Tyler Burns is a podcast built to hold space for the stories that have shaped Black Christians—from church life and leadership to justice and culture. This is for us. Our stories. Our perspectives. Our faith.
Footnotes, a Tisby Media production, brings Dr. Jemar Tisby’s scholarship to life through digital essays, historical commentary, and educational resources.
And anchoring it all: a revitalized blog—hosted on both our website and Substack—offering essays, theological reflection, and the kind of writing that has always been at the heart of The Witness. Eight posts per month. Consistent. Substantive. For the community that is hungry for more than soundbites.
These platforms do not just extend our reach. They extend the table. They carry the conversation into living rooms, earbuds, and study groups across the country—letting community members listen, learn, and reflect wherever they are.
THE WITNESS FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP
Investing in Leaders Before the World Does
We believe talent is equally distributed. Opportunity is not.
The Witness Foundation Fellowship was built to address that gap—not by identifying leaders who have already broken through, but by investing in leaders who are in the process of becoming. Leaders whose visions are too bold, too Black, and too rooted in liberation for most conventional funders to embrace.
Each Fellow receives an unrestricted amount, no strings attached—for two years. This cohort will receive $25,000 each. Not a grant with seventeen reporting requirements and a narrow scope. A statement that says: we see you, we believe in you, and we are not here to control your vision.
They also receive mentorship, executive coaching, spiritual direction, peer community, and the kind of sustained support that allows leaders to grow into their calling rather than survive their circumstances.
In 2025, we launched the second class of the Witness Fellowship. We are honored to introduce:
Lora Smothers
Lora is a visionary educator with fifteen years of leadership experience at the intersection of faith and learning. She has given a TED Talk on natural education, coached school founders across four countries, and in 2021 launched the Joy Village School—Athens, Georgia’s only private school centering Black joy and thriving. Her Fellowship work continues to build on a conviction she has held for years: that education, done right, is a vehicle for Black liberation.
Charlotte Crabbe
Charlotte is the Founder and President of Cultivate Vibrance. A community builder, conference architect, and DEI pioneer, Charlotte has spent her career creating pathways for emerging leaders of color in spaces that were not built with them in mind. Her Fellowship work brings that same commitment to new communities and new contexts—expanding access, building belonging, and cultivating the vibrant leadership that Black communities deserve.
OUR PARTNERS
We Do Not Walk Alone
The Witness is not a solo act. We are part of an ecosystem—a growing network of organizations, institutions, and individuals who understand that the work of justice requires collaboration, not competition.
We are grateful to the partners who walked alongside us in 2025:
Each of these partnerships represents a shared conviction: that the flourishing of Black Christians and Black communities is not a niche concern. It is a Gospel imperative.
CLOSING REFLECTIONS
The Altar Was Built in the Quiet Years
There is a moment in Elijah’s story that rarely gets preached. Before the fire falls on Mount Carmel, before the dramatic confrontation with the prophets of Baal, before the water-drenched altar ignites—Elijah builds. He gathers twelve stones. He digs a trench. He prepares the offering. Quietly. Carefully. Without an audience.
The fire does not fall on nothing.
2025 was a year of altar-building for The Witness. The stones we gathered do not shine yet. The trenches we dug are not visible from the outside. But the preparation is real, the faithfulness is documented in heaven, and we believe with everything in us that the fire is coming.
In 2026, we are not waiting for the right moment. We are moving. New podcasts. New Fellows. New gatherings. A revitalized blog. Expanded pilgrimages. A growing community of donors and partners who understand that this work is not just important—it is sacred.
We invite you to be part of what’s coming.
Not just as a donor. As a witness bearer. As someone who believes that Black Christians deserve more than survival—they deserve to flourish. As someone who is willing to put their resources behind that belief before the breakthrough is obvious.
The table is still set. The story is still unfolding. There is room for you here.
With gratitude, hope, and steadfastness,
The Witness Inc.