[8] In 1987, Blackwell founded Urban Strategies Council in Oakland, California,[9] which focuses on the needs of children and families with data-driven public policy advocacy and community organizing.

[3][10][4] After her work at the Urban Strategies Council, Blackwell was then a senior vice president and oversaw the Domestic and Cultural divisions at the Rockefeller Foundation for three years, where she focused on policy issues related to race and inclusion, and developed programs.

[6][4] In 1999, Blackwell founded PolicyLink,[3] a research and advocacy nonprofit organization focused on economic and social equity for low-income people and communities of color, staffed by attorneys and public policy experts in California, Washington, D.C., and New York.

[14][15] In 2019, Blackwell began her podcast Radical Imagination, which hosts experts for discussions about what Sarah Larson at The New Yorker described as "big ideas, including reparations, housing as a human right, universal basic income, and [...] police abolition.

[28] In 2017, Blackwell wrote "The Curb-Cut Effect" in Stanford Social Innovation Review, about how laws and programs designed for vulnerable groups often benefit everyone,[8][29] followed by "Civil Society and Authentic Engagement in a Diverse Nation" in 2018.

Blackwell further expounded on the curb-cut effect in a 2017 opinion article in The New York Times titled "Infrastructure Is Not Just Roads and Bridges.

"[30] As founder in residence at PolicyLink, Blackwell has continued to provide expert commentary on economic and social justice issues,[31][32] including as the keynote speaker at the 2020 "Racism and the Economy" conference series hosted by the presidents of the Atlanta, Boston, and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Banks.

[1][8] Her brother, David E. Glover, was a longtime executive director of the Oakland Citizens Committee for Urban Renewal (OCCUR).