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Give Black App: A Digital Gatekeeper For African American Philanthropy & Institutional Capital

Posted on September 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

“We must invest in ourselves. Without our own institutions, we will always be at the mercy of others.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

In the long arc of African American economic life, a recurring pattern emerges: the institutions most critical to our survival are consistently starved of capital, while the broader society thrives off of our labor, culture, and creativity. From Reconstruction-era mutual aid societies to the undercapitalized HBCUs of today, the struggle has never been whether African Americans are generous, but whether that generosity is systematically directed into institutions that can build durable power.

The Give Black App, founded by David C. Hughes, Alexus Hall, and Fran Harris, positions itself at this inflection point. It is not simply an app but a digital strategy—one attempting to reshape the flow of African American philanthropy and donations by curating, centralizing, and amplifying support for Black-led institutions.

The Context of Underfunding

African American nonprofits receive disproportionately less funding compared to their White counterparts. A 2020 Bridgespan study found that unrestricted net assets of White-led nonprofits were 76% larger than those of Black-led nonprofits, while revenues were 24% higher. These disparities compound over time. For HBCUs, the story is even starker: the endowments of all 100+ HBCUs combined is less than 1/10th of Harvard University’s alone.

Despite African America’s estimated $1.8 trillion in annual buying power, only a fraction is captured by its own institutions. Much of African American giving remains individual-to-individual or church-centered, providing immediate relief but not the kind of long-term institutional scaffolding needed to compete with White or global capital. Platforms like Give Black attempt to redirect that generosity into a framework where dollars reinforce permanence.

Building the Infrastructure of Giving

Give Black’s strength lies in infrastructure, a word often overlooked in philanthropy. The app operates as a digital gatekeeper, cataloguing Black-led nonprofits and enabling donors—whether individuals, alumni associations, or grassroots organizations—to find and fund them with ease.

This may seem simple, but its implications are profound. In an environment where discoverability is one of the greatest barriers for Black-led organizations, Give Black centralizes attention. For the countless nonprofits that lack robust marketing budgets, development officers, or national visibility, the app provides a seat at the table they would otherwise be denied.

The team itself reflects intentional design. Hughes, a Morehouse and Prairie View alumnus, carries the academic gravitas to engage institutions; Hall, with a background in cybersecurity and software sales, grounds the platform’s technical operations; Harris, a lifelong advocate of Black love and economic empowerment, provides the cultural grounding and marketing voice. Alongside them stand directors rooted in community engagement, finance, athletics, and science. Together, they represent a cross-section of African American life that mirrors the very community the app seeks to serve.

Philanthropy Meets Technology

Unlike GoFundMe or Benevity, which serve broad audiences, Give Black narrows its focus: African American-led institutions. This specificity is both its greatest strength and its potential vulnerability. By making African American philanthropy visible and trackable, the app attempts to normalize institutional giving within the community itself.

African American donors, long used to personal giving—funeral funds, tuition help, emergency assistance—are now asked to see their dollars not just as charity but as investment. An app that allows for transparency, accountability, and impact measurement may finally bridge the gap between intent and sustained institutional support.

Technology also democratizes giving. Younger generations, accustomed to digital wallets and mobile donations, are unlikely to write checks or mail contributions. By existing where they already transact, Give Black normalizes philanthropy as part of daily life. With proper marketing, it could serve as a digital equivalent of the collection plate—except one that sends dollars to Black think tanks, schools, health clinics, and endowment foundations rather than solely to Sunday offerings.

The Role of Fran Harris

Much of the initial confusion about Give Black’s leadership arises from Fran Harris’s name. She openly jokes about it—she is not the Fran Harris who was a WNBA champion or Shark Tank winner, though many assume otherwise. Instead, she distinguishes herself as someone whose “entire life has been about Black love and economic empowerment.”

That distinction matters. Whereas celebrity often drives visibility in African American philanthropy, Harris positions herself not as a star but as a steward of a broader vision. Her work focuses on the storytelling and cultural marketing needed to align African American giving with institutional capital. In a sense, her humor in addressing the name confusion underscores the seriousness of her actual role: grounding the app’s message in authenticity rather than celebrity.

The Gaps in the Strategy

Despite its promise, Give Black faces hurdles. First, fundraising expertise at the highest level appears limited within the core team. Major philanthropy is an industry of its own, requiring seasoned development officers capable of cultivating seven- and eight-figure gifts. Without this, Give Black risks becoming a platform for small-dollar giving—important, but insufficient for closing institutional capital gaps.

Second, technological depth must match ambition. While Hall’s cybersecurity background provides operational credibility, scaling a fintech-style platform requires CTO-level leadership. Issues of compliance, data integrity, and user trust are not optional—they are the foundation of sustainability.

Third, policy and compliance matter. Donations intersect with financial regulations, nonprofit law, and IRS oversight. To become the definitive gateway for Black giving, Give Black must not only build a sleek front end but also a back-end architecture that can withstand regulatory scrutiny and instill donor confidence.

Where the Opportunities Lie

The greatest opportunities for Give Black lie in institutional self-reliance.

One clear pathway is through alumni networks. HBCU alumni giving rates remain in the single digits, compared to 20–30% at elite PWIs. If Give Black positioned itself as the official conduit for alumni donations, it could help double or triple those rates over time. That alone would shift millions into endowments and operating budgets across the HBCU ecosystem.

Another opportunity lies in membership-based organizations—from professional networks to civic associations. Instead of dues going solely toward programming, portions could be funneled into long-term institutional giving through Give Black, creating a culture of collective philanthropy.

The Pan-African Diaspora represents yet another opening. African and Caribbean communities abroad are increasingly connected digitally. Give Black could expand to become a Pan-African philanthropic bridge, enabling solidarity between African Americans and global Black communities. Diaspora donors, often seeking trustworthy channels for giving, could find in Give Black a centralized, transparent platform.

Finally, the most transformative opportunity is to integrate endowment-building features directly into the app. Too much African American giving is trapped in the cycle of operating expenses. By redirecting portions of donations into permanent capital funds, Give Black could help institutions create reserves that outlast political climates and economic downturns.

Lessons from History

The urgency of Give Black’s mission must be seen against history. During the early 20th century, White-controlled philanthropy dictated the survival of many HBCUs. Institutions like Hampton and Tuskegee often relied on Northern industrialists whose donations came with ideological strings attached. The absence of African American-controlled philanthropic infrastructure meant dependency—and dependency always meant vulnerability.

Today, African American institutions still operate under the shadow of that dependency. Foundation funding remains racially skewed, and government support is often politically weaponized. Give Black, by offering a decentralized and community-driven alternative, challenges that cycle.

But history also warns: movements that lack discipline or scale are easily absorbed or ignored. Just as the Negro Leagues produced baseball talent but lacked the capital to maintain independence, so too can African American philanthropy generate excitement but fail to sustain institutional life if it is not channeled strategically.

The Verdict

Give Black App is not merely a digital donation tool. It is a test case: can African America leverage technology to redirect its wealth into its own institutions? The team’s composition, heavy in HBCU roots, marketing authenticity, and community engagement, suggests it understands both the stakes and the culture.

Still, the app must avoid the trap of becoming a feel-good project without measurable institutional outcomes. Its long-term success will be determined by whether it can:

  1. Secure partnerships with HBCUs, alumni associations, and membership-based organizations.
  2. Develop deep fundraising and compliance infrastructure.
  3. Normalize institutional giving across African American households.

If it does, Give Black could evolve into a cornerstone of African American institutional development—a kind of digital Freedman’s Bureau, redistributing not charity but power.

For African America, the stakes could not be higher. In an era where White nonprofits sit on multibillion-dollar endowments, while Black nonprofits scrape for survival, the question is not whether we are generous. It is whether our generosity is building the kind of institutions that ensure survival for centuries, not just survival for today.

Give Black, if scaled with vision and discipline, may finally provide the infrastructure to answer that question with a resounding yes.

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HBCU B-Schools’ Leadership Still Embarrassingly Lacking In HBCU Alumni

Posted on September 9, 2025 | Leave a comment

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself. — Thales

The Graham Principle: Why HBCU Business Schools Must Lead From Within

Warren Buffett’s rejection by Benjamin Graham is more than a quaint footnote in the history of American finance. It is a parable about institutional loyalty, strategic insulation, and the deliberate construction of parallel economic power. Graham, the architect of value investing, declined to hire the future Oracle of Omaha not for lack of qualification but for reasons of principle. At a moment when Wall Street’s doors remained firmly closed to European American Jews, Graham made a conscious decision to build from within his own community. His hiring practices were not sentimental. They were strategic—an act of institutional self-preservation in a market structured against him. He understood that talent required more than identification; it required cultivation, protection, and deliberate positioning within institutions the community itself controlled.

A decade has passed since anyone undertook a comprehensive examination of leadership trends within HBCU business schools. The intervening years might reasonably have produced a renaissance of internal cultivation—an era defined by deliberate succession planning, alumni-led governance, and a clear institutional commitment to developing leadership from within. That hope has gone largely unrealized. Across the landscape of HBCU business education, the preference for external hires persists, the pipeline for internal leadership development remains thin, and the governing logic of these schools continues to defer, implicitly or explicitly, to standards of excellence defined by the very institutions that historically excluded Black scholars from full participation.

The appointment of deans and senior faculty from predominantly white institutions is routinely framed as a commitment to excellence—the familiar rhetoric of meritocracy dressed in the language of best practices. What this framing systematically obscures is the structural disadvantage HBCU graduates face in academic and professional labor markets, disadvantages produced not by deficiency but by decades of underfunding, network exclusion, and credential discrimination. When HBCU business schools accept this framing uncritically, they do not rise above structural inequality; they reproduce it within their own walls. The result is a business education ecosystem that remains institutionally disconnected from the communities it is chartered to serve.

Of the 85 accredited HBCU business schools and departments operating under the latest available data, fewer than 20 percent are led by HBCU alumni. Of that minority, fewer than half hold both undergraduate and graduate degrees from HBCUs, further attenuating the institutional knowledge that might otherwise be reinvested across the ecosystem. The contrast with elite PWI practice is clarifying. Approximately 75 percent of business school deans at Ivy League institutions hold at least one degree from an Ivy League school. This is not coincidence. It reflects a deliberate institutional philosophy that prizes continuity, internal network loyalty, and cultural capital accumulated within the institution itself. These schools understand that leadership is not merely a management function. It is an expression of institutional identity and a mechanism for transmitting values across generations of students and faculty.

HBCU business schools have not absorbed that lesson with equivalent seriousness. The absence of a deliberate succession strategy—one that identifies, mentors, and elevates internal talent over sustained periods—constitutes a structural failure that compounds over time. When young Black scholars do not see themselves reflected in the senior leadership of their own institutions, the implicit signal is that the path to authority runs elsewhere. And so it does. Promising scholars educated at HBCUs routinely migrate to PWIs for higher compensation, greater prestige, or more robust professional infrastructure. When those scholars eventually ascend to positions of institutional leadership, their loyalty and networks do not reliably return. The brain drain becomes self-reinforcing, and the institutions that initially formed these scholars see little of the compounded return on that investment.

This pattern might be called institutional amnesia—a collective failure to study, internalize, and replicate the strategies through which other minority communities have built durable institutional ecosystems. Jewish, Catholic, and Mormon institutions have each constructed powerful networks by systematically aligning leadership selection with community identity, concentrating institutional resources within their own structures, and maintaining cultural continuity across leadership transitions. They benchmark their performance against their own historical trajectories and communal objectives, not against the preferences of institutions oriented toward different communities and different purposes. HBCU business schools, by contrast, frequently evaluate themselves against ranking systems and accreditation frameworks built around metrics that reflect neither their mission nor the specific market failures their students are positioned to address.

The strategic costs of this posture are substantial and compounding. Recruitment searches for business school deans, when conducted through executive search firms, routinely exceed $250,000 in direct expense. When that investment produces a dean with limited institutional loyalty and no deep roots in the community the school serves, the organization is exposed to the further costs of short tenures, strategic discontinuity, and misaligned fundraising. Business schools function as economic engines—engines that generate networks, direct student talent toward particular career paths, shape research agendas, and produce or fail to produce the intellectual infrastructure that sustains community-level economic development. Leadership that lacks genuine cultural and strategic commitment to the HBCU mission cannot be expected to operate that engine in the community’s interest.

The curriculum consequences are equally significant. HBCU business schools exist in a moment when the structural dimensions of Black economic life—persistent wealth gaps, discriminatory access to capital, the collapse of Black-owned financial institutions, the chronic underdevelopment of Black neighborhoods—constitute some of the most pressing and tractable problems in American political economy. Addressing those problems requires not merely academic competence but institutional orientation. Who is designing curricula around cooperative economics and community wealth retention? Who is building research programs on Black entrepreneurship, the historical function of Black banking, and the mechanics of financial exclusion? Who is developing partnerships with Black-owned financial institutions, investment funds, and real estate developers that would allow students to graduate with network capital as well as intellectual credentials? These priorities require leadership that has been formed within the ecosystem, that understands its history, and that has a personal stake in its long-term trajectory.

The Graham analogy holds at precisely this level of analysis. Graham’s decision to hire from within his community was not a concession to sentiment. It was a calculated judgment that institutional effectiveness depended on leadership whose values, networks, and long-term interests were structurally aligned with the institution’s mission. He was not interested in demonstrating that his firm could attract talent validated by mainstream institutions. He was interested in building something that would compound over time within his own community’s orbit. The question for HBCU business school leadership is whether a comparable institutional logic is possible—and whether the will exists to pursue it.

The remedies are neither mysterious nor beyond reach, but they require deliberate institutional action sustained over years rather than episodic declarations of intent. HBCU business schools must establish formal succession pipelines that identify promising alumni early, support their doctoral training and early-career development, and create structured pathways back into institutional leadership. Mentorship programs, leadership fellowships, and transparent internal promotion tracks are the instruments through which this pipeline is built and maintained. Without them, talented HBCU alumni will continue to be absorbed by institutions with superior infrastructure, and the cycle of external dependence will continue.

Boards of trustees and presidential leadership must also reckon honestly with the hiring criteria that have produced current outcomes. Cultural alignment, mission literacy, and demonstrated investment in HBCU communities should carry weight commensurate with academic credentials in dean and faculty searches. These are not competing values. They are complementary ones, and institutions that treat them as such will find that the pool of qualified, mission-aligned candidates is larger than conventional search processes have suggested.

The benchmarks against which HBCU business schools measure their progress require reconstruction as well. Chasing rankings defined by and for PWIs produces strategic mimicry rather than institutional distinctiveness. The appropriate comparators are institutions that have used internal leadership and community alignment to produce durable economic outcomes for the communities they serve. The relevant question is not whether an HBCU business school resembles Wharton. It is whether that school is building the human capital, research infrastructure, and network density that the African American institutional ecosystem requires to become economically self-reinforcing.

Alumni hold a particular form of leverage in this process that has been insufficiently exercised. Philanthropic capital directed toward HBCU business schools carries with it the legitimate expectation of institutional integrity. Alumni who fund these schools are entitled to ask whether the institutions are investing in their own—whether succession planning exists, whether internal candidates are being developed and promoted, whether the school’s research and curricular agenda reflects the community’s strategic needs. These are not hostile demands. They are the expressions of institutional ownership that any serious donor community directs toward the organizations it sustains.

The broader HBCU ecosystem has long understood, at least in principle, that institutional density is the precondition for community resilience. Strong communities are not produced by exceptional individuals operating in isolation. They are produced by networks of reinforcing institutions—universities, banks, hospitals, media organizations, research centers—that retain capital, concentrate talent, and coordinate strategically across organizational boundaries. Business schools are a critical node in that network. They are the institutions most directly positioned to translate academic investment into economic infrastructure, to convert tuition into entrepreneurial capacity, and to channel philanthropic capital into research that serves the community’s long-term interests. Their leadership must reflect that position.

The failure to develop and elevate HBCU alumni into business school leadership is not simply an administrative oversight. It is a strategic error with consequences that extend well beyond the schools themselves. Every dean recruited from outside the ecosystem without a plan to develop internal successors is a missed compounding opportunity. Every promising scholar who departs for a PWI without a pathway back represents a loss of accumulated institutional knowledge that will not return on its own. Every curriculum designed to satisfy external accreditation standards at the expense of community-relevant content is a semester in which the institution’s potential as an engine of economic development goes partially unrealized.

Graham built his firm on the premise that talent required institutional protection to reach its full potential—that external markets, structured against your community, could not be trusted to recognize or reward what you were building. That premise has lost none of its force. HBCU business schools that internalize it, and act on it with the rigor and consistency it demands, will be better positioned to fulfill the extraordinary institutional promise that their founding represented. Those that continue to defer to external validation and outsourced leadership will find that the promise remains exactly that—unrealized, and over time, increasingly difficult to recover.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ClaudeAI.

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African America’s August 2025 Jobs Report – 7.5%

Posted on September 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

Overall Unemployment: 4.1%

African America: 7.2%

Latino America: 5.3%

European America: 3.7%

Asian America: 3.6%

Analysis: European Americans’ unemployment rate was unchanged from July. Asian Americans decreased 30 basis points and Latino Americans increased 30 basis points from July, respectively. African America’s unemployment rate increased by 30 basis points from July.

AFRICAN AMERICAN EMPLOYMENT REVIEW

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 

Unemployment Rate – 7.1%

Participation Rate – 69.8%

Employed – 9,893,000

Unemployed – 753,000

African American Men (AAM) saw a increase in their unemployment rate by 10 basis points in August. The group had an increase in their participation rate in August by 190 basis points, there highest participation rate in the past five months. African American Men gained 270,000 jobs in August and saw their number of unemployed increase by 30,000.

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 

Unemployment Rate – 6.7%

Participation Rate – 61.4%

Employed – 10,260,000

Unemployed – 739,000

African American Women saw a increase in their unemployment rate by 40 basis points in August. The group increased their participation rate in August by 30 basis points. African American Women gained 13,000 jobs in August and saw their number of unemployed increase by 45,000.

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS:

Unemployment Rate – 24.8%

Participation Rate – 29.3%

Employed – 590,000

Unemployed – 195,000

African American Teenagers unemployment rate increased by 310 basis points. The group saw their participation rate increased by 10 basis points in August. African American Teenagers lost 24,000 jobs in August and saw their number of unemployed also increase 25,000.

African American Men-Women Job Gap: African American Women currently have 367,000 more jobs than African American Men in August. This is an decrease from 624,000 in July.

CONCLUSION: The overall economy added 22,000 jobs in August while African America added 260,000 jobs. From Reuters,”The warning bell that rang in the labor market a month ago just got louder,” Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings in New York, said in reference to the U.S. labor market. “A weaker-than-expected jobs report all but seals a 25-basis-point rate cut later this month.” Fed Chair Jerome Powell had already reinforced rate cut speculation with an unexpectedly dovish speech at last month’s Fed symposium in Jackson Hole.”

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

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A Legacy Reclaimed: Why SUNO and Dillard University Should Jointly Acquire the Amistad Research Center

Posted on September 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

When we control the archives, we control the memory. And when we control the memory, we control the meaning.” – Dr. Tera W. Hunter

The Amistad Research Center, one of the most significant archives of African American, ethnic minority, and social justice records in the United States, is facing a financial crisis that threatens its very existence. With nearly 40 percent of its federal funding cut and widespread staff layoffs already in effect, the Center is at a critical juncture. Rather than see it wither under institutional neglect or be absorbed into organizations disconnected from its cultural roots, a powerful and historically grounded solution stands within reach: a joint acquisition by Southern University at New Orleans and Dillard University.

This would not be a rescue it would be a return. Amistad was originally founded in 1966 at Fisk University and moved to Dillard in 1969, where it remained for nearly two decades. The Center thrived during its years at Dillard, deepening its collections and community relationships before relocating to Tulane University in 1987. That move, while promising better resources and facilities, ultimately distanced Amistad from the very community and institutional ecosystem that had nurtured its growth.

Southern University at New Orleans, founded in 1956, has long been an anchor for working-class Black families in New Orleans. Its commitment to public access, social justice, and Black advancement makes it a natural co-steward. Notably, Florence Borders, one of the most influential archivists in the history of Amistad, served as Senior Archivist at the Center from 1970 to 1989 before continuing her career as head archivist at SUNO. Her career trajectory embodies the institutional and intellectual bridge between Amistad, Dillard, and SUNO, a legacy that can now be cemented through a shared act of reclamation.

A joint venture would allow both HBCUs to leverage their complementary strengths. SUNO brings the infrastructure of a public institution and a clear mission focused on access and equity. Dillard offers private fundraising agility and deep roots in the liberal arts and cultural production. Together, they could create a sustainable governance structure that allows the archive to maintain its independence while benefiting from shared resources. Each university could contribute faculty, staff, research infrastructure, and development expertise toward a unified vision that ensures Amistad’s collections remain accessible, curated with cultural sensitivity, and protected against predatory acquisitions or institutional sidelining.

The benefits for students and faculty would be transformative. Internships, research assistantships, and practicums tied to archival collections would offer unparalleled experiential learning. New certificate programs in archival science, public history, and digital preservation could emerge positioning both institutions as national leaders in archival education. Amistad’s holdings over 15 million items, including manuscripts, oral histories, art, and periodicals could drive the creation of entire departments and interdisciplinary research clusters focused on African American, Afro-Caribbean, Latinx, Indigenous, and diasporic studies.

The public-facing impact of such a joint acquisition is equally significant. New Orleans, a city with a long history of being a crucible of Black culture and resistance, would gain a consolidated Black archival institution that serves not only scholars but communities. Cultural tourism centered on rotating exhibitions, lectures, and historical installations could add economic and civic value. A jointly governed Amistad Center could partner with local schools to support history education, oral history collection, and family archive projects embedding itself in the civic life of the region.

There are also compelling financial reasons for this move. A high-profile acquisition effort would attract major philanthropic interest, particularly among donors looking to support racial equity, archival preservation, and HBCU development. Foundations like Mellon, Ford, and IMLS have historically supported Amistad and similar institutions, but their funding often becomes more robust when institutional alignment and long-term sustainability are demonstrated. By crafting a visionary joint ownership model, SUNO and Dillard could access deeper grantmaking relationships while also launching a national endowment campaign to stabilize the archive permanently.

To be successful, the joint venture would need clear governance. A dedicated board composed of SUNO and Dillard faculty, independent scholars, archivists, community leaders, and Amistad staff should be established. This board would be responsible for curatorial direction, budget oversight, and public engagement ensuring the Center’s founding mission remains intact while also adapting to contemporary challenges and technologies.

This acquisition would signal a new paradigm in Black institutional development. It would show that HBCUs are no longer waiting to be invited into the rooms where decisions about cultural memory are made. Instead, they are building and owning those rooms. The quiet transfer of African American cultural assets into majority white institutions especially under financial duress has been a persistent form of cultural dispossession. What SUNO and Dillard can demonstrate is that reclamation is possible. That ownership, not just stewardship, is the future.

This opportunity will not wait. ARC’s financial instability is already endangering collections and community access. Every day that passes without an institutional intervention increases the risk of fragmentation, inaccessibility, or outright closure. The time to act is now—not just for preservation, but for power.

Together, Southern University at New Orleans and Dillard University can redefine what it means to protect and elevate Black history. They can transform the Amistad Research Center from a vulnerable institution into a fortified intellectual fortress. They can move us from crisis to control, from neglect to legacy.

This is more than a proposal. It is a blueprint for Black institutional sovereignty. History is watching. And it is offering a chance to write the next chapter not just about the past we preserve, but the future we intend to build.

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A Merger of (Potential) Might: Why Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern Should Combine Their Foundations to Challenge the Endowment Establishment

Posted on September 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision. – Barbara Jordan

In the gilded halls of America’s elite universities, financial firepower is both a symbol and source of dominance. Endowments—the great silent engines of academia—determine not only which students get scholarships but which schools can recruit Nobel-calibre faculty, fund original research, and shape public policy. At the apex of this order stands UTIMCO, the University of Texas and Texas A&M’s investment juggernaut, with more than $70 billion under management. Below, far below, exist the undercapitalised yet ambitious Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) of Texas.

Two of the state’s largest HBCUs—Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and Texas Southern University (TSU)—have long histories, loyal alumni, and vital missions. What they do not have is institutional wealth. PVAMU’s foundation reported a modest $1.83 million in net assets in 2022. TSU’s foundation, better capitalised, holds $22.7 million. Combined, that amounts to just $24.5 million. For comparison, Rice University, less than 50 miles from either campus, holds an endowment north of $7.8 billion.

That yawning disparity matters. But it also presents an opportunity: a merger of the two foundations into a single, more potent philanthropic and investment entity. Done properly, it could reorient how Black higher education competes—not by appealing to fairness or guilt, but through scale, strategy, and institutional force.

A Rebalancing Act

To understand the potential of a PVAMU-TSU foundation merger, one must first grasp the dynamics of university endowments. Large endowments benefit from economies of scale, granting them access to exclusive investment opportunities—private equity, venture capital, hedge funds—often unavailable to smaller players. They attract the best fund managers, demand lower fees, and can weather market volatility without compromising their missions. Small foundations, by contrast, tend to be conservatively invested, costly to manage per dollar, and too fragmented to punch above their weight.

A consolidated HBCU foundation in Texas would be small compared to UTIMCO, but large relative to its peers. With a $25 million corpus as a starting point, the new entity could position itself for growth by professionalising its investment strategy, adopting a more ambitious donor engagement plan, and forming partnerships with Black-owned banks, family offices, and community institutions. Call it the Texas Black Excellence Fund, or perhaps, more simply, the TexHBCU Endowment.

To be sure, the legal and logistical barriers to such a merger are real. Foundation boards guard their autonomy jealously. Alumni pride can turn parochial. Governance models would need careful negotiation to ensure representation and avoid turf wars. But the arguments in favour are compelling.

The Power of One

First, a merger would cut overhead. Legal, accounting, auditing, and compliance costs—duplicated today—could be streamlined. A joint fundraising apparatus could create a single point of entry for corporate partners and high-net-worth donors. Branding efforts would gain coherence: instead of competing for attention, the institutions would stand together as a symbol of Black institutional unity and strength.

Second, scale invites leverage. A $25 million foundation cannot change the world overnight, but it can attract co-investments, engage in pooled funds, and perhaps even launch a purpose-driven asset management firm in the model of UTIMCO. If successful, this would be the first Black-led institutional investor of serious size in Texas—capable not only of managing endowment funds but of influencing broader economic flows across Black Texas.

Third, the merger would send a strategic signal to policymakers and philanthropic networks. It would say, in effect: “We are no longer asking for permission to grow. We are building the engine ourselves.” That tone matters. Too often, HBCUs are framed as needing rescue. A merged foundation flips that narrative. It becomes an asset allocator, a market participant, a builder of capital rather than a petitioner of it.

UTIMCO: A Goliath in the Crosshairs?

No one expects a $25 million fund to challenge a $70 billion behemoth. But that is not the point. UTIMCO’s dominance is as much political as it is financial. Its influence flows from its role as gatekeeper to resources, shaping everything from campus architecture to graduate fellowships. The merged HBCU foundation would not dethrone UTIMCO—it would decentralise power by becoming a second pole.

Indeed, the comparison may inspire mimicry. Just as UTIMCO serves multiple institutions, so too could a joint HBCU foundation. Prairie View and Texas Southern are only the beginning. Over time, the model could scale to include other Black-serving institutions across Texas and the South. This would amplify investment impact and accelerate institutional wealth-building.

Moreover, such a foundation could adopt an unapologetically developmental investment strategy. Where UTIMCO optimises for returns, the TexHBCU fund could optimise for both returns and racial equity—by investing in Black entrepreneurs, affordable housing, climate-resilient infrastructure, or educational tech. The dual mandate—profit and purpose—would not be a hindrance but a hallmark.

Regional Stakes

Prairie View sits on a rural hilltop. Texas Southern sprawls in urban Houston. But their communities are deeply connected—culturally, economically, demographically. A combined foundation could create regional development strategies that go beyond scholarship aid.

Imagine a venture fund seeding Black-owned start-ups in Houston’s Third Ward. A real estate initiative turning vacant lots into mixed-income housing for PVAMU students and local residents. A workforce development fund retraining returning citizens for green jobs across both cities. Each dollar invested becomes more than a balance sheet entry; it becomes a force for transformation.

This matters not just to students and faculty, but to the broader Texas economy. Black Texans make up 13% of the state population but own less than 3% of its small businesses. Educational attainment gaps persist. Institutional neglect deepens. The merger would not fix all this—but it would give the community a new tool for shaping its destiny.

Copy, Then Paste

If the model works, it would not stay in Texas. Southern University in Louisiana has multiple campuses and foundations that could benefit from consolidation. So does the University System of Maryland’s HBCUs. Indeed, the entire sector could adopt a federated endowment strategy—unified in purpose but distributed in governance.

HBCUs have long suffered from institutional atomisation. They are asked to compete individually in a system that rewards consolidation. Merging foundations is not just a finance play—it is a strategy for survival and sovereignty.

The Alternative: Stagnation

Critics may say a merger is too ambitious. That it risks alumni backlash or donor confusion. That it could take years to execute. But delay is itself a cost. Each year the foundations remain separate is another year of opportunity lost. Another year where millions in potential returns go unrealised. Another year where larger institutions deepen their lead.

PVAMU and TSU have histories to be proud of. But institutional pride must not become institutional inertia. A merger is not surrender—it is evolution.

In the long arc of higher education, moments of boldness define legacy. This is one of those moments. Two foundations. One future. Let the uniting begin.

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